Mrs. M. E. Blake, writing to the Boston Journal, makes the following sensible points in regard to the causes of ill health among school-girls:— It is not the schools which are answerable for the decay of vigor among our female population. Aside from the few cases of peculiar weakness and dullness which must always be found as exceptions to the mass, there is nothing required in our modern plan of study which should overtax the mental or material strength of any young person. Brought up, as she should be, on simple fare, in simple dress, with care for her hours of exercise and sleep, and kept religiously apart from the vanities and excitements of fashionable dissipation, there is no honest reason why her intellect, her nerves, and her general welfare should not be fully and splendidly developed under the amount of brain work required of her. Where cases can be found in which the home life even approximates to healthful treatment, there will be no stain of physical or nervous decay found with the girls. There will be instead good digestion and clear eyes, straight backs and sturdy limbs, and an enjoyment of the simple pleasures of every-day life, which will be the best assurance of a capacity for innocent and lasting happiness afterward. The child will not wear the outward semblance of the woman at fifteen; she will not have been delivered over to the outrageous distortion of the corset at the time when nature needs the freest use of her nerves and muscles in order to adjust fairly and strongly the delicate balance of maturity. She will not know the weights of bustles and heavy skirts dragging her out of the gay lightness of childhood into the weariness of backache and headache. She will not be familiar with the unhealthy brilliancy of the theater or the unseasonable diversion of the ball-room; and her eyes will be as free as her soul from any stain of heaviness. She will not be coming home on foot or in a carriage at a time of night when she should be hours deep in peaceful slumber; with the further hindrance of dubious escort, and the climax of frivolous and worthless small talk, sweeping away the bloom of modesty and candor and that sweet audacious innocence which should be the pride and crown of her nature. These are not the conditions to help a girl in preparing her tasks without weariness, and bringing a clear head to the solution of mathematical problems and Latin sentences. The modern child-woman has sometimes one, sometimes another, sometimes, alas! all of these make-weights to contend with. And the parent, or guardian, or friend—who notes the beginning of nervous strain, the unnatural fluctuation between feverish vivacity and great lassitude, the energetic remonstrance of tortured head and stomach—cuts the Gordian knot of difficulty by blaming the school instead of his own weakness or wickedness.