The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-06-06
W0MAN'S FORM AND HAIR.
HOW BEST TO PRESERVE THEM BOTH.
A Couple of Able Dissertations on subjects
of Deepest Interest tn the Ladies'
Some Valuable Suggestions to
Women Who Are Aging.


occasional glow of enthusiasm has been
aroused by the exquisite form and grace
full carriage of some actress, or the firm
muscles and magnificent physique OF an
athlete, but this has soon faded away, and
parents have soon relapsed into the old
fashion OF allowing their children to ac-
quire at their own sweet wills the wretched
forms and ungainly carriage seen every
where by thousands.
The boys are not quite so i'll treated as
the girls, for they more often have the
privilege of school gymnasiums. and the
national game" swells their muscles as
we'll as their noses, but if the physical
education of the average girl be intelli-
gently considered she becomes really an
object of pity.
Ii the weather is unpleasant, she must
remain indoors because she will catch
cold; in some cases, she must not run be-
cause it will make her sick; in others she
cannot learn to dance because it is i'm
moral. If she is inclined to be round
shOuldered or crooked, she is tortured
twenty times day by being told to ''stand
straight" To the greatest extent OF her
ability she obeys-that is, she pushes Iher
shoulders back, making them as square as
possible, and she cannot do otherwise,
when she knows no better mode. At the
immature age of fifteen, if not before, she
is generally placed in a corset, for
what reason nobody knows, unless
it is because they are the fash
ion; at twenty-five she says she 'can
not live without them," because they are
necessary to support her. The simple
fact is that she has depended upon their
support for such length of time that the
muscles OF the torso have become almost
useless. She places upon her back a con-
trivance of steels and wires to take the
place of the natural hustle out of which
she has cheated herself by her persistence
IN standing In a wrong position. SO she
continues in the follies imposed upon her,
which either she has not the moral cour-
age to abandon, or, seeing the entire
fashionable world reveling in the same
follles, thinks nothing about them, until
at the age of thirty there is not trace of
her natural, divine beauty in the distorted
being fashion has made her.
In the days of ancient Greece it was not
difficult for a sculptor to obtain a model
for his most eXacting female study, and
more often she was belle from the highest
rank of society; but to-day he must search
for an arm here and hand there, and
SO on through the whole descriptive
anatomy, until he has collected enough
beauty for one Galatea or Psyche, as the
case may be, and the beauty found will
generally be from a class untutored by
fashionable follies.
There is no reason why the women of
the nineteenth, or at farthest the twentieth,
century, should not be as healthy and as
beautiful in form as the women of ancient
Greece, If they could only be brought TO
realizing sense OF what defOrned people
We are, both from inheritance and con-
fOrmlty to monstrous fashions.
Ii is not difficult task for any woman
To learn the proper pose OF the body or
correct method of walking, for although
human beings, like the lower orders of
animals, have a natural mode of motion,
1t is necessary to pay some little attention
10 the improvement of it. Nature may
give TO a woman a beautiful voice, vet
without some cultivation the voice will
never satisfy the educated musical ear.
and there is no voice which may not be
improved by study, for either musical or
speaking purposes.
The encouragement of athletic sports,
tennis, equestrianism, pedestrianism, the
natatorum, etc, is doing much for the
physical education of the present and
coming generation of woman, vet there
remains large field for improvement.
There ought to be in connection with
every educational institution, and particu-
larly with the public schools, for it is
there where the majority OF the poorer
children receive their only education,
some system of physical training; not
merely an hour for recreation, in which
l.. IL i l. 1 IL
and then return TO the school-rOOm to
study, regardless of position and appear
ance, but in the form of systematic train
ing, which will leave its influence after
the recreation is past, and add little by
little TO the health and beauty.
Besides the school education, mothers
ought in the interest of their children TO
know at least some of the elements of
physical culture. Then they would be
able TO tell them not only to ''stand
straight" but how to do it also TO eradi-
cate the false idea which most young girls,
and large majority of those of an older
growth, possess, that the spinal column is
intended to be used as a seat.
The mother might also teach her daugh-
tiers that the lungs are organs of the body,
intended to be used to their fullest ca
pac1ty, yet it is not venturesOme to say
men know how to breathe.
If women could be made to understand
and appreciate the necessity and benefit
OF this improvement, how many hundred
cases OF consumption, dyspepsia and other
diseases might be avoided, and how much
stronger constitutions girls would have TO
fit them for the study of physics and olO-
gies, sciences and languages, which the
girl OF the period is expected to know.
Besides the trunk-compressOrs and bus
ties, another great detriment to the health
and beauty of our girls is the multiplica-
ton of skirts and the generally heavy
manner of dressing. The weight of the
skirts is not only barrier to a graceful
carriage, but also an injury to the health.
and, sesthetically considered, they conceal
the long curves of the body, which, if al
lowed to be beautiful there is no necessity
OF concealing- 1t Is always the conscious
ness of defect which incites the desire TO
put it out of sight.
1t Is mot necessary to don boomers,
trousers, 'leglets, or copy in any way the
costume OF the sterner sex TO obtain a
healtbful, beautiful and moral mode of
covering our bodies. The time has come
when there is too great a variety of fash
ions from which to choose to make requi-
site any such absurdity.
There are various methods among
fashionable devices which may be adopted
for healthful and practical dressing, and
for the annoaranoo a corrooflU dracuad