The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1879-07-30


Of society. In other countries, where
the wall Of exclusiveness is insur-
mountable, each class accepts the
situation, and lives and move in ac-
cordAnce with the requirements of its
station in life. Here, every q feels
or tries to feed, "ss good asn ones
neighbor; but this feeling Of equsli-
ty, in one sense q virtue, is such no
longer when the poor ape the extray-
agances of the rich. The man asserts
his equality by his ballot; the NO.
man by her needle. In the one this
self-assertion 10 . periodic explosion,
and he feels the better for it. In the
woman it is q life-long-h heart. weary
ing struggle. Hence that endless cut
ting, and basting, and turning that
perpetual needle-plying, which is the
csnker Of sc many households. Our
very servants catch the folly, and
spend all their leisure in wing with
the toilets of their mistresses. By
this foolish rivalry the mothers and
daughters of this land destroy the
little health that q false system of
education has left to them. What
physician lie there who has not seen
ambitious mothers break down under
the burden; or who does not expect
some of his patients to be laid up by
their spring and autumn dressmak-
ing? One word here about the sew
ing machine. While l do not believe
all that is laid to its charge, yet its
treadle motion does undoubtedly lead
to pelvic and portal congestions. In
spite of myself, l have become con-
WINGED that no woman who operates
on this machine as a trade q long
Escape from some uterine derange-
ment. Even Its family use is not un-
attended with risk, because, although
intermittent, it is liable to be too pro-
longed.
Were not the subject already too
hackneyed, l might enlarge, as other
causes of i'll. health, upon late hours
and social designations, upon that
false and restless philanthropy which
neglects home, and upon that unhap'
py discomfort which forgets that to
be loved one must be lovable. Wo-
man shines best and thrives best, not
in the adulation Of society, not in OBJ
trusive self-assertion, but in the quiet
and faithful performance of her home
duties. The heat and stir of life is
food for mans more rugged nature
The wholesomest passages of her life
are those which, like the thesis of a
symphony, are u~npercussed and un-
accented.
The Punishment of the corset from
the waists of those who have attained
to years of discretion would be a
great boon to the sex, but the profess
sion is powerful against the Moloch
of fashion. Their disinterested warn
ings in that direction are like those
of Csssandra, truthful, but UNDECIDED.
The family physician can, however,
do the next best thing, and that too,
with some show of success. He can
solemn,y adjure the tight-harnessed
mothers of the land not to allow their
growing and romping daughters to
put on the maternal armor. He can
earnestly plead for the support OF
their underclotbing by the use o.
shoulder straps or skirt supporters"
This advice is not untimely, for | am
assured, on the good authority OF a
fashionable corset-maker, that even
the school girl of the period has an
ideal waist-a waist to which she
squeezes, and laces, and fortunes her
self down, for the simple reason that
it is always more slender than he!
own.
Too much brainwork, too little
Homework is another crying evil Of
our land. Precious ~cleverness is at.
tainable only at the cost of physical
and sexual development. Manifold
d-iseases, many OF them of q uterine
complexion, date from the recitation
room. Under the high pressure sys'
tenn of our public schools, even a
class which ought to live by manual
labor is made unfit for it. Hence an
inability to work attaches degrade.
ton to domestic labor, and town and
city TEEN, therefore, with p~ale-faced
and h~at-chested women, who seem to
have no other hold on life than a ca.
pacity for momentary enthusiasm
no other name in life than the ALSO
lutte nothing, Nirvana of the Buddhist
Our great grandmothers got their
schooling in the winter months, and
let their brains lie fallow for the rest
of the year. They knew less about
Euclid and the classics than they did
about housekeeping and hcusework
But they made good wives and good
mothers, and bore and nursed sturdy
sons and buxom daughters, and plen'
ty of them at that. From the age o.
eight to that of sixteen our daughters
spend most of their time either in the
unwholesome air Of the recitation
room or in porting over their books
when in reality they should be a
play.
As q result the chief skill of the
milliner seems to be directed toward
c~oncealing the lack Of organs needfu.
alike to beauty and to maternity, anC
the girl of to-day becomes the barren
wife or the invalid mother of to-mor
row. Surely a civilization that
stunts, deforms and enfeebles must bt
unsound! To reform these abuses
to reclaim woman to womanhood, tC
make wives helpmstes in the true
sense of the word, is then one great
mission of the physician, a mission
which be must cheerfully and dutiful
~ accept.
Marcus Aurelius, st. Augustine
and other great and noble men, wrote
: with tender affection of what they
owed to q mothers love, to q moth
er's care. If that im~ponderable es
sence, the mind, can be moulded ani
shaped by q mothers heed, why NO
the body? Why should not the cul
ture of the one be as much an objec'
of maternal solicitude as the culture
of the other? To preserve, then, the
priceless gem of health, let the ply
stefan teach mothers how to preside
over the physical education of theiI
daughters, how to pilot their frai
bodies safely through the shoals ant
quicksands of girlhood, for at tbii