and rapidly withdrawn. In others, the pupils assume slowfy some extreme and even exaggerated position; usually one which would be condemned in the class-room as disorderly. Now it does not occur to the Lady Principal to reprove the teacher for thus reversing the orders given by her, nor to bring an accusation of defying her commands and teaching the pupils to set her authority at naught. On the contrary, all parties concerned know that the very object of School-Gymnastic is to undo the cramping effect of class-room discipline. For a young child, or a wild beast, which spends many hours daily in exercise, no gymnastic is so good as the free play of all its limbs; but as soon as the business of life imposes the necessity for a cramping specialization, mere play, during the short hours allowed for relaxation, is no longer sufficient to give freedom and elasticity to the frame; the exercise must be specially adapted to counteract whatever forms of specialization may be imposed during the hours devoted to work. Every one knows this, and nobody objects. Every teacher knows that unity among the staff, so far as physical education is concerned, implies, not agree- ment in opinion as to the best position for girls to place themselves in, but what may be called a "consensus of reverence for the harmony produced by organized antithesis." Life means not this position or that, but alternation of position. No faculty or organ is properly fitted for its appointed work till it has trained itself, or been trained, into a possibility of rhythmic action; and education means chiefly the bringing one faculty after another into subjection to this cosmic law.
Long before this principle had been clearly seen to
