the system. Their food is not
sufficiently nutritious, and the energy of the digestive organs is
wasted in working upon material which, if it does not irritate and
inflame, is at least of no economic value, and is simply rejected by the
system; or, worse still, in default of better, it is absorbed, and the
whole blood becomes poisoned. Sometimes our girls do not eat often
enough. For instance, a girl who, after tea, has been obliged to employ
her brain in unusually hard work, might probably be helped by eating
some nourishing food before sleep. If she do not, the result will not
infrequently be that she will awake tired and languid; she will sit idly
at the breakfast table, play with her knife and fork, and feel only
disgust at the food provided. She may soon suffer from, if she does not
complain of, back-ache and other attendant troubles, the simple result
of weakness. It is only Micawber's old statement over again: "Annual
income, twenty pounds, annual expenditure, twenty pounds, ought, and
six; result--Misery."

After a long course of this kind, the physician is summoned, and the
girl is forbidden to study. But it seldom occurs to any one that if
5 - 8 = -3, the two may be made equal just as easily by adding the three
to the five as by subtracting it from the eight, _i.e._, although we, as
a nation, are supposed to be, at least, more conversant with arithmetic
than with any branch of school study, though we do know that 8 > 5, we
do not see that 5 + 3 = 8, and so we try to cancel the offending -3 by
diminishing the 8. But would not the other process be quite as rational?
Physical life is only a simple balance of forces, the expenditure and
nourishment corresponding exactly to demand and supply in the Science of
Political Economy.[2] They tend continually to level themselves. Have we
not the right to decide in which way the leveling shall be
effected--the equation be formed? This is a simple solution of the
difficulty. I suggest that this experiment be tried: let the girl study
her extra time in the evening, if she desires, only being cautious that
she do not infringe upon her sleep hours; then give her a supper of
bread and butter and cold meat, and send her to bed. If her digestive
organs are in good state, she will very possibly sleep a sound and
dreamless sleep, and rise refreshed in the morning, with a good appetite
for her breakfast. By this simple hygienic remedy, aching backs may not
only be prevented, they m