The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-11-04

pio6i Cos III tulS respect. FEMININE
weakness Is not so universally COM
mended as 1T was a half century ago,
and more efforts are made to prevent
1t, but we have still much to gain. IT.
regular habits in the home, bursts of
temper because the mother or teacher
lack self-control, and evening parties
begun in early childhood and extended
through school life, SO weaken the
girls constitution that, at graduation
from the preparatory or finishing
school, she is prepared for nothing but
rest cure, and finished for usefulness
before her life is begun.
x X
Investigate the home of the girl who
isn't strong, and believe that in nine
cases out of ten you will find a reason
for her lack of strength-badly regu-
lated household, badly cooked food, ir-
regular hours, household wranglings
which exhaust the nervous energy of
the sensitive girl, lack of healthy ex-
ercise out of doors, lack Of joyousness
within. This girl who isn't strong
enough for healthy outdoor games or
for thorough course of study, is
usually strong enough to spend late
hours at the theatre, to dance at even
ing parties until midnight, and to sit at
home in an overheated room and read
the popular mover, while the mother
fails to realize that much more OF her
daughters vital energy is spent in
reading one sensational novel than in
weeks study of difficult mathematical
problems. The one is exercise for the
brain tissue, which means healthy
growthe the other acts as stimulant
to brain tissue and is followed by
weakness and exhaustion. Evening
parties. too, for school girl, 1 believe
rl.. b. Il.~ - 81
ton, not so much for the party itself
and its late hours, which are pernicious
enough, but for the unhealthy excite
ment which attends the preparation for
the party, and because ii leaves the
girl incapable of entering into and en-
joylng the healthy work and simple
pleasures which should be a young
girls delight
But" the mother will say, Il want
my daughter to be attractive, to learn
grace and ease of manner. and she will
grow shy and awkward if she never goes
out until she is through school" / feel
sorry for the mother whose daughter
must learn grace and ease of manner
at the promiscuous dancing party or
public ball, perchance, under another
name. She will become bold, vulgarly
coquettish and stated with the worlds
pleasures before she should have tasted
them, but never gentle. A knowledge
of the world does not make a gentle
man, much less a gentlewoman. A re-
fined home, where father and mother
brothers and sisters. unite in q gentle
courtesy, is the best place for any
young girl to learn grace and ease of
manner-in fact. 1t is the only place,
and if it is not learned here. it is never
learned at all so as to pass true coin
among people of refinement. 1 should
be far from objecting to anything
which would add to the beauty and
grace Of a woman, but ] would give
her the beauty which comes from good
health, and the pure mind and soul
shining forth in the features, and the
grace of manner which comes from
habitual inconsistencies of self and
thoughtfulness for others.
For girls whose growing years must
be spent in a city and under the exist
ing conditions of an average home, a
well equipped gymnasium with daily
practice IS a necessity for perfect de-
velopment. Girls who have regular
hours for sieep, the frequent bath.
healthful clothing. healthful occupa-
ton Tor the mind i'm the schoOlrOOm,
and for the body in assisting in house
hold duties, who. in addition to this
have a liking for tennis or basketball,
or for q ride on horseback through
country roads and daily walks through
country fields, will never have need of
a gymnasium TO develop a perfect
body; but because few girls have such
advantages, systematic exercise in a
gymnasium is a necessity
| have said that a girls mental
strength depends upon the right devel-
Opment of her physical strength. I
might reverse this statement and say
that her physical strength, in most
cases, depends upon the right develop
ment of her mental powers. 1t is a
scientific fact which no one will dispute
that the perfect development of any
body depends upon the perfection of
each one of it's parts. No mother would
think that she could bind a child's
right arm to its body and keep it so
bound for any length of time without
injuring, not only the arm, but the
health of the whole body; and yet this
same mother will leave the brain unoc-
cupied and think that by so doing she
will make the body stronger. The re-
cords of any well regulated school or
college will tell us that the weak girls
grow strong and strong girls do not
grow weak under the strain of thorough
and systematic mental discipline.
=
If there is to be q difference in the
mental training of the girl and boy, l
should say that of the two the girls
education should be more thorough
more serious than the boy's-first, be-
cause her vocation in life is a more
important one, and her habits of
thought will have a stronger influence
upon the . next generation than
will mans; and, secondly, be-
cause the world will educate
the man more than the woman. In his
struggle to compete with the intellect
or the shrewdness of his fellow man,
his brain must be constantly on the
alert, and he must keep steady pace
with the times. II business man, he
must learn to read and know his fell
bowman that he may successfully sup
ply his wants and needs; and if pro-
fessional man he can only be success
full by deiving always more deeply into
the laws which govern the universe
But the woman who marries must, at
least during the best years of her life,
give out moro mentally than she re-
ceives.
/ see no reason, and conceive none
why girl should not have the regular,
systematic training of school and COL
lege which have been established as
the best means for developing a boys
character. II we say that she is not
strong enough physically, then I would
answer that statistics prove that she
will grow stronger in a. well-managed