But the practice of early rising has a relation to the general interests of the social community, as well as to that of each distinct family. All that great portion of the community, who are employed in business and labor, find it needful to rise early; and all their hours of meals, and their appointments for business or pleasure, must be accommodated to these arrangements. Now, if a small portion of the community establish very different hours, it makes a kind of jostling, in all the concerns and interests of society. The various appointments for the public, such as meetings, schools, and business hours, must be accommodated to the mass, and not to individuals. The few, then, who establish domestic habits at variance with the majority, are either constantly interrupted in their own arrangements, or else are interfering with the rights and interests of others. This is exemplified in the case of schools. In families where late rising is practised, either hurry, irregularity, and neglect, are engendered in the family, or else the interests of the school, and thus of the community, are sacrificed. In this, and many other concerns, it can be shown, that the wellbeing of the bulk of the people, is, to a greater or less extent, impaired by this aristocratic practice. Let any teacher select the unpunctual scholars,--a class who most seriously interfere with the interests of the school;--and let men of business select those who cause them most waste of time and vexation, by unpunctuality; and it will be found, that they are among the late risers, and rarely among those who rise early. Thus, it is manifest, that late rising not only injures the person and family which practise it, but interferes with the rights and convenience of the community.
[H] Shooting into a long, small, stalk or root.
In the preceding chapters, we have noticed the various causes, which, one or all, operate to produce that melancholy delicacy and decay of the female constitution, which are the occasion of so much physical and mental suffering throughout this Country.
These, in a more condensed form, may be enumerated thus:
A want of exercise, inducing softness in the bones, weakness in the muscles, inactivity in the digestive organs, and general debility in the nervous system: A neglect of the care of the skin, whereby the blood has not been properly purified, and the internal organs have been weakened: A violation of the laws of health, in regard to food, by eating too much, too fast, and too often; by using stimulating food and drinks; by using them too warm or too cold; and by eating that which the power of the stomach is not sufficient to digest: A neglect of the laws of health, in regard to clothing, by dressing too tight, and by wearing too little covering, in cold and damp weather, and especially by not sufficiently protecting the feet: A neglect to gain a proper supply of pure air, in sleeping apartments and schoolrooms, and too great a confinement to the house: The pursuit of exciting amusements at unseasonable hours, and the many exposures involved at such times: And lastly, sleeping by day, instead of by night, and protracting the hours of sleep, beyond the period of repose demanded for rest; thus exhausting, instead of recruiting, the energies of the system.