Personal hygiene and physical training for women

by Anna M. Galbraith

If youth were taught that certain enemies were going to present themselves on the field, that they come for the most part in the first instance single handed, and if grappled with one at a time, and the contest between right, and perhaps inclination, be then and there fought to a finish, each successive time the conflict would be easier and the victory more certain; that in losing such a battle there must always be a certain loss of self-respect, a feeling of moral weakness, it may be even so slight a fault as the exaggeration of facts; while, on the other hand, a victory always gives something of the same feeling of exultation that one has in any fairly won contest or game. A feeling of pleasurable superiority, of having one’s self well in hand. In the moral habits every gain on the wrong side undoes the effects of many conquests on the right. The training of the will becomes the most vital of all problems. Nothing that is learned in youth is really so valuable as the power and habit of self-restraint, of self-sacrifice, of energetic, continuous, and concentrated effort.

The Moral Sense.—From fifteen to twenty-five years of age is the most crucial period of life in regard to the hygiene of the mind. It is during this period that the brain first exhibits some of its strongest hereditary tendencies. While such mental factors in human life as conduct and character are being consolidated, as they now are, hereditary predispositions manifest themselves, telling for good or evil, for success or failure.

The acquisitions then made are critical in the extreme and often final. The real love of right, hatred of wrong, duty, conscience, religion, become solid and effective in forming character.

The emotional nature instinctively shows a leaning toward the opposite sex; love between the sexes toward the close of adolescence is the most intense and most unreasoning of human passions. The sense of right, wrong, and duty become active principles, dominating the character. There are yearnings after the ideal, an intense scorn of and hatred of evil. The purposes in life are then shaped. The impressions and resolutions then formed affect the whole tenor of the woman’s life, as a rule, more than at any other time.

The capacity to feel pleasure reaches its greatest intensity. The sex relations are built up on safe and natural lines, regulated by family life, social feelings, and the carrying of the thoughts and the emotions into other channels, controlled by certain instinctive natural tendencies, by morality and religion. To think and feel properly should mean to act rightly as a physiologic corollary.

Music, literature, and art, imaginative works of all sorts, mix themselves up with the sex feeling, so that the two help to form the emotional nature. Far-away glimpses of poetic feeling, pleasurable altruism, citizenship, and patriotism show themselves in the earlier stages and give direction to life in the later. The whole period is one of immense importance for the health and happiness of the remainder of life, and the risks to the body and mind are then very great. A fact which is of great importance, and which is especially true of adolescence, is that it is possible by undue pressure to use up stores of energy that should have been spread out over very long periods. Through such overexertion in study or in games too heavy a drain is made on futurity, and mental disorders at this time are by no means infrequent, mental depression being generally the first to appear. This is more especially true in the descendants of neurotic families. The subjects are troubled with neuralgias, insomnias, and there is a pessimistic view taken of life.

The Religious Instincts.—Möbius says, “We reckon the downfall of religion as one of the causes of mental and nervous diseases. Religion is essentially a comforter. It builds for the man, who stands amid the evil and misery of the world, another and fairer world. Besides his daily careful life, it lets him lead a second and purer life. The consciousness of being within the hand of Providence, and the confident hope of a future redemption, is a support to the believer in his work and care, for which unbelief has no compensation. Meditation calms and refreshes him like a healing bath. Worship breaks in upon the daily drudgery of his days with rest and meeting.” The morality of a nation suffers most severely through the downfall of its religion, as experience has always and everywhere proved.

The religious instinct has a very close relation to the emotions, morals, esthetic feelings, to social instinct, and to sex. The feelings of reverence and awe, and the consciousness of the infinite in man are vague, but are the most powerful parts of his nature.

Religion furnishes the only pure ideals that half of the world has access to. It has proved an intellectual stimulus, and roused a metaphysical frame of mind in some of the most vigorous nations, such as the German and Scotch. It leads more toward refinement of life than any other agency. It stimulates the benevolent and altruistic feelings, and leads to their practical demonstrations; it fights vice and immorality; it seizes on the best that is in man and transforms the character.

The Advantages of College Life.—College life is of the greatest possible advantage to girls in many ways: it is broadening to the mind; discipline is maintained, and, at the same time, the girl is thrown on her own resources; adequate means are provided for developing both mind and body to their greatest capacity.