New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-10-11

from the Stone Age to 1914. The Ind
ians dance, Socrates and Robin Hood
danced, and so do the peasants of the
Continent day. The farmers of our
own country used to dance, in the pc
Rod after the wilderness was con
qucrcd and even before the city had
seemed to conquer the farm. The Chi
ncsc. contrariwisc, do not dance nor
do the coal miners. but the healthy,
prosperous Swedish peasant capcrs
like a spring lamb, and the genuine
Aroostook County farmer calls the
figures Of Soldiers joy as long as
the fiddler can hold his head up. In
fact people have danced in every
normal, happy sphere, so that we may
well say that the American city
populations to-day have simply slipp d
into their proper heritage.
We should not seek for the source
of dancing's present popularity in the
fact that the tango may be better than
the two-stcp, OF that the make may
be better than the tango, or that l..
Russo or Lulu-Fado are better than the
maxine. The basis of the popularity
of the dance through all the ages has
been. briefly, that it. combines exercise.
sociability and art, each in several
forms.
There is one of these three groups tf
benefits whose importance is hardly
realized: this is exercise. There aIr
four chief things which every human
being must have air, nourishmcn',
sleep and exercise. We are always able
TO cat plenty Of food ana TO find some
air to breathe and place to sleep,
but in our sedentGry urban lives the
matter of exercise is very likely to be
slightod. Dancing, practically re-
gardcd, is the best of all forms of ex-
ercise Its requirements of a floor.
partner and music are not so hard to
supply in city as is the play require
merit Of, say. five acres of vacant land
or of water. Then it is medium or
gentle exercise, so that hardly ary one
will find the heart or the lungs over
taxed by indulgng in il. Since It uses
chiefly the largest muscles of thu body,
no muscle is overused and made sore.
BY this Just and moderate activity :hc
whole body is invgora:ed ana the
digestion and circulation are improved.
One paradoAical consequence is that
while stout people are made thinner,
Of course, by the exercise. too thin
people put or weight, through the ger
eral improvement in their health.
In the face of all these immense
hygienic. social, aesthetic and rec
reational benefits of dancing it is
hard to understand why the instltu-
tion is so often opposed by some pc
pie. Church elders often forget that
dancing originated in religion, AMI
look at it with different eye from
what the ancient Greeks did. Then it
was a regular part Of religious cerc-
morics, as it was also in the ancien'
Hebrew Church and in the Spain Of tn
Middle Ages Yet nothing can b" more
harmless and few things more bene-
fetal than indulging in modern tarccs,
rightly executed.
Whenever good people preach against
dancing they make il worse by depr,v-
ing il Of their influence and care. Re
ligiop should become recOnclcd 10 her
own daughter Terpsichore, for it is
when young Terpsichorc goes out OF
the church to dance in the Pally doe
Metropole, "stcen000 Broadway" that
she learns poor manners. If she and
young Apollo stayed and danced in til.
parish house or under the synlpogu'
rocf. hoti they and their church would
be much better off spiritually. The
nondescript Stage-ballrOom Inv"ntiors
Of the cabaret would have fewer ad-
mirers. and gracefulness, courtesy.
monogamy and idcalism would -four
ish.