The Education of American Girls. Anna C. Brackett
demand and wear shoes of proper thickness.
Enough. It cannot be too often repeated that a girl may call for anxiety, and often break in health at the time when she develops into a woman, not because of the special demand for strength made at that time, but because the demands on the general system for strength have been, for twelve or fifteen years, greater than the system could supply. It is not the last straw that breaks the camel's back, but it is all the straws. The mother who has educated her daughter into a healthy appetite for food, as to quality and quantity; who has educated her into a healthy appetite for sleep; who has, through constant watchfulness over her clothing, assured herself that no undue demands were made upon the strength of sustaining muscles, and the constructive and repairing power of the general vital force, has no need of hours of anxiety as to the girl's health, and will find no critical periods in her life, for the hours of anxiety have already been represented by minutes of wise and rational supervision in all the previous years, and need not be spent over again.
EXERCISE.
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Bodily exercise is in one sense a means of repair, inasmuch as it quickens the circulation and respiration, and makes the whole organism more active. The old maxim that Exercise strengthens every power must not be overlooked, as the arm of the rower or the wrist of the confirmed croquet-player will testify. But it must also be remembered, and this is a matter of prime importance, that it is only judicious exercise which gives strength; and by judicious exercise is meant that in which the parts exercised are not too steadily on the strain, and that which is regular. For instance, continual standing in one spot is not judicious exercise for either man or woman, because the muscles whose contraction is required to maintain the body in an upright position, are kept for too long a time in a state of action; the continual tension prevents the free passage of the blood, and the uniformity of the circulation is destroyed. Continual standing, in the teaching profession at least, has broken down many a man as well as many a woman. With women, and especially with growing women, the danger is greater, resulting, of course, from the greater breadth of the pelvis and the less physical strength; and any woman who persists in it, simply exhibits an amount of recklessness which can be cured only by her own experience, and never by the advice of others.[6] If she had been better educated, she would know better and act more wisely. Secondly, exercise which is irregular or is used spasmodically, is not judicious. If, for instance, our girls had from their earliest childhood and during many months of the year, been accustomed to skating, no harm would probably result from it. But when, as was the case some twenty years ago, a sudden fashion sprang up for this exercise, and girls in all parts of the Northern States insisted upon learning to skate, with untrained muscles, and to skate for hours together during the freezing intervals of our uncertain climate, an immense amount of harm was actually done, the results of which multitudes of women in Boston and New York are to-day enduring.
There are, it is to be presumed, forms of exercise which are not judicious from their very nature; but I find myself at a loss to name any one which girls desire, or in which they indulge, that would properly fall under this class, unless it be sewing and washing. Whenever our girls have been injured by physical exercise of muscle or nerve, it has been, probably, because the exercise taken has been injudicious in one of the senses above defined. Even with regard to the stair-climbing, which our modern houses make a necessity, the harm generally comes from the fact that too many flights are ascended at once, or that the lifting of the weight of the body through the twenty, or forty, or sixty feet is too rapidly performed. But long flights of stairs are a necessity where land is so dear that, though a man may buy an unlimited extension up and down, he can usually afford to purchase little on a horizontal plane, and thus, to our city-bred girls, at least, the necessity of climbing stairs exists from their earliest attempts at walking, so that stair-climbing may, by my second limitation, come under the head of judicious exercise. It were, however, well to inquire whether there are not different sets of muscles called into requisition in this universal exercise by different individuals, and whether children should not be so educated in climbing, that they may lift the unavoidable weight rather by straightening the knee than by making undue demands, as many do, on other muscles not so well placed to bear it. It seems to me that there is a great difference in this respect in different persons. It were also well that architects should remember that shallow steps may be, and, indeed, generally are, much more fatiguing than steps of the usual height, for the very reason that an unusual demand is made, a greater number of volitions or impulses required, for a given height. A greater width in the step, also, makes the effort more difficult—partly for the same reason, and partly because a greater and unusual effort has to be made to throw the body forward at the same time that it is lifted up.
To Dancing, in itself, no objection can be made. Freed from its almost inevitable accompaniments of late hours, thin dresses, and irregular food, it is undoubtedly beneficial. But when we are better educated, so that we shall appreciate the absolute necessity of a strict and rational regimen of food, sleep, and clothing for the individual while yet immature, this matter will be righted, and only then. There is one additional objection to be urged, however, against parties for young people, which is not generally spoken of, though we all know practically that one of the first preparations for an entertainment of this kind consists in sending at least almost all the chairs and sofas out of the rooms which are to be used, and the dancing may not do as much harm as the enforced standing. The woman who has to stand behind the counter, or behind the bookkeeper's desk, or at her loom in the factory, may, perhaps, accustom herself in a measure to the daily strain; but the girl to whom it is an irregular exercise, and who, besides, is probably over-excited as to her nerves, cannot fail to suffer, though the blame is not, as a general rule, laid where it belongs.
There is another exercise which has come into vogue within twenty years, a game against which it is reckoned heresy to speak slightingly—I mean Croquet—which certainly involves an amount of standing vastly disproportioned to the amount of exercise which it gives. This, together with the fact that it is likely to be played during only a few months of the year, and often on damp ground, and for an unreasonable length of time, may, perhaps, furnish an apology for wounding so large a number of feelings as one must wound who has the heart to venture a caution concerning it. It seems to be peculiarly well described by saying that it is “the game which tires without exercising.” To Skating I have already referred for the purpose of illustration. It is gravely to be doubted whether, in our changeable climate, where, moreover, it can be practiced during only a very few months in the year, it does not do more harm than good. Horseback riding, rowing, and bowling are very valuable, provided that they be judiciously used.
But there is one exercise to which no doubt attaches, one which can be regular, and hence judicious. This is Walking; and the fact that so few of our girls and women really enjoy it, that so few are capable of walking four or five miles without fatigue, and that they come in, after a walk of one mile, jaded and tired, instead of invigorated, points to a grave error of omission in their education. The walk of the little girl should be so regular a thing, so much a part of the day's routine, that she would as soon think of dispensing with her morning bath as of passing a day without it.[7] Healthy children of three years old, who are educated to walk regularly, can, as I know by actual careful observation, walk two miles at once without fatigue, coming in at the close, brighter and more active than when they set out. This matter of walking is a matter which, as well as sleep, food and clothing, belongs to education; and if the girl does not enjoy walking—nay, if she does not demand it with as sharp an appetite as she has for her food and sleep, it is generally because she has not been properly and rationally educated.
If it is said that it is “not natural” for some to like to walk, the only proper answer to the objection would be that the question whether a thing is natural or not is not at all pertinent, and involves an entire misunderstanding of education itself. The very essence of civilization, of morality, and of religion, consists in the overruling and directing of the merely natural.