Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-09
THE GIRL OF TODAY.

The New York World is convinced that
under the freedom of body given the girls
of to-day we are improving the race and
giving it healthier motherhood.
No doubt about it. The men are not
old yet, who can recall the time when the
restraint put upon girls to keep them
"lady like" rendered them soft of muscle,
weak and pulseless, and kept them practi-
cally in prison. They were not allowed
to enjoy vigorous physical exercise; the
romping, foot.free and glowing girl was
considered tomboy, disgrace to her sex,
and was put under restraint whenever her
natural inelinations to take exercise could
be curbed.>' Her clothing was more cumb-
erous than that OF the girls of to-day,
the social demands upon her were so ex-
acting that she could not except in close
privacy, give freedom to her physical
frame for its healthful development.
But how has it been for the last twenty
years, and how is it now? She has, in all
well appointed schools maintained for her,
the privileges of the gymnasium and the
benefits of competent instructors in gym
nastics. She anride the bicycle upon the |
highway without offending good taste.
Tennis and racket courts are deemed |
proper places for her; she may ride upon
horseback unattended she has even en-
tyarr hot Ill
strength OF arm and back, and quickness
and 6rmness of foot, which formerly were
reserved for young men.
She is taught to row, to run, to handle |
firearms, the intricacies of military facings
and movements, and is encouraged on all |
sides to take her fill of sunlight and open
air exercise. She is foremost in climbing |
mountain attitudes; she is in the member
ship of all camp and alpine clubs; she is
taught to stand at the tiller, and to drive |
and to haul home on the main boom of the |
yacht. Tan and sunburn are not deemed |
bemishes in the girl of to-day, where /
twenty years ago they insured her retire
ment until absence from sunlight and free
breezes had bleached her out.
Fifty women in America swim to-day, |
where ten were skilled in the art quarter |
of century ago. A hundred women skate
to-day, where twenty-five years ago custom |
and the restraints of costume limited the
number to half dozen. A great deal has |
been said of the strident walk Of the |
American girl. Let her enjoy it. Her
mother,fth chances are, was compelled to |
walk mincingly, place her feet Gust So"
and never to give rein TO the muscles of |
her limbs by pushing the body rapidly
forward and causing the blood to course
healthily and vigorously through her !
veins.
In short, as the World well says,
this day honors the girl for her animal
craving for outdoor exercise; it frees her
from physical restraints that cribbed her
mother in narrowest limits, and made her
do all her breathing in the top of her
lungs. If the girl of the day could cut
loose the last shackles of slavery and free
herself from the corset, the skin-tight
sleeve and the narrow-pointed high-heeled
shoe (the latter has lowered greatly in
decade), we should in another genera
tion, or sooner, have something of Grecian
grace and bodily beauty of outline re-
stored to the sex.
We are told by our contemporary that
the most recent research discloses the fact
that our young women have increased in
average hight, that they measure consid-
erably more about the chest, that their
lung development is very much improved
and that they breathe deeper than did the
women of the last generation. They give
the blood, therefore, greater supply of
oxygen, and the heart is healthier and
stronger in action as result.
This is undoubtedly true, and that the
revolution effected in the clothing of girls
has had something to do with it there
can be no doubt, but exercise has the
greatest credit for it. If fashion does not,
as it has done so often, make retrogres-
siye movement in the next ten years and
load down the hips and soft parts Of the
body, frown upon the broad-heeled shoe,
and condemn the gymnasium, the bicycle,
tennis court, bowling alley, the rowing
shell and the like, and will permit woman
to loosen her corset strings and give the
muscles of her waist freedom to strengthen,
we shall early in the next century grow
girls who will be models of symmetry and
grace, and whose motherhood will raise
the average of healthfulness very materi-
aIlv