The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-07-29
AT A GIRLS, GYMNASIUM.
Muscular Maids at schooI-How !
Grow Strong and Hardy.
They

Grow Strong and Hardy.
You are greeted as you creep BASH
fully in by a clatter OF tongues far ahead
of what Babel probably was, and by a
stretch of muscular loveliness which
makes you forget your bashfulness and
confusion, and causes you to concen-
trate all your energy on admiring what
is around you. 1t is beautiful place.
Very near the door there are three lit
tie maids who labored under the de-
lusion that they were fat, but were
really only lowering around the cheer
full weight of 145 pounds. These three
little maids were beginners, who had
been brought into the class recently,
and they were working away in most
solemn earnestness to take off the fat
and pile on the muscle. A teacher who
| is big and muscular is showing them
how, and putting them through the first
exercises. Youthful candor prohibits the
statement that the teacher is lovely, be-
cause she isn't. But she is interesting
and strong. She could move piano
without an effort, and il would be wis
dom on the part of any poor man to
marry her just TO save himself tho
trouble of carrying up coal. The teacher
| is German, and she puts these girls
through with true German enthusiasm
and exactness.
Every girl holds a long stick which she
grasps as though it were her pet poodle
on a rainy day, and the teacher has a
long stick, too. Al together they bend
down, and straight III up, and lean back
ward, and twist to the right, and twist
to the left, and swing the stick over their
heads and down back of them with eel
like cleveness and owllike solemnity.
1t was our blessed privilege TO see the
girls start in. 1t was also our privilege
TO see them wind up. All girls eyes
sparkle. Nature has made them TO.
But gymnastics wisely taught by that
muscular German woman transformed
the eyes of those particular girls into
genuine fifteen-horse power electric
lights. They blazed out through their
cheeks and tempest-tossed bangs with a
brilliancy that made the young mans
eyes ache and turn another way.
That class of beginners work over
those sticks for twenty minutes steadily.
In that twenty minutes, the German
teacher gravely said, they worked every
muscle in their bodies, not excepting the
muscles of their toes, which have to
work in order to help the girls keep their
balance. Their tongues got plenty of ex-
ercise, of course, for they never stopped
talking for one second, except at very
critical moments, when the teacher made
them lean backward at an awful angle,
and every effort was needed 10 keep
them from topping over. AT such times
l,a rfvIs uNo No1lyfY,rr 10 aud
squeak with apprehension.
After the sticks had been exhausted
for the day the teacher brought out an
armful of light wood dumb bells and
made the girls go through all sorts of
scientific motions with them. The girls
worked industriously with these, and
then, to wind up the labors of the day,
started out on a solemn and gentle trot
all around the big exercising room. The
muscular teacher who had done every
thing without even drawing a loud
breath, trotted ahead of the girls and
showed them a running step which she
declared to be q favorite one with the red
savages of the far west. How she knew
it no enc could tell, but the girls accepted
the statement and loped calmly around,
placidly believing that theirs was the gait
that carries the 1.-the Indian miles and
miles across the desolate prairie after
scalps.
We will allow them to go on looping,
and look at some of the other interesting
things that helped to fill the big gynas-
ium. In a corner of the room there was
a raised platform, about six feet high,
with a trapeze swinging in front Of it.
A young girl, who had just graduated
from the dumb-bell class, was standing
at the foot Of the platform, in an agony
of terror, while another girl. who might
have been Juno's own sister, urged the
timid one 10 go up. The awful deed 10
be done was to go on the platform, grab
the trapeze, and swing off into the air.
Much urging got the inexperienced girl
up on the platform. The muscular girl,
who was helping her out, sprang lightly
into the air, grasped the trapeze, gave n
graceful swing 10 her body, let go, and
sent the trapeze flying up TO the trem-
bling sister, who watched it come with
eyes full of horror. When il had been
swung up six times she caught it. Then
she drew a long breath, shut her eyes,
gasped ~Oh Lord Z" and rolled feebly off
into the air. 1t was really hard thing
to let go of that trapeze, but as soon as
the girl found nothing but air under her
she did let go, and fell in a hysterical
heap into the arms of the muscular girl
who had been expecting it. The next
time she rolled off the platform her sue
cess was more marked, and before the
afternoon was out she was sailing
through the air in an enthusiastic and
Independent if not very scientific man
ner.
There is nothing 80 remarkable, ac-
cording to the big man in the flannel
shirt who happened in just then, as the
horror that girls have Of swinging on a
trapeze for the first time, unless it is the
liking they have fer it when they once
learn how. There is a freedom and dash
to the swing of trapeze, the big man
says, that a waltz can not supply, and it
is his conviction that one of these fine
days we will have ball rooms fitted up
with big, wide trapezes, on which young
men and young women will fly blissfully
through the air together, while the band
nlavs dreamy tunes.-New York Sun.