The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-01-31

Her Mental Development Has Not KeRt
Pace with Her Physical.


Her Mental Development Has Not KePt
Pace with Her Physical.
Whatever may be thought Of the pre-
tensions of intellectual advance put for
ward on behalf of the modern woman,
there is at least no denying her physician
and muscular progress. Brought TO the
test of actual results, her claim to mem
tai superiority over the woman who
thought and worked and achieved in
less assertive age becomes by no means
easy to establish. With all the exultant
fuss about higher education and the
equality of the sexes, we look in vain tor
day for worthy successors to some OF
those gifted and brilliant women OF the
past who, quietly and without the aid
of advertisement, wrote their names up
on the history Of their time. But when
it comes to a question of physical COM
parison, the new feminine generation
has far better reason 10 congratulate
itself and pity its grandmothers.
The new era of feminine athleticism
has, no doubt, its unlovely features and
its possibilities of Objectionable deveI-
opment. 1t must be owned, too, that
experience has so far failed to prove,
in the case of either the up-to-date maid
or matron, that the mems sana is at all
an assured accompaniment of that cor
pus sanum which her free indulgence
in physical exercise does so much to Sc
cure. For all that, it is impossible for
anyone, however doubtful of certain
new tendencies, to advocate return
~ H. "a Hoxy xzyhpp 1rnnnpf
was about the most violent of allowable
feminine exercises, and bodily vigor was
held to be as "unsexing" 10 girl az
hysteria or fainting-fits to her brother.
The benefits of the revolution now being
wrought by means of athletic training,
golf, cycling, 3culling, and the rest, are
already SO apparent that the old dogma
Of woman's inherent physical weakness
has become utterly discredited. Now
adays, the only ineligible hostility ia
the new order of things is that which
proceeds, not from old-fashioned preju-
dice, but from the excusable jealousy of
the mere male" who stands in some
danger of finding his supremacy chal-
lenged by a race of stalwart and anna
zonian womankind, even now rapidly
approaching him in stature, strength,
and powers of endurance.
Though we have freed ourselves from
the superstition that womanliness is
quality depending for its existence on
bodily weakness, we are not allowed to
forget, on the other hand, how easily the
fair devotee of athletic exercises may be
tempted in her newly-cultivated en-
thusiasm, to overstep the retiring mod
esty of the feminine nature. It may be
good in some respects for woman to
have something approaching mans
strength; but it is objectionable on her
part to use it like man. So long as she
is content to adhere to the legitimate
objects of recreation and physical Gull
ture, she does not derogate one iota
from the dignity either of herself or her
sex. The danger is lest she may be en-
ticed by the spirit of emulation into
athletic contests such as have, happily,
been hitherto confined to male com
petitors. About the whole idea of such
struggles between women there is some
thing repellant to the point of degrade
tion.-London World.