The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-10-18

New York, City, Oct-< 17.-"Go
right on being athletic, girls-f'
won't hurt you." So say American
culture experts, who take issue
/, with the recent charges Of English
educators that athletics are unit
ting our modern women for moth
erhood. The Victorian girl, accord
ing to these English authorities
| was a much better mother than the
modern feminine athlete, because
she wisely conserved her store OF
vital and nervous energy for the
| crisis of motherhood instead OF
wasting it daily on the tennis court
golf course or hockey field.
This surprising assertion seems
to have made a serious impression
upon England, where there is now
q strong movement for miideI
school athletics for girls, but SC
far it has received little sympathy
over here. Absolute tommyrot!'
is the way most of our directors OF
physical education have dismissed
the subject, while a few of them
have taken the trouble to explain
why.
II La
Dudley Sargent, Harvard physical
director and head Of the Sargent
School of Gymnastics in Cambridge
that such statements have just
enough truth in them so that they
cannot be contradicted in their en-
tirety. 1t is true, OF course, that
many women do have trouble at
childbirth, but it is unfair to say
that it is because OF athletics. Ath-
letic training is ideal for woman /;
it develops just the muscles of the
abdomen and the lower part of the
back that she is compelled to use
in this crisis.
"OVerindulgence, entertaining -
that is another thing altogether I
do not believe in that l have
fought excuses all my life. l do
not believe in the entertaining, for
instance, that leaves a boat crew in
entire collapse once the race h
over.
81 believe that these girls who
Specialize in tennis, who play all
the time, all over the country, are
the ones who would be sure to
have trouble in the crisis of moth
erhood. Such women are tight,
tense, keyed up all the time, and
muscle-bound. There is a vast Diff
ference, you know.
Where is a girl going to get that
vital and nervous energy the Vic
torians claim to have monopolized
if she does not develop it? And il
she develops it, she must keep it
up. A man who is well developed
and then suddenly ceases physical
exercise goes stale and flabby.
This is equally true of a woman.
Her muscles must be developed and
kept developed il she is to perform
her function OF motherhood.
Mothers Need Muscle.
you read more and more of the
necessity Of resorting to the Caes-
arian method It is because SO
many women have undeVeloped
muscles of the abdomen and lower
part of the back. 1t is because
these women have never been call
ed upon to do any hard work, or
make any effort Of their own
DR.. H. n. McCracken, president
of Vassar college, thinks that the
objection of the English educators
to athletics for girls is based upon
an inferiority complex In other
words, it is merely one more at
tempt of a dying generation to as
sert it's superiority over its livelier
successors. Victorian ladies have
lately had to endure much scorn-
full pity-from their modern grand
daughters. Their waists were
pinched, they have been told. their
minds inactive, their clothes were
clumsy and they were physically
weak witness the fainting habit)
for lack Of fresh air All" they
reply at last but we were better
mothers"
THE argument advanced by the
English opponents to athletics for
girls" says DR.. McCracken, lis
about as logical as urging a young
man not TO deplete his mental en-
ergies by studying during the year,
but to keep them intact for the
great crisis of examinations.
There can be no doubt but that
good muscular development is an
in childbirth A case
was recently brought to my atten-
ton in which a woman was almost
unable to bear her child because
her abdominal muscles were I'M
Motherhood was the
first hard work she had ever been
called upon to do, and naturally
she was unequal TO it.
Proper athletic training i'm
proves a girls health and physical
Far from injuring the
next generation, l believe that it
gives her children d superior in
heritance of health and strength.
'If anything, our women have
cried.