portions of each, have one kind of forest tree, so that an avenue of similar trees be formed. In planting grounds, it is well to group trees of different kinds, but in streets an avenue should be of elms, or of oaks, or of sycamores, or of maples, and not all of them mingled together.
A PLEA FOR HEALTH AND FLORICULTURE.
Every one knows to what an extent women are afflicted with nervous disorders, neuralgic affections as they are more softly termed. Is it equally well known that formerly when women partook from childhood, of out-of-door labors, were confined less to heated rooms and exciting studies, they had, comparatively, few disorders of this nature. With the progress of society, fevers increase first, because luxurious eating vitiates the blood; dyspepsia follows next, because the stomach, instead of being a laboratory, is turned into a mere warehouse, into which everything is packed, from the foundation to the roof, by gustatory stevedores. Last of all come neuralgic complaints, springing from the muscular enfeeblement and the nervous excitability of the system.
Late hours at night, and later morning hours, early application to books, a steady training for accomplishments, viz. embroidery, lace-work, painting rice paper, casting wax-flowers so ingeniously that no mortal can tell what is meant, lilies looking like huge goblets, dahlias resembling a battered cabbage; these, together with practisings on the piano, or if something extra is meant, a little tum, tum, tuming, on the harp, and a little ting-tong on the guitar; reading “ladies’ books,” crying over novels, writing in albums, and original correspondence with my ever-adored Matilda Euphrosyne, are the materials, too often, of a fashionable education. While all this refinement is being put on, girls are taught
from eight years old, that the chief end of women is to get a beau, and convert him into a husband. Therefore, every action must be on purpose, must have a discreet object in view. Girls must not walk fast, that is not lady-like; nor run, that would be shockingly vulgar; nor scamper over fields, merry and free as the bees or the birds, laughing till the cheeks are rosy, and romping till the blood marches merrily in every vein; for, says prudent mamma, “my dear, do you think Mr. Lack-a-daisy would marry a girl whom he saw acting so unfashionably?” Thus, in every part of education those things are pursued, whose tendency is to excite the brain and nervous system, and for the most part those things are not “refined,” which would develop the muscular system, give a natural fullness to the form, and health and vigor to every organ of it.
The evil does not end upon the victim of fashionable education. Her feebleness, and morbid tastes, and preternatural excitability are transmitted to her children, and to their children. If it were not for the rural habits and health of the vast proportion of our population, trained to hearty labor on the soil, the degeneracy of the race in cities would soon make civilization a curse to the health of mankind.
Now we have not one word to say against “accomplishments” when they are real, and are not purchased at the expense of a girl’s constitution. She may dance like Miriam, paint like Raphael, make wax fruit till the birds come and peck at the cunning imitation; she may play like Orpheus harping after Eurydice (or what will be more to the purpose, like a Eurydice after an Orpheus), she may sing and write poetry to the moon, and to every star in the heavens, and every flower on earth, to zephyrs, to memory, to friendship, and to whatever is imaginable in the spheres, or on the world—if she will, in the midst of these ineffable things, remember the most important facts, that health is a blessing; that God made health to depend upon
exercise, and temperate living in all respects; and that the great objects of our existence, in respect to ourselves, is a virtuous and pious character, and in respect to others, the raising and training of a family after such a sort that neither we, nor men, nor God, shall be ashamed of them.
Now we are not quite so enthusiastic as to suppose that floriculture has in it a balm for all these mentioned ills. We are very moderate in our expectations, believing, only, that it may become a very important auxiliary in maintaining health of body and purity of mind.