tion of all permanent success. To the American people it has a stupendous importance, because it is the only attribute of power in which they are losing ground. Guaranty us against physical degeneracy, and we can risk all other perils,— financial crises, Slavery, Romanism, Mormonism, Border Ruffians, and New York assassins; “domestic malice, foreign levy, nothing” can daunt us. Guaranty us health, and Mrs. Stowe cannot frighten us with all the prophecies of Dred; but when her sister Catherine informs us that in all the vast female acquaintance of the Beecher family there are not a dozen healthy women, we confess ourselves a little tempted to despair of the republic.
The one drawback to satisfaction in our Public-School System is the physical weakness which it reveals and helps to perpetuate. One seldom notices a ruddy face in the school-room, without tracing it back to a Transatlantic origin. The teacher of a large school in Canada went so far as to declare to us, that she could recognize the children born this side the line by their invariable appearance of ill-health joined with intellectual precocity,—stamina wanting, and the place supplied by equations. Look at a class of boys or girls in our Grammar Schools; a glance along the line of their backs affords a study of geometrical curves. You almost long to reverse the position of their heads, as Dante has those of the false prophets, and thus improve their figures; the rounded shoulders affording a vigorous chest, and the hollow chest an excellent back.
There are statistics to show that the average length of human life is increasing; but it is probable that this results from the diminution of epidemic diseases, rather than from any general improvement in physique. There are facts also to indicate an increase of size and strength with advancing civilization. It is known that two men of middle size were unable to find a suit of armor large enough among the sixty sets owned by Sir Samuel Meyrick. It is also known that the strongest American Indians cannot equal the average strength of wrist of Europeans, or rival them in ordinary athletic feats. Indeed, it is generally supposed that any physical deterioration is local, being peculiar to the United States. Recently, however, we have read, with great regret, in the “Englishwoman’s Review,” that “it is allowed by all, that the appearance of the English peasant, in the present day, is very different to [from] what it was fifty years ago; the robust, healthy, hard-looking countrywoman or girl is as rare now as the pale, delicate, nervous female of our times would have been a century ago.” And the writer proceeds to give alarming illustrations, based upon the appearance of children in English schools, both in city and country.
We cannot speak for England, but certainly no one can visit Canada without being struck with the spectacle of a more athletic race of people than our own. On every side one sees rosy female faces and noble manly figures. In the shop-windows, in winter weather, hang snow-shoes, “gentlemen’s and ladies’ sizes.” The street-corners inform you that the members of the “Curling Club” are to meet to-day at “Dolly’s,” and the “Montreal Fox-hounds” at St. Lawrence Hall to-morrow. And next day comes off the annual steeple-chase, at the “Mile-End Course,” ridden by gentlemen of the city with their own horses; a scene, by the way, whose exciting interest can scarcely be conceived by those accustomed only to “trials of speed” at agricultural exhibitions. Everything indicates out-door habits and athletic constitutions.
We are aware that we may be met with the distinction between a good idle constitution and a good working constitution,—the latter of which often belongs to persons who make no show of physical powers. But this only means that there are different temperaments and types of physical organization, while, within the limits of each, the distinction between a healthy and a diseased condition still holds; and we insist on that alone.
