CHAPTER XXII.
Physical Education of Girls.—A Woman’s Value in the World.—High-bred Figures.—Antique Races.—Inspiration of Art not Vanity.—The Trying Age.—Dress, Food, and Bathing for Young Girls.—A Veto on Close Study.—Braces and Backboards.—Never Talk of Girls’ Feelings.—Exercise for the Arms.—Singing Scales with Corsets off.—Development of the Bust.—Open-work Corsets the Best.—The Bayaderes of India and their Forms.—The Delicacy due Young Girls.—A Frank but Needed Caution.—Care of the Figure after Nursing.
American girls begin to make much of physical culture. As they advance in refinement they see how much of their value in society depends on the nerve and spirit which accompanies thorough development. It is not enough that they know how to dance languidly, and carry themselves in company. To distinguish herself, a young belle must row, swim, skate, ride, and even shoot, to say nothing of lessons in fencing, which noble ladies in Germany, and some of foreign family here, take to develop sureness of hand and agility. The heavy, flat-footed creature who can not walk across a room without betraying the bad terms her joints are on with each other, must have a splendid face and fortune to keep any place in the world, no matter how good her family, or how varied her acquirements, though she speaks seven languages like a native, and has played sonatas since she was eight years old. A woman’s value depends entirely on her use to the world and to that person who happens to have the most of her society. A man likes the society of a woman who can walk a mile or two to see an interesting view, and can take long journeys without being laid up by them. He likes smooth motions, round arms and throat, head held straight, and shoulders that do not bow out. When you see that a fine figure must be a straight line from the roots of the hair to the base of the shoulder-blade, you will realize how few women approach this high-bred ideal. Special culture, indeed, is discerned where such excellence of line meets the eye. The polished races of the East, who, untutored and degraded, yet have the entail of antique subtlety and art, inherit such figures along with the proverbs of sages and palace mosaics. The best-born of all countries have this noble set of head, this lance-like figure, and easy play of limb. As surely as one can be educated to right thoughts and manners, so the motions and poise of limb can be trained to correctness. The work must begin early. A girl should be put in training as soon as she passes from the plumpness of childhood into the ugly age of development. The mother should inspect her dressing to see what improvement is needed, and stimulate the child by the desire to possess beautiful limbs and figure. The senses are early awake to the sense of grace. There is no better way to inspire a girl with it than to take her to picture-galleries, show the faces of historical beauties, or the figures of Italian sculpture, and ask her if she would not like to have the same fine points herself. This substitutes the love of art for that of admiration, and makes self-cultivation too deep a thing for vanity.
There is a time when girls are awkward, indolent, and capricious. Their boisterous spirits at one time, their sickly minauderies at another, are very trying to mothers and teachers. The cause is often set down as depravity, when it is only nature. Girls are lapsided and indolent because they are weak or languid, between which and being lazy there is a vast difference. They have demanding appetites that strike grown people with wonder. They go frantic on short notice when their wishes are crossed. Mother, if such is the case, your growing girl is weak. The nursery bath Saturday night is not enough. Encourage her to take a sponge-bath every day. When she comes in heated from a long walk or play, see that she bathes her knees, elbows, and feet in cold water, to prevent her growing nervous with fatigue when the excitement is over. See that she does not suffer from cold, and that she is not too warmly dressed, remembering a plump, active child will suffer with heat under the clothes it takes to keep you comfortable. If she is thin and sensitive, care must be taken against sudden chills. Keep her on very simple but well-flavored diet, with plenty of sour fruit, if she crave it, for the young have a facility for growing bilious, which acids correct. Sweet-pickles not too highly spiced are favorites with children, and better than sweetmeats. Nuts and raisins are more wholesome than candies. New cheese and cream are to be preferred to butter with bread and vegetables. Soup and a little of the best and juiciest meat should be given at dinner. But the miscellaneous stuffing that half-grown girls are allowed to indulge in ruins their complexion, temper, and digestion. No coffee nor tea should be taken by any human being till it is full-grown. The excitement of young nerves by these drinks is ruinous. Besides, the luxury and the stimulus is greater to the adult when debarred from these things through childhood. Neither mind nor body should be worked till maturity. Children will do all they ought in study and work without much urging; and they will learn more and remember more in two hours of study to five of play, than if the order is inverted. Say to a child, Get this lesson and you may go to play—and you will be astonished to see how rapidly it learns; but if one lesson is to succeed another till six dreary hours have dragged away, it loses heart, and learns merely what can not well be helped. A girl under eighteen ought not to practice at the piano or sit at a desk more than three quarters of an hour at a time. Then she should run out-of-doors ten minutes, or exercise, to relieve the nerves. An adult never ought to study or sit more than an hour without brief change before passing to the next. This keeps the head clearer, the limbs fresher, and carries one through a day with less fatigue than if one worked eight hours and then rested four.
Thoughtful teachers do not share the prejudice against braces and backboards for keeping the figure straight, especially when young. It is the instinct of barbarous nations to use such aids in compelling erectness in their children. These appliances need not be painful in the least, but rather relieve tender muscles and bones. Languid girls should take cool sitz-baths to strengthen the muscles of the back and hips, which are more than ordinarily susceptible of fatigue when childhood is over. But never talk of a girl’s feelings in mind or body before her, or suffer her to dwell on them. The effect is bad physically and mentally. See that these injunctions are obeyed implicitly; spare her the whys and wherefores. It is enough for her to know that she will feel better for them. Of all things, deliver us from valetudinarians of fifteen. Never laugh at them; never sneer; never indulge them in self-condolings. Be pitiful and sympathetic, but steadily turn their attention to something interesting outside of themselves.
Special means are essential to special growth. Throwing quoits and sweeping are good exercises to develop the arms. There is nothing like three hours of house-work a day for giving a woman a good figure, and if she sleep in tight cosmetic gloves, she need not fear that her hands will be spoiled. The time to form the hands is in youth, and with thimbles for the finger-tips, and close gloves lined with cold cream, every mother might secure a good hand for her daughter. She should be particular to see that long-wristed lisle-thread gloves are drawn on every time the girl goes out. Veils she should discard, except in cold and windy weather, when they should be drawn close over the head. A broad-leafed hat for the country is protection enough for the summer; the rest of the year the complexion needs all the sun it can get.
There is commonly a want of fullness in those muscles of the shoulder which give its graceful slope. This is developed by the use of the skipping-rope, in swinging it over the head, and by battledoor, which keeps the arms extended, at the same time using the muscles of the neck and shoulders. Swinging by the hands from a rope is capital, and so is swinging from a bar. These muscles are the last to receive exercise in common modes of life, and playing ball, bean-bags, or pillow-fights are convenient ways of calling them into action. Singing scales with corsets off, shoulders thrown back, lungs deeply inflated, mouth wide open, and breath held, is the best tuition for insuring that fullness to the upper part of the chest which gives majesty to a figure even when the bust is meagre. These scales should be practiced half an hour morning and afternoon, gaining two ends at once—increase of voice and perfection of figure.
This brings us to the inquiries made by more than one correspondent for some means of developing the bust. Every mother should pay attention to this matter before her daughters think of such a thing for themselves, by seeing that their dresses are never in the least constricted across the chest, and that a foolish dressmaker never puts padding into their waists. The horrible custom of wearing pads is the ruin of natural figures, by heating and pressing down the bosom. This most delicate and sensitive part of a woman’s form must always be kept cool, and well supported by a linen corset. The open-worked ones are by far the best, and the compression, if any, should not be over the heart and fixed ribs, as it generally is, but just at the waist, for not more than the width of a broad waistband. Six inches of thick coutille over the heart and stomach—those parts of the body that have most vital heat—must surely disorder them and affect the bust as well. It would be better if the coutille were over the shoulders or the abdomen, and the whalebones of the corset held together by broad tapes, so that there would be less dressing over the heart, instead of more. A low, deep bosom, rather than a bold one, is a sign of grace in a full-grown woman, and a full bust is hardly admirable in an unmarried girl. Her figure should be all curves, but slender, promising a fuller beauty when maturity is reached. One is not fond of over-ripe pears.
Flat figures are best dissembled by puffed and shirred blouse-waists, or by corsets with a fine rattan run in the top of the bosom gore, which throws out the fullness sufficiently to look well in a plain corsage. Of all things, India-rubber pads act most injuriously by constantly sweating the skin, and ruining the bust beyond hope of restoration. To improve its outlines, wear a linen corset fitting so close at the end of the top gores as to support the bosom well. For this the corset must be fitted to the skin, and worn next the under-flannel. Night and morning wash the bust in the coldest water—sponging it upward, but never down. Madame Celnart relates that the bayaderes of India cultivate their forms by wearing a cincture of linen under the breasts, and at night chafing them lightly with a piece of linen. The breasts should never be touched but with the utmost delicacy, as other treatment renders them weak and flaccid, and not unfrequently results in cancer. A baby’s bite has more than once inflicted this disease upon its mother. But one thing is to be solemnly cautioned, that no human being—doctor, nurse, nor the mother herself—on any pretense, save in case of accident, be allowed to touch a girl’s figure. It would be unnecessary to say this, were not French and Irish nurses, especially old and experienced, ones, sometimes in the habit of stroking the figures of young girls committed to their charge, with the idea of developing them. This is not mentioned from hearsay. Mothers can not be too careful how they leave their children with even well-meaning servants. A young girl’s body is more sensitive than any harp is to the air that plays upon it. Nature—free, uneducated, and direct—responds to every touch on that seat of the nerves, the bosom, by an excitement that is simply ruinous to a child’s nervous system. This is pretty plain talking, but no plainer than the subject demands. Girls are very different in their feelings. Some affectionate, innocent, hearty natures remain through their lives as simple as when they were babes taking their bath under their mothers’ hands; while others, equally innocent but more susceptible, require to be guarded and sheltered even from the violence of a caress as if from contagion and pain.
Due attention to the general health always has its effect in restoring the bust to its roundness. It is a mistake that it is irremediably injured by nursing children. A babe may be taught not to pinch and bite its mother, and the exercise of a natural function can injure her in no way, if proper care is taken to sustain the system at the same time. Cold compresses of wet linen worn over the breast are very soothing and beneficial, provided they do not strike a chill to a weak chest. At the same time, the cincture should be carefully adjusted. Weakness of any kind affects the contour of the figure, and it is useless to try to improve it in any other way than by restoring the strength where it is wanting. Tepid sitz-baths strengthen the muscles of the hips, and do away with that dragging which injures the firmness of the bosom. Bathing in water to which ammonia is added strengthens the skin, but the use of camphor to dry the milk after weaning a child is reprehensible. No drying or heating lotions of any kind should ever be applied except in illness.