Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-12-19
PHYSICAL CULTURE.
How Young Women are Benefited by
Gymnasium Exercise.

There has grown up in New York Of late
years passion for physical culture that fairly
rivals that Of the old Greek days, but in this
woman century" the beax sex permit the
masculine half of creation no exclusive right,
and share every one Of their amusements and
| their labors. The consequence is that the
young women are just as keen after physical
development as the men, and have taken the
most practical method Of attaining it by or
ganizing an athletic club for themselves. The
building for this club is going up next to the
Berkeley lyceum, where at present they have
their classes in full operation. They are to
have every appliance known to the male gym
nasium for the development Of muscle, and
also like them the swimming baths which are
found so important an adjunct to all gymna-
Sums. This craze takes every form imagina-
BILE. l hear of women who have taken up the
profession of caring for and improving
women's physical loneliness and who, in the
Hood tide OF this new passion, are doing ex-
tremely well. Women have learned at last
that the frmest and broadest basis upon which
beauty is built and its greatest preservative is
perfect health, not alone the health which is
mere freedom from disease, but the
BLOOMING ExUBERANCE OF ANIMAL PERFECTION.
Even the women most indifferently gifted by
nature have invariably some one or more
charms, which. if developed to their highest
capacity, would 60 far toward atoning for and
obscuring defects. And no one in rich. vital
health can be altogether ugly. The freshness
of her skin and the brightness Of her eyes are
sure comcomitants. and where is the woman
with rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes who is al
together unattractive? The sex has grappled
with this fact and the result is that dumb-bells,
Indian clubs. the trapeZe and the bath are all
made to aid in the improvement of the COM
plexiOn. the rounding of contours and the ac-
quirement of grace and freedom of movement.
Anyone who knows how to add to womans
physical beauty is safe to succeed. female
physician in this city teaches series
OF exercises known as the Swedish move
ment. Some one in Sweden made an
elaborate study of all the muscles with
regard to the special movements required to
develop any one part of the body. He
found that even the worst cases of lack of pro-
portion and symmetry could be to great ex-
tent remedied by this system and he laid down
rules Of formulas therefor and inaugurated it
under the title Of the Swedish movement.
This woman has been to Sweden and studied
there under the teachers of this science, and
is now prepared to in great measure correct
the neglect OF ones parents and the unknd-
ness Of nature. She has classes that come to
have their lean and ugly Threats made round
directs, and they solemly wag their heads and
shrug their shoulders, and toss their
arms in the air, all to a measured rhythm
and strict rule.
OTHERS CONE FOR BENT BACKS
and winged shoulder blades which have been
caused by the too early use of stays. stopping
over school desks: and after the scrawny
throated have had their days fill of progress to
that smooth firm column for her head which
is every wOman's ideal, the bent-backed women
are put through manual which is warranted
to straighten their spines and reduce the angu-
lar projection of their shoulder blades. and
which Is said in time to make the back which
is straight slender and thinly covered with
cushion OF firm muscles, such as the DRESS
maker halls with joy, for she knows such a
back makes an easy fit. After them comes the
hat-chested women who go through q very
elaborate and long continued course, but are
| said to come out of it with soft round contours.
The thin-armed, lean-limbed, f1at-waisted, and
every other sort OF woman who sis what she
hadn't ought to be- regards symmetry and
grace, work. work, work at these classes, and
some Of them are no doubt marvelously i'm
proved and developed by the growth and
strengthening Of faccid muscles. the exercise
OF limbs almost withered from disuse and, best
Of all, the quick, steady pumping Of the blood
from an accelerated heart through every re-
hottest part of the body. Ofcourse. they DO all
this in classes. 1t has come to be so that nothing
| can be done here without cooperation. and the
women who are going for the development of
their arms, we will say, spend their time after
class In measuring each others growth and
carefully registering the result in small books
or dainty tablets, where the record of their
weight. size and general increase is carefully
kept. 1t is not only the lean women. however,
who are up and doing in the pursuit after
beauty. At any one Of these beauty doctors
places there can be found classes of fat women
who are undergoing training for an unpleasant
superiority Of loneliness. They wear heavy
fannels and felt slippers. and run round and
round ring in big double room until one
grows dizzy to look at them. They have q
great deal Of fun together, do the fat classes,
for one of the favorite exercises is hurdle
jumping. It seems that the effort required to
bound over one Of these distractions avais
more than many running rounds of the floors
plain surface, SO these plump and pleasing per-
sons may be seen at a certain hour of the day
bounding briskly over small barriers placed at
intervals around the track 1t generally turns
into a race, and pounds Of chocolate creams
and marrons glaces have changed hands on the
result Of these hurdle events though thereby
the good work aimed at is all undone for the
trainer Of the fat woman setteth her face like
flint against the bon bon.