Now watch these girls at play. See how few of their games bring them really vigorous exercise. Set them to running, and hardly one in the party has the swift, graceful, gliding motion she might so readily acquire. Not one can run any respectable distance at a good pace. There is abundant vivacity and spirit, abundant willingness to play with great freedom, but very little such play as there might be, and which would pay so well. Most of their exercise worth calling vigorous is for their feet alone, the hands seldom having much to do. The girls of the most favored classes are generally the poorest players. The quality and color of their clothing necessitates their avoiding all active, hearty play, while it is the constant effort of nurse or governess to repress that superabundance of spirits which ought to belong to every boy and girl. Holding one's elbows close to the body while walking, and keeping the hands nearly or quite motionless, may accord with the requirements of fashionable life, but it's terribly bad for the arms, keeping them poor, indifferent specimens, when they might be models of grace and beauty. As the girl comes home from school, not with one book only, but often six or eight, instead of looking light and strong and free, she is too often what she really appears to be, pale and weak. So many books suggest a large amount of work for one day, certainly for one evening, and the impression received is that she is overworked, while the truth frequently is that the advance to be made in each book is but trifling, and the aggregate, not at all large, by no means too great for the same girl were she strong and hearty. It is not the mental work which is breaking her down, but there is no adequate physical exercise to build her up. See what ex-Surgeon-General Hammond says, in his work on "Sleep", as to the ability to endure protracted brain-work without ill result: "It is not the mere quantity of brain-work which is the chief factor in the production of disease. The emotional conditions under which work is performed is a far more important matter. A man of trained mental habits can bear with safety an almost incredible amount of brain-toil, provided he is permitted to work without distraction or excitement, in the absence of disquieting cares and anxieties. It is not brain-work, in fact, that kills, but brain-_worry_."