The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-11-20
BEAUTY,
How to Attain
1t Surely.
JENNESS MILLER
Says 1t Is Within the Reach
of All.

.
trolling the bony parts will gradually
modify and improve expression and
movement.
Although bony proportion can not be
altered, those having coarse features
and clumsy limbs need not despair of
self-improvement. Faithful work with
the plastic muscular parts will induce
such refined and beautiful expression
and carriage as to render defects of
structure almost unnoticeable.
OF even greater consequence, the
woman who improves herself by in
dividual effort is almost certain to in
sure a. better body and more refined
cast of features for her children.
Positive beauty can be differentiated
from what is coarse and brutal in a few
generations by combined muscular and
mental work. The laws governing the
physical improvement of human beings
are no less exact than those which gov
ern the Improvement and speed Of race
| horses, and the fine qualities of other
prize animals. Surely, the improve
ment of human beings should not be
counted of less consequence than that
of brutes.
Some of the most discouraging con-
ditions which operate against a gen
orally higher physical, moral and men
tai status might be easily changed,
could our public educators be induced
! to combine proportionate bodily edu
cation with the mental in public school
training. Observance of physiological
and sanitary laws should be made COM
pulsOry during the school year. Pass
| ing an examination in the science Of
correct living, to avoid disease and alb
| dominal tendencies, should be essen
tial to graduation.
Why not? What is the meaning and
use Of education? What are its bene
| fits to the individual and nation? Why
do we support q system of free schools
| for the masses?
Education should point one to lead an
| upright, useful life as individual and
| citizen. 1t has no practical value if it
| does not prepare body and brain for
sustained and successful work Yet
many an uneducated man of sound
| body outdistances the man of educa-
| ton in lifes practical race. Mental
training alone will not make a good all
round human being. The free school
system should be the most important
factor in abolishing disease, crime, pow
erty and other national evils. But to
the present time education has been
one-sided, disproportionate and little
| ADAPTED to symmetrical development in
accordance with physiological law.
Children have been sent to school to
have brains, not bodies trained. I'm
| til very recently, the making Oh vital
| ly sound beings has been thought no
part of a. thorough education Nor has
| the work yet reached proportions of
any great significance, except in rev
| of our higher institutions of learning
Harmonious work with body and brain
| is productive of health. But mental
attachments gained in violation of ply
steal law will never bear good fruit Tor
the individual or society. For this rea-
son, athletics which aim at prize-tak-
ing at any cost of physical strain, must
not be confused with the science Of
physical culture, which increases
strength and insures integrity of func-
ton
A child is in the school room during
the important years of growth, when
the body is developing ana the char
acter crystallizing. How can any
educational system which does not
train the body and the moral nature,
equally with the mental, develop sym
metrlcal maturity of power?
While sound health depends to a con-
siderable extent upon surrounding in
fuences, especially upon the selection
and preparation of proper foods to
nourish muscular and nerve tissues Ga
subject which | shall discuss at length
in other articles of this series), many
of the good influences of the most care
full home life may be neutralized by
the ill-considered work of the school
room. By the air breathed there and
the general lack of sanitary and phySi-
cal training.
As a corrective for excessive nervous
ness and nerve diseases, muscular eXer-
agency. Brain and muscles give ca
pacity for mental work and endurance.
When the muscles are weak and tiaccid,
the nerves are almost certain to be
shaky and out of tune Besides, ply
steal beauty is impossible without we'll
developed muscles. ] have not spent
ten years talking about different
branches of physical improvement upon
the lecture platform without finding
out that promise of personal attractive
ness is, with certain men and women,
telling argument in favor of follow
ing the laws of health
Upon the other hand, l am forced to
admit that a few still look upon physi
cal beauty with much the same distrust
and disfavor which was inculcated by
the early Christian fathers against ey-
erything held sacred by the Pagan
Greeks.
Beauty is only skin deep" Pretty
is that pretty does" and like senti-
ments do not admit the profound aes-
thetic truth that ugliness and deform-
ity can very generally be traced to
ignorance of physiological law. Unat-
Effectiveness is not, as some pious peo-
Pile would have us believe, evidence of
superior grace of soul and mind.
Some of the essentially hui
name and Christian sentiments which
we advance as a nation may be said
TO operate against the highest physi-
cal-and, in consequence, the highest
acknowledgement All sorts of incu
rabies are at present genderly cher
ished and cared tor by either public
or private charity-which is right as
| far as the individual is concerned. But
the complacency which holds that those
| tainted with the germs of insanity and
other hopeless and dread diseases,
| should have the same right as others
| to marry and propagate, may we'll be
called into question.
| Shocking as it will seem to manv. I
] have met several medical and scientific
! men who. in priVate-because they say
| the time is not yet ripe to advocate it
| have expressed themselves as believing
! that nobler ideals of the value and
! purpose of human life Will, sooner or
| later sanction the painless and scien-
] tific extinction at birth of those hope
! lessly deformed and monstrous. They
| even go so far as to contend that the
time will come when the hopelessly dis
] eased whose existence is a burden to
themselves will not as nov, be kept
| alive by every known method of med
| ica1 science until the last possible mo-
ment, but will instead be mercifully
/ helped out Of their misery
| Whether one agrees with the ethics
! of this rather startling proposition or
not there can be no reason for with