The nature of the avocation chosen will necessarily depend upon the character of the vocation. For women whose vocations are intellectual and sedentary, as writers, teachers, stenographers, etc., some outdoor employment, which calls into activity the muscles of the body, rests the eyes and brain, and, at the same time, pleasantly occupies the mind, is the best, as walking, gardening, lawn-tennis, golf, rowing, etc.
For all women engaged in sedentary occupations, daily exercise in the open air is the first essential, and let them be assured that their feelings of fatigue and disinclination to exercise are no safe guide as to their ability to take exercise.
The first cause of the feeling of fatigue is due to the lack of oxygen in the lungs and the impure air of the room. On going out-of-doors, the woman will be surprised at how much stronger and better she feels after an hour’s brisk walk than she did on starting out.
“Fancy work” and lace-making, instead of being classed with recreations, must be classed with fine hand-sewing of the most taxing kind. It calls the same groups of muscles into play, and is productive of the same evils, with a greater tendency to produce eye-strain and a paralysis similar to writer’s cramp.
The proper avocation of the tired housewife, who has been on her feet all the time and whose vocation is manual labor, will be the diversion of the mind by reading a good book, while comfortably pillowed on a veranda chair, a drive, a visit to some congenial friend, a game of cards, or music.
Literary clubs for women should be more largely organized through the country and in country towns. In the cities women have found these clubs a great boon, not only to the health and happiness, but they are in the highest degree educational.
Further, women have found that these literary clubs were profitable, as a means of bringing their minds in contact with other educated minds, and thus they had not only the additional stimulus to study, but a broadening of their horizon, which the woman’s heretofore shut-in household life had precluded. Courses in domestic science would be a boon to the home.
The greater the number of interests which education and culture have created, the greater will be the diversity of the recreations open for the woman’s enjoyment.
Care must be taken that the avocation, which is at first an enjoyment and relaxation, is not turned into hard labor. The moment that any one strains every nerve, even to excel in a game, that moment it ceases to be a relaxation.
History shows that the laws of all nations have always provided a certain number of days of rest, or at least a change of occupation, and that these days were fixed at more or less regular intervals. This was partly from a religious and partly from a hygienic standpoint. The necessity for the interruption of the regular routine work has always been recognized, and one day out of every seven has been set aside for this purpose.