The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-11-13
ENGLISH GIRLS.
How They Compare with the Greek
MaidenS.

How They Compare with the Greek
Maidens.
Canon Kingsley's book on "Health
and Education" is out. It's views and
statements bear mainly on the training
Cf girls, and are likely to be read with
interest. Mr.. Kingsley acknowledges
that there is in England what he calls a
period of exhaustion-a falling-off in
health and vigor. for which he seeks the
causes. He finds themgfirst in the wars
which ragged from 1879 till 1915, and
which carried off "the stoutest, ablest,
healthiest young men, each of whom
represented, alas a maiden left unmar-
ried at home, or married, in default, to
a less able man. The strongest went
to the war; each who fell left q weak
lier man to continue the race while of
those who did not fall, too many re-
turned with tainted and weakened con-.
stitutions to injure, it may be, genera
t1ons yet unborn" The second and
third causes of the evil are the unwhole.
some lives that people live, in bad air,
with insufficient exercise and the pro-
gress of civilization and science which
keeps alive the class that used to die
keeps them alive in their weakness
preserves them to produce in time
still less powerful progeny"
Mr.. Kingsley believes that not among
invalids only but in great majority of
cases in all classes, the children are not
equal to their parents and that this de-
| grading process goes on most surely and
most rapidly in the large towns, and in
proportion to the antiquity of these
towns, and the time during which the de-
grading influences have been at work.
The first step toward the cure of the
increasing evil is, he thinks, to establish
public schools of health. where every girl,
boy, woman and man shall be taught
physiological laws, how to take care of
himself and guard against the dangers
which press upon him; and, where, too,
knowledge of drainage, of the value
of pure water and air, shall be given to
all young men and women. In these
schools the sexes shall be separated and
the girls taught By a thoroughly edu-
Gated and practical woman, the boys by
man. He maintains, too. and thinks
he finds his proof ia the history of
Rome, Alexandria, Byzantium and
Paris, that the mental work done by |
clever people without health is not good |
or trustworthy work. The type of |
brain that belongs to a week, scrofu-
lous, stunted body may be very active, |
very quick at catching at new and grand |
ideas; but it will be irritable, spas
modic, hysterical. 1t will be apt to
mistake capacity of talk for capacity of |
action, excitement for earnestness, viru-
lence for force, and, too often, cruelty
for justice"
With reference to the health and hard
mess of our ancestors, Mr.. Kingsley
reiterates that only the strong and ac-
|
slowly in the olden time and the de-
yastation Va by .epidemics was terrible;
The average of human life in England
has increased 25 per cent. since the
reign of George l., owing to the more
rational and cleanly habits of life. So
it seems that life is saved by civilization
and science, but saved in a miserable
condition and now the study of polit-
ical economists and philantbropists is
to improve that condition. Besiles the
plan of health schools, Mr.. Kingsley
proposes some improvements in the
English methods of teaching children.
He says they are kept too still and too
silent; they need to move about great
deal, to shout, sing and laugh loud, !
and every teacher who enforces silence
commits an offense against reason, as
we'll as against her or his pupils. OF
course there is vehement oenunciation
of the usual dress of women, and of the
drunkenness of both sexes, which they
owe to &" this present barbarism and an
archy of covetousness, miscalled mo-
dern civilization. Ball-playing is es-
pecially recommended for girls, and the
account of the game as played by Greek
girls, with the accompaniment of song,
sounds like the report of a modern kin
dergarten. Sea-bathing does not meet
with like approval, and the picture
given of it is not attractive. In COM
pairing the modern English girl, whom
he calls Nausicaa, with his favorite
Greek maiden, Mr.. Kingsley says:
"She goes to the seaside, not to
wash the clothes in fresh-water, but her
self in salt-the very saltwater, laden
with decaying organisms, from which,
sewers Ulysses had to cleanse himself,
to appear in the company of Nausicaa
of Greece. She dirties herself with
dirty saltwater, and probably chills
and tires herself by walking thither aud
back, and staying in too long, and then 1
faunts on the pier bedizened in gar
ments which for monstrosity of form
and disharmony of colors would have
set that Greek Nausicaa's s teeth ON edge,
or those of any average Hindoo woman
now. It is not the old for whom wise
men are sad, but for you. Where is
your vitality, your enjoyment of super
auous life and power? Why can you {
not even dance and sing, till now and 6
then, at night, perhaps, when you ought
to be safe in bed? Poor Nausicaa-old, 1
some men think before you We ever |
been young" {
The reader must remember that all {
his is written, not by critic and sati- I
rist of the follies of American girls, but 6
BY an English clergyman about the s
girls of England, who are held up in I
other countries as models of simplicity, I
good sense and health. Mr.. t
gives at length his reasonsafor
advising out-of-door games, and train
ng in natural science for young women; ]
md he seems to think, if his advice is I
largely followed, that at least one chris
ian nation may approach his idolized
Greeks, in the strength, beauty, grace, s
courage, intellect. purity and charac- {
ier, which make that pagan people the t
greatest and best the world has ever '
seen; for if we read Mr.. Kingsley i
rightly, the ancient Greeks are the high I
EST type of humanity, and christian ma l
ions have been drifting farther ard far 8
her from this type into weakness and ]
yin. q