The Globe. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23,1876.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 525, 23 February 1876, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23,1876.

Resuming the consideration of the necessity of physical training forming part of the curriculum to be carried out in our public schools, we proceed to point out some of the means best calculated to ensure that the pupils should have healthy, well developed bodies as well as cultivated minds. Drill, and to a certain extent a course of gymnastics, are pretty well carried out in the larger schools in towns, and provision is being made in some of them for the establishment of swimming baths ; but we fear that in the country districts little attention is paid to these important matters. In all the schools, both in town and country, greater provision appears to be made for the physical training of the boys than of the girls. This should not be. It is of consequence that a girl should grow into a healthy, robust young woman, 'rather than a fragile, weakly being, seeing that the g’rls of of the present generation will b the mothers of the next; and although we would by no means place the girls underthe same severe course of physical

training as the boys, yet we can see no reason why a course of calisthenic exercises should not be adopted to increase the grace and beauty of our girls. Every encouragement should be given for the cultivation of out-door sports, cricket, and football clubs, and athletic societies should be instituted in every boys’ school, and a healthy emulation might be provoked by causing one school to challenge another to a trial of strength or skill, while for the girls, croquet, archery and other out-door games requiring bodily exercise might be provided. If this were done we are confident that the result would be beneficial and would well repay any trouble or outlay that might be incurred.