The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-11

sidered that there is no music to keep step
10, that all is done 90 speedily n without
q break In perfect time.
Once In place the girls go through o simple
system Of what are known as Swedish az
ercises. This part of the work does not
include the use of any apparatus.
The work consists chiefly OF the move
ments Of body designed to exercise the back
and arms and strengthen the muscles Of
the neck, the waist and the chest. There
IL special stress put upon the work for the
chest, and Miss Berenson insists that no
matter what the girls are doing they shall
keep their lungs we'll filled with air. There
are few round shouldered, weak lunged
girls at Smith.
One of the prettiest bits Of work that
the girls do lie performed when they start
a march at the double quick around the
outside of the floor, two abreast. From
walking on the fiat foot, they change to
marching on their toes and then break
into a run.
But even while running the entire class
Ia in step and moving as regularly as a
centipede. They slacken and then re-
sumo their natural stride, still In unison
and perfect time. For exactitude the eX-
hibition would be hard to equal and GER
| tainly no mems class, unless especially
trained for the purpose, could do as well
as these girls in the ordinary routine work
Of a day.
When this part Of the work is over the
apparatus work begins. 1t is a sort Of
folding gymnasium that they have at
Smith. The ladders, ropes, bars and horses
all lave places along the wall or up toward
the ceiling. The girls let down the window
ladders, a big lattice work effect peculiar
to this gymnasium, and fx up the standards
for vaulting.
This takes them about q minute, and
from that point on for fifteen minutes the
floor Is a scene of activity. Only recently
the girls have been permitted to take up
high jumping, and many are Interested
in it.
1t must be confessed that, like their
brothers, they occasionally leap over the
bar ungracefully. One or two could not
get the balance and took a sort Of staggsf-
ing fall that brought them to a sitting posi-
ton abruptly on the floor. But as 1t IL
all in the game and the girls are q sturdy
lot they do not mind a little thing like
that.
There lie a constant shifting from one
bit OF work to another and the girls do
exactly what they like. As a matter Of
fact IL they did not want to exercise at
all they would be excused. There are
very few who avail themselves Of that
permission.
The exercise winds up, after the ap-
paratus has been hauled back into plaoe,
by another period OF the movement ex-
~ercises, according to the plan that Miss
Berenson has of starting out with easy
work and swinging through a cycle to
very hard work and tapering of with light
work at the close Of the hour,
The schemes for the different classes
naturally differ considerably. That just
described was for one OF the sophomore
squads. Almost ali have to do some work
on the ladders and the like.
The exercise to be had from them con-
sists in wrigelins through from side to side
or up to the top through the openings be-
tween the cross bars, and q more complete
exercise it would be hard to find The rope
| climbing is a feature Of the work In the
Smith gymnasium.
The entering classes have a different
plan. There is one great difference be-
tween a freshman class In q college for
women and a freshman class in a mems
institution. There 10 hardly a boy whe
has not done some athletic or gymnastte
work before entering college, and 90 the
apparatus that he meets b no novelty to
him.
But the average girls have mover taken