ude. If you study physiology
and note the arrangement of the internal organs, you will very easily
see that when the body is compressed in a sitting attitude there must
be a hindrance to full and deep breathing. The girl who is running the
typewriter or the sewing-machine, or the girl who is working as
bookkeeper or stenographer, or the girl at her studies, is sitting so
that it will not be possible to breathe deeply, for the lungs are
encroached upon by the crowding together of the other _viscera_ (which
means the vital organs) and the action of the breathing muscles is
impeded by compression. As you will readily observe, there can be no
lifting of the chest in this compressed attitude, no complete
flattening of the diaphragm, no full inflation of the minute
air-cells; therefore, as we have learned, the blood is not thoroughly
purified, and actual poisons created by the vital processes
accumulate in the brain and tissues until you feel overpoweringly
weary and stupid. You cannot think, because you cannot fully breathe.

You have often found, when sewing, that the machine would get, as you
say, bewitched. It wouldn't feed, the thread would break or the needle
would snap, and the whole work go wrong. Put the machine away, take a
rest, and the next day, without doing anything at all to the machine,
you find that it runs perfectly. The trouble was with yourself. It is
so with the girl who is running the typewriter. She finds that it
makes mistakes in spelling, things go wrong altogether. It "acts up,"
as she would say. So with the girl who is bookkeeper. The figures will
not add themselves up right. Now if, under these circumstances, the
girl would get up, go to the door, take a few deep breaths and expand
the lungs fully, she would relieve the internal congestion consequent
upon the cramped position, the brain would be freed from the
accumulated poison, and as a consequence the troublesome problems
would soon be solved, the typewriter would spell correctly, the
figures would add themselves up accurately, and life would become
brighter at once. Five minutes spent each hour in deep breathing of
pure air would add both to the quality and quantity of work done, and
so be a saving of time. This certainly is of great value to you in
your work in the world.

After working-hours are over, the girl should make a special effort to
sit erect for other reasons than that of breathing, though that is
reason enough.

But wrong sitti