the training of girls to more healthful ways of living, both mental and physical; and the only thing to do for women of the wealthier classes to lift them out of the ruts of idleness and destructive obedience to fashion's vagaries is to educate them, and give them broader interests and a mental grasp of the value of life because of its obligations to other lives.
Men and women must ever be one in every interest which affects the public good. It is difficult to see how even individual welfare can be made distinct. Women with low ideals, selfish, and untrained; women with feeble, undeveloped physiques, as well as women whose high moral and intellectual worth is enhanced by bodily perfections, all have an influence that puts its stamp upon the household of which each forms a part. And to "train a girl for motherhood" can be done in no better way than by building her from day to day upon the noblest plan which the grand and growing facilities of our time have made possible to us.
| THE HABITS AND FAMILY HISTORY OF CENTENARIANS. |
By Professor HUMPHRY, F. R. S.
THOUGH it must be granted even of the centenarian, as of all others, that he soon "passeth away and is gone," yet happily we are not obliged to admit that his "strength is but labor and sorrow." In many instances, on the contrary, he has, if not a green, yet a mellow and cheerful old age, one of happiness to himself and pleasure to others, brightened by a vivid though calm interest in the present, and unshadowed by apprehension of that which is to come. "Pay me a visit when you next come to Leamington," were usually among the words of adieu by Miss Hastings, at the age of one hundred and three, to her friends; "I shall like to see you, and hear how you are going on." There is a great moral in this; for while we are denizens in this Mammon, we are bound to make to ourselves friends of it, which is best done by a cheerful, happy use of it, and by enjoying it and using well the powers and privileges it gives us; and the injunction is none the less imperative and valuable when the sojourn in it has lasted for five score years and more. Moreover, in this, as in so many other instances, the influences are reciprocal; for associated as cheerfulness and happiness are with good doing and kind feeling, they are also much dependent upon the smooth working of the several parts of a sound bodily machinery, to the heathfulness of which they in their turn not a little contribute. So long, indeed, as the body is enjoyable, and its functions go glibly and smoothly on, the tenant is commonly desirous of continuing its occupation. When it ceases to be so, when lassitude and weariness
