ed of several hundred youth of both sexes, have been radically
changed; and the practice of daily ablution has ceased to be the luxury
of the few, having become the necessity not only of teachers and
scholars, but of the families in which they reside. There is the most
satisfactory evidence that cleanliness is conducive to health.[8] How
important it is, then, that _habits of cleanliness_ be formed at an
early age.

[8] The friends of educational reform may well take courage from the
increased attention which the subject of physical education is of late
receiving from the _pulpit_ and the _press_, those mighty conservators
of the public weal. Since the text was prepared for the press, the
following remarks and pertinent inquiry have appeared in the Family
Favorite for February, 1850. They are quoted from a Discourse by the
editor, the Rev. James V. Watson, on the First Sabbath of the New Year:

"The true interpretation of the providence of God in Asiatic cholera
perhaps has never yet fully been given. Is it not one of God's marked
modes of rebuking intemperance, physical uncleanness, and social
degradation--evils which result from perverted appetite, wrong forms of
government, and a want of Christian benevolence? The reformer, the
philanthropist, and the Christian may learn a lesson here."

Dr. Weiss, a distinguished German physician, in his remarks on this
subject, says, the best time, undoubtedly, for these ablutions, is the
morning. They are to be performed immediately after rising from the bed,
when the temperature of the body is raised by the heat of the bed. The
sudden change favors in a great measure the reaction which ensues, and
excites the skin, rendered more sensitive by the perspiration during the
night, to renewed activity. Cold ablutions, he adds, are fitted for all
constitutions; they are best adapted for purifying and strengthening the
body; for women, weak subjects, children, and old age. The room in which
the ablution is performed may be slightly heated for debilitated
patients in winter, to prevent colds in consequence of too low a
temperature of the apartment; this exception is, however, only
admissible for very weakly persons. Generally speaking, ablutions may
be performed in a cold room, especially where persons get through the
operation quickly, and can immediately afterward take exercise in the
open air.

It is the opinion of Dr. Combe that bathing is a safe and v