day in July or August?

But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
least, you can prevent it for a time--the most important period, too--by
your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.

SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._

The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.

There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.

But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.

Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,--that active exercise which
health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
inspire,--should unwarily be committed.

The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, th