Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-08-27
PHYSICAL CULTURE.
Ono Of tho Most Eficlent Aids to beauty
and Grsoo. .5ssr ,,.G7

=
One Of tho Most Eniolent Aids to Beauty
sa.= and Grsce.
England undoubtedly pays moro IT.
teation to physical culture than any
Other civilized country. English ladies'
IN all ranks think nothing Of walk Of
ten miles, and besides they ride on
horseback and use safety bicycles q
great deal. But American women have
an Idea that 1t is positively dangerous
Tor them to walk after they are TWEEN.
ty-hve or thirty years old, and they
walk very little before that period.
They may walk about tho house and
sometimes venture to push carpet
sweeper, but to walk for pleasure or OK.
ercise Is something they rarely think of
doing.
One reason women walk so little is
because they do not know how to walk.
Some authority says that not ono wom-
an in hundred knows how to walk
gracefully. Certainly there can rarely
be found one willing, If necessity re.
quired, to walk the length Of drawing
room alone, knowing that she was the
center OF all eyes Ungracefulness is
due to lack Of symmetrical develop
ment' A savage Is graceful, and little
boys and girls are nearly always grace
full, unless their inheritance is very bad
and the examples they see are worse.
Nature Is always graceful. The lines
and curves of flowers and trees are
those Of beauty, while the movements
Of bees and birds and animated nature
generally are. lines of grace and
symmetry. The laws which govern
these lines and curves apply to
human beings; men and women, high.
est in the scale Of life, ought to be the
most graceful Of all, but as matter Of
fact It's not so. by the time they are
twenty-five or thirty years old their
natural grace has fallen into decay
from neglect Of physical culture, and
they are awkward and ungainly. A
well-cared for and not over worked
horse is as graceful as colt, but hu-
ty are very scarce. The most of them
are more like old stage horses in which
some muscles are over-developed while
others are wasted away. Their voca-
tions lead them to strengthen some
muscles abnormally while others are
almost entirely disused. This one-sided
development is often so marked that an
observant person can tell mans BUSH
ness by the way he carries himself.
There are very few people who do not
have slightly curved spines from neg
lect of the exercise necessary to keep
the body evenly developed. 10 this
uneven development is chargeable the
want OF grace so much to be deplored.
1t is certainly cause Of much re-
joicing that women are awakening to
their needs of symmetrical develop
ment, and that out-of-door sports and
exercises are getting to be fashionable.
England is sweeping us still further
into the background by an increase of
physical culture societies all over tho
country. At one gymnasium l visited
in Birmingham more than three thou
sand children are taken in every week
for exercise. The girls are put through
the same drill as the boys. The entire
body is developed and grace of move
ment comes as a natural consequence.
In this country the Delsarte system of
aesthetic gymnastics is becoming quite
fashionable. 1t differs somewhat
from ordinary gymnastics in that its
movements are graceful and beautiful
as we'll as healthful. BY persistent
practice on the part of its students,
most of the effects of early neglect can
be done away with. The first thing it
undertakes to do is to break up the
frigidity and stiffness which is charac-
teristic of the average American woman
after the age Of youth is passed, If not be-
fore. She is muscle bound; some mus
Giles are too long and some are too short,
while others are small and relaxed or
else over-grown and stiffened. The
''setting-up drill" to which the young
recruit is subjected answers the same
purpose as the Delsarte system, only it
is not so graceful nor so thorough.
That exercise may be beneficial and
that graceful movements may be
possible, the dress must be light and
loose, the shoes with broad soles and
low heels. A famous actress is re-
ported as saying that she has not worn
corset for many years and that she
found as soon as she took off the letters
she was able to appear to better advan-
tage every way. Ladies are rightly in
terested in being beautiful, but they
should know that grace, beauty and
health always go together and that
nature has thus allied them. They can
not be beautiful without being healthy,
and they cannot be graceful without
physical development and freedom of
motion and plenty of room to breathe.
So, then, to neglect physical culture is
to neglect one OF the most efficient aids
to beauty and grace.-From a Lecture
by J. H. Kellogg, NJ. D., Battle Creek
Sanitarium.
A Spanish Submarine boat.
Spain would appear to treat her in
ventors better than most nations. A
naval Lieutenant, Isaac Peral, has con-
structed submarine boat moved by
electricity, which, according to the
Spanish press, is the greatest invention
of the age, an opinion apparently
shared by the Government, as Monday
nights council, on the proposal of the
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