The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-24
From the Kansas City Star.

0SSN
 (0 physical culture machines in the
 world today; take it from Mrs. Viola McMurray, instructor for the new Kansas City Woman's Athletic club, in exercises that make strong and happy and healthy women
 Of course, Mrs. McMurray doesn't wish to infer that women should throw away their bridge set and their books, their fancy work and other violent exercises to recuperate neglected constitutions by plunging into soapsuds and soiled linen. goodness, mol Nothing of the sort. Neither Is Mrs. McMurray trying to ad- vance ideas of household economy that certainly would prove revolutionary to the extent of treason. Not for mo- ment! (And then too, just imagine gymnasium equipped with washtubsD We'll of all things!
 What Mrs McMurray desires to con- vey is the fact that exercise such as that which Is an incident of Monday in homes where clothes are washed in the old-fashioned way is exactly suited 10 the strengthening of muscles that should be strengthened and the upbuilding and
 
 proper placing of parts of the human bodv that become sadly awry in the sendentary lives that many women lead. But there are other ways to get the de- sired exercise, washtubs being, for req sons which will need no elucidation here, far from popular in even the humblest home.
 It isn't necessary for woman to be an athlete and develop muscles like Sandow in order to be healthy. Many couldn't do it. anyway; but 1t certainly would put brighter faces and more sprightly walk CTS into Petticoat lane If a clear idea or physical culture, needed by all, might percolate to the exclusive precincts of Kansas City's growing colony of home owners; and not only Kansas City, but all cities and all towns. That's why Mrs. McMurray is talking physical culture and trying to get Kansas City women in- terested in it.
 It isn't intended that the members of the club to be organized are to be put on high bars and a swing trapeze and be asked to exhibit themselves in a track meet What Mrs. McM"rray desires is to get women to see the value in ex- ercises that suit their requirements, breathing, walking, holding themselves properly erect light drills and dances, all the work done in rhythm, to music, in a way that gives grace and boise and lifts the vital organs to the places they should occupy in normal, healthy women. Doubtless some of the young women who have lived much in the open, playing 1 tennis and croquet and basketball and 1 golf will continue to have their outdoor | sports every year; but for the most part ! the members are to be taught the right | way of living, in an exclusive club prop | erIy equipped with an instructor where | they may go in their own "sets," groups from their own neighborhoods and re- ceive just the sort of training they need | to build up where they should be built LID. And there are plenty, Mrs. Nc 1 Murray says. Experience has taught her | that few women, practically none, get the exercise they should have and con- sequently they grow old before they should and they are cross and cranky and buy much patent medicine and load | their husbands with reproaches and doc | tors bills.
 | Probably 75 per cent of the women who | read statements of this kind will de- 1 clare that by the time they have at | tended to the children and the house.
 work and have tramped up and down
 stairs 356 times a day, they have had
 all the exercise they need and are ready 1 for bed. That's where they're wrong. | They may be tired and doubtless they
 are tired, but about two days week in
 the gymnasium with other women, with
 exercises that will bring into use muscles i and organs that are sluggish will give
 them a new view of life. More than anything else, too, it will clear up minds made weary by the monotony of every day duties. Mental poise, cheerfulness
 of temper, and bracng up of the heart and an uplifting of the entire spiritual nature are as essential to beauty in this
 humdrum world as anything that can be developed. Mrs. McMurray says SO. One chief trouble with men ana women is the lowering of the vital organs. In
 women 1t Is caused principally by im-
 proper dressing and pinching; but Mrs. McMurray doesn't advocate any out landish ideas of dress reform. She be-