At this time the body is not only growing, but tissue change or metabolism is active, leading to vigorous life. The youthful body is, if healthy, intensely and restlessly active, and energy is redundant. Watch a family of children out walking with their governess or nurse; notice how they run, skip, and trundle their hoops, how they shout and laugh; how they are filled to overflowing with the vigour and energy of life. This energy and the necessary growth of the body cannot be maintained without an abundant food supply. The food must also contain all the essential elements - albuminates to build up the muscular and other tissues, fats and starches to develop heat and energy, and mineral salts to aid in the healthy formation of bones and teeth.

The diet may be as simple and wholesome as possible, the simpler the more wholesome; but there should be enough to eat to satisfy hunger. The greedy child is, as a rule, the ill-fed child; ill-fed in not having enough to eat, or in having food inappropriate to its age; for the modern custom of allowing children to partake of highly-flavoured dishes with their elders is as much to be deprecated as the starvation system which was in vogue at Dotheboys Hall. Meat, soups, milk, bread, butter, porridge, eggs, fruit, potatoes, green vegetables, farinaceous and sweet puddings, should be the staple articles of diet of growing boys and girls. Alcohol in any form is unnecessary and undesirable for young persons; even to the weak and delicate a cup of beef tea will be found to be more sustaining and stimulating than the "strengthening glass of port wine" which anaemic little girls are often persuaded to take.

The anaemia of school girls at the age of puberty is frequently caused by an insufficient meat dietary at school. Between the ages of twelve and sixteen, girls develop with great rapidity, both mentally and physically. The calls on their physical constitution are great, and can only be responded to by the body being well supplied with the materials out of which to manufacture energy and the elements of repair - in other words, by having girls well fed. It may be interesting and instructive to recall one's own experience of youth, and to record a dietary based on rigid principles, adopted and enforced to maintain health and to banish daintiness. One of a large family of children, I remember well the nursery and schoolroom dietary and regimen, to which all were submitted up to the age of fifteen. It was as follows: For breakfast, oatmeal porridge with milk and sugar, or bread and milk, on alternate days of the week, except on Sundays, when one boiled egg and bread and butter were allowed. For midday dinner the fare was roast or boiled joint, with potatoes and vegetables, and a sweet pudding or pie; for tea, bread, butter and jam. There was no restriction as to quantity, but what we took on our plates we were obliged to eat, it being looked upon as a disgraceful sign of greediness to take more than one could consume, or to ask for a second helping when appetite was satisfied. If we did so we were made to feel the discomfort of surfeit, a sure way of checking greedy demands for "more". As we lived in the country, ripe fruit and fresh milk were supplied ad libitum. Every day we were obliged to walk six miles along the roads and lanes, to go through half an hour's calisthenic exercises, and to have six hours' lessons Riding on horseback, gardening, and playing filled up the rest of the time of a happy, healthy, and vigorous childhood. These personal reminiscences may be pardoned, as they illustrate my point that the dietary of children should be plain and abundant.