, if it had not been
for the promptings of this excellent man.

His medical skill made him thoroughly aware of the injurious effect
produced upon the health by the ill-regulated system of such
establishments; and his thoughts, as he sat resigned to helplessness in
his arm-chair, were seriously directed to that subject.

In consequence of his suggestions it was that Mrs. Fisher began her life
of business upon a plan of her own, to which she steadily adhered. At
first she found considerable difficulty in carrying it out--there are
always numerous obstructions to be met with in establishing any
improvements; but where the object is rational and benevolent,
perseverance and a determined will triumph over every difficulty.

The first thing Fisher insisted upon was ventilation; the second,
warmth; the third, plenty of good, wholesome, and palatable food; the
fourth, exercise. He determined upon a house being selected which was
not closely built up behind, and that the room in which the young ladies
worked should be large and commodious in proportion to the inmates. A
portion of the little money he had saved was sacrificed to the
additional expense thus incurred. He looked upon it, he told his wife,
as given to charity, for which she must expect no return, and for which
he should look for no interest. A good wide grate, which should be well
supplied with a cheerful fire in winter, was to assist the ventilation
proceeding from a scientific plan of his own, which kept the room
constantly supplied with a change of air; and under the table at which
the girls sat at work, there was in winter a sort of long, square,
wooden pipe filled with hot water and covered with carpeting, upon which
they could put their feet: the extreme coldness of the feet arising from
want of circulation, being one of the causes to which Fisher attributed
many of the maladies incident to this mode of life.

The next object of attention was the table. Fisher had been at school,
at one or two different schools, resembling each other in one thing
only--the scandalous--I must use the strong and offensive word--the
scandalous neglect or worse than neglect--the infamous and base
calculations upon the subject of food which pervaded the system of those
schools, and which pervaded, I am sorry to say, so many of the schools
with which he had chanced to be acquainted. In the course of his
practice as a medical man, his opportunities for observation had been
above t