Sleeping in unventilated chambers; living in school-rooms and parlors heated to excess, and charged with poisonous gases; exposed to sudden variations of temperature from mismanagement; eating unhealthful food at irregular hours and to a dangerous excess; supplied with unhealthful confectionary to eat at any hour; indulging in exciting amusements, with late hours for sleep; the brain stimulated by a multitude of school duties and studies unrelieved by sufficient sleep or by muscular exercise; the dress contrived to impede vital functions, so as to force the upper organs on to the lower, generating the most cruel displacements and mental and bodily diseases; overheating the parts most injured by such treatment, and exposing the parts most important to keep warm; compressing feet and ankles so as to impede circulation, with high heels throwing all the muscles out of natural play, so as to increase all the dangerous tendencies to internal displacement; these are only one portion of the many contrivances adopted or allowed by parents and teachers to destroy the health of women and young girls. CHAPTER XII. EARLY RISING. There is no practice which has been more extensively eulogized in all ages than early rising; and this universal impression is an indication that it is founded on true philosophy. For it is rarely the case that the common sense of mankind fastens on a practice as really beneficial, especially one that demands self-denial, without some substantial reason. This practice, which may justly be called a domestic virtue, is one which has a peculiar claim to be styled American and democratic. The distinctive mark of aristocratic nations is a disregard of the great mass, and a disproportionate regard for the interests of certain privileged orders. All the customs and habits of such a nation are, to a greater or less extent, regulated by this principle. Now the mass of any nation must always consist of persons who labor at occupations which demand the light of day. But in aristocratic countries, especially in England, labor is regarded as the mark of the lower classes, and indolence is considered as one mark of a gentleman. This impression has gradually and imperceptibly, to a great extent, regulated their customs, so that, even in their hours of meals and repose, the higher orders aim at being different and distinct from those who, by laborious pursuits, are placed below them. From this circumstance, while the lower orders labor by day and sleep at night, the rich, the noble, and the honored sleep by day, and follow their pursuits and pleasures by night.