Evening star., 1925-04-09

| Along any street, If you look II
the windows, you will SEQ the cur
tains sag in the middle.
| No matter how trim and straight
they were when the good housewif,
| put them UP, in s. few weeks OF
months they begin to sag apart.
Even panel curtains sag inward
| from the sides, and overdrapes saG
| outward
| These are but types of universal
! sagging, for this is a sagging world
a world in which man has to- exer.
else every ability he has to keep him
self from sagging worse than hi:
| window curtains.
| No sooner is a child born than Il
| begins to sag. The pull of gravity IL
so strong that by the time the chilC
Is 6 years old his head droops for.
| ward, his shoulders are rounded, hi,
| spine, too, bent.
| Unless stiffening is applied in tho
! form of corrective exercises, such 9
| child, as all educators know, is like
| ly to grow into a man with protrud.
| ing stomach, head stuck far forward
| and shoulders even further rounded.
In small towns and country dis
| tricts, years ago, the favorite correc.
| tive of this early physical saggine
| was shoulder braces. Probably those
| hideous inventions did some good, bu'
| 1t is entirely problematical.
| Proper muscular development gave
the only correct shoulder brace
There was another form of "bracer,'
too, that more often failed to achieve
results than not.
This was nagging, a persistent
| carping at the child to throw your
shoulders back" No child SO pes.
| tered ever got any good out of II
/ Tc,t hn tod OF
ence of the attacks that he allowed
gravity to pull him down faster thar
| ever. Nagging never corrects sag.
ging.
= * * K
Life is fight to stand upright.
| Our tendency is to sag. AS st
Paul said, God made man upright
but he has sought out many inven-
| tions.
The saint never studied physiology
| or biology, so he did not take into ac'
lcount the quite evident fact tha'
men originally went on all fours.
In that primitive attitude the grea'
vital organs of the digestive traet
hung in the proper position, anc
| there probably was no such thing az
| indigestion.
When man reared himself on hi!
hind legs, and began to use his fore
paws-hands-theu universal prolapsu:
of the stomach began.
Today every man you see with 6
paunch where a more or less straight
| line ought to be is sufferer from
the pull of gravity.
He is sagging at the middle, just
like his. window curtains.
When he sits on "the small Of his
back" with his feet cooked in the
air, as you see the drummers in the
chairs propped against the front OF
hotels in small towns, he is col
lapsing TO just that extent.
The only time he is upright, ir
a physical sense, is when he is or
his back in bed. Then the pull OF
gravity is suspended in the vertica
plane, and the spine is more or less
normal, the organs of the digestive
tract in their proper positions and
the head back where 1t belongs.
Starch in the widow curtains viii
keep them from sagglng for GER
tain length of time, but after thai
the only thing to do is TO pin then
together poor substitute-or take
them down and starch them all over
again.
Men need plenty of starch" to keeI
them upright, physically, mentally and
morally. This is one of the hard
est tasks we face here. 1t calls fol