Education, in its most comprehensive meaning, is but mere habit: its great art consists in only allowing good habits to be contracted. It is the fashion to condemn habits of any kind; yet habit is the most solid basis of education, and consequently the best foundation for future conduct; advice is forgotten-principles weakened by time, whereas, habits, on the contrary, are strengthened every day.

"There are," says Rousseau, "habits which, though contracted by main force, do not overpower nature;" for instance, plants have a certain direction given them, and when left at liberty preserve it, but the sap has not changed its primitive direction; and if the plant continues to vegetate, it grows vertically. The case is not similar with mankind; the inclinations arising from habit may, by change of situation only, be altered, and the natural position be restored.

Girls, when left to themselves, do not recover the erectness that has been destroyed by physical habits, particularly those that have occasioned deformity: neither is it through idleness, that a detrimental attitude is maintained; but habit has produced a change in the constitution, and the modification or alteration that has taken place in the organs, prevents the body being erect; there is a physical necessity for remaining crooked: it is useless to recommend a deformed child to keep straight; she may endeavour to make the effort, but following the bent of the acquired

EE

organization, she immediately resumes the position that has become habitual.

The power of habit is so forcible, that when once contracted, and followed by a modification in the bony and cartilaginous frame, it is not possible to counteract it, unless by endeavouring to encourage new habits, by judicious means, well understood and scientifically applied.

If youth, owing to its weakness, and its growth, is the period when habits are acquired, it is also the time to implant good ones, or to correct those which may be injurious to the economy of which they have become a part.

A babit of muscular actions gives precision, constitutes dexterity, and leads to perfection in the arts; what is done frequently is usually well done; the organs often exercised acquire more power, more strength, more activity; the general rule is applicable alike to mind and body.

To give a good direction to habits, should therefore, be the chief object of education; but habits cannot be suddenly implanted, they must be the effect of time, gradual, and slow as nature in all its works. Good habits increase, and continual vigilance is requisite to watch over physical and moral habits; they form the manners, and prevent their degeneracy. Habits of occupation and exercise are the safeguard of innocence, and the surest pledge of health and beauty.

The intellect is strengthened by exercise, the

sensations of pain and pleasure are blunted by habit; and this is necessary, in order to leave the judgment at full liberty, and to admit of its being impartial.

We presume these observations will suffice to shew the importance of habit: they might, it is true, be more extended;we could remind our readers, that even poisons lose their action from habit, as exemplified by Mithridates, and Mad. De la Brinvilliers; but we merely desire to consider the connexion of habit with the power of attitudes, on causing deformities, and to shew that good habits can alone counteract the evils arising from bad ones.

CHAP. IX.

The Mode of ascertaining Incipient Deviations and

Deformities.

MOTHERS," says Delpech,

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are the first to discover alteration in the figure of their children;" their perspicuity, in this respect, is admirable, and has often given rise to delicate and ingenious observations; their solicitude has been mistaken for exaggeration, by superficial observers, who would do well to profit by the observations, originating in maternal solicitude.

Then again, it may with justice, be said, that mothers are blind to their children's defects, and that many deformities are not noticed until they become fixed; indeed, many parents will not allow that their children are deformed at the very time they seek, by the aid of stays and pads, to conceal their deformities.

In the opinion of Duval, deformities of the limbs, and some spinal deviations are evinced by unerring signs; no curvature of the limbs has ever been developed without having been produced by pains in the curved parts and spinal deviations are almost always announced by pain in the part of the spine that will be deviated, which pain is sometimes felt in the whole length of the spine; this pain may last for weeks, nay,

years, without any apparent change, or marked deformity.

"Deviations are always accompanied in their origin, by pain, and a sensation of heaviness in the loins, in a part of the chest or epigastrium, dyspnea, palpitations; there are sometimes convulsive movements in the limbs, and contractions of the muscles, rather of the flexors than extensors." Some children, who have been subject to convulsions, squint suddenly, or have a tic; sometimes there is weakness in a limb, and the child cannot walk without support: most of these phenomena are due to a nervous state, dependent on the spinal marrow. At other times, spinal deviations are preceded by a general falling away; scrofula seems to predominate, the cervical glands are swelled, and the articulations enlarged.

"Bodily deformity mostly affects pretty girls; light hair, blue eyes, white skin, are the most common attributes of beauty in young ladies, and are indications of a lymphatic constitution, of which scrofula is the first result, and rachitis the last."

One breast larger than the other, is often an indication of deviation.

"When the spine of a girl, about fourteen, is becoming crooked," says John Shaw, "the attention of the mother, or governess,-at this age, it is most frequently to the latter,-is at first directed to the state of the shoulders, or breast; one