_Physical Education._--The modern public elementary school, in pursuit of mental education, neglects not moral education only, but physical education also, by condemning the child to prolonged physical inactivity. As soon as a child is barely six years of age, it is forced to sit, day by day for many hours, stiff and quiet, on the narrow benches in the class-rooms, although such repression of the childish instinct towards incessant activity is injurious to the health. The child is overburdened mentally, the school curriculum being overloaded with subjects, and a bad system of instruction being employed. The gymnastic lesson of to-day consists mainly of the comparatively useless exercises of the parade-ground type, and in the country schools even these are neglected. Well-grounded complaints about all these defects are incessantly heard. The results are disastrous. Imbecility and mental hebetude may ensue; there even exist special diseases of school life, such as nervous debility, headache, lateral curvature of the spine, short-sightedness, jaundice, &c. Bad air, dust in the class-rooms, interference with free breathing consequent upon long-continued sitting, and catching cold on the way home from school, favour the acquisition of tuberculosis. Of late satisfactory efforts for the reform of school hygiene have been initiated. On the one hand, the attempt is made to secure that school life should not entail any dangers to the child’s health; on the other hand, efforts are made to provide proper treatment for the various disorders that prevail among the children, and especially among the younger ones; the physical energies and adroitness of the children are stimulated by technical instruction, gymnastics, and free movement in the open air. It is recognised that the education of children should take place mainly in the open; that not natural history only, but most other subjects, should be taught in connection with open-air walks and excursions. More and more stress is laid upon the provision of playgrounds, school gardens, and the like. School gardens are already to be found in many towns, where the children can do bodily work in the fresh air--dig, for instance, tend flowers, &c., occupations which have an excellent influence upon their health. Quite recently baths have been provided in many schools, and sometimes even the use of these baths is compulsory. This is especially valuable where the school children are very poor, for in the case of the very poor, as is well known, not much attention is paid to cleanliness in the children’s homes.