Home Problems from a New Standpoint

by Caroline Louisa Hunt

All this would make no difference, providing physical vigor were not necessary to mental activity. This, however, is a theory with which in the past we toyed to our sorrow. We conceived of a physical life and of an intellectual life, of a healthy body as necessary for the physical but not for the intellectual, and of development as coming through the putting off of the physical and the putting on of the intellectual. But we found that we were mistaken. The man from whom we were expecting beautiful poetry breathed bad air, weakened his lungs, fell a victim to tuberculosis, and we lost him and his song. The man to whom we were looking to plan for us beautiful buildings, to compensate in part for the natural beauties we had lost, weakened his body by insufficient exercise, then drank polluted water, died of typhoid fever, and we lost him and the beauties he might have created.

Then we began to think, and we realized that there is only one life; that that life is a bundle of desires, of loves, of sympathies, and of hopes; that development is not a putting off, but an expansion, coming when the desires increase, when the loves widen, when the sympathies broaden, and when the hopes get a farther view into the future; that for the outward expression of this inner and invisible life the body is the only tool, and that for the expression of the whole life, whether it be a life of few desires or many, a “whole” or healthy body is necessary. Acting upon this conviction, we began to establish kindergartens, and schools for manual training, for handicraft, and engineering, in order to train the hand to execute in material form what the mind conceived as an abstraction. We added departments of physical culture to the departments of Latin and Greek in our colleges, in order to train the “whole” man and the “whole” woman.

To fit a body to be the tool for the satisfaction of a few desires, and those mainly the desires for food and drink and shelter, is not a difficult task. It is only when we try to make it satisfy the many desires, including that for intellectual activity, that trouble begins. Then the poor body, put upon the stretch, is likely to develop a weak spot. To provide a suitable shelter for a body of few desires would puzzle no one. To build a fit habitation for a body of many desires is a problem that calls for all our experience and ingenuity.

At this point comes along the man who pooh-poohs at all things hygienic, and tells us that if we will only cease to think of our bodies we shall be all right; and this man has much on his side of the argument. He forgets, however, that what we have broken we must also mend, if we would have a whole. In the future there may be born a “whole” child under such favorable conditions that he will develop harmoniously without thought on his part or upon that of others. At present, however, amid the conditions that we brought upon ourselves by conceiving of an intellectual life apart from the physical, harmonious expansion is impossible without a conscious effort to regain bodily “wholeness.”

The harmful effects of dwelling upon “unwholeness” are not to be overlooked. To avoid them we must keep our attention upon the good as far as possible. There have been in the past, if we can believe the testimony of ancient statuary, fine, well-developed, full-chested, and straight-limbed bodies. These we must study, and think of our own underdeveloped bodies only long enough to learn how we can restore them to the proportions of the body beautiful. There are conditions that favor the development of the body beautiful. These we must analyze, thinking of bad conditions only long enough to learn how to make them good. Our model for our drinking water must be the water of an unpolluted mountain stream; for our air, the air of the open country; for our exercise, the varied movements of “the natural man” in his efforts to secure food; for our food, that which the man eats whose surroundings favor physical vigor.

To be sure, we cannot hope to regain the body beautiful, nor to have houses that shall favor its development, until we have secured the city beautiful, which shall unite fresh air and good water and abundance of sunlight and the opportunity for enjoyable exercise and the chance to get good food with the stimulus to and the time for intellectual activity. There are some things, however, that we can do and some things that we can leave undone which will help to restore good conditions.

Why, in the matter of fresh air, do we act upon the principle, Windows closed except when it is absolutely necessary to open them? Why do we not adopt the motto, Windows open except when it is absolutely necessary to close them? Why do we not have soft woolen jackets, such as the golfers use, to put on as the first expedient to avoid cold, leaving the closing of the windows till the last? Why, in the winter time, do we not put strips of wood in the lower parts of our windows, so as to leave an open space between the sashes, where the air can enter without striking us directly? Why, in the summer weather, do we ever close our windows? Is it because of the dust? If the dust is unreasonably great, why do we not stir up the town authorities to keep the streets in such condition that we can have fresh air? If it is not unreasonably great, but we have draperies that we value more than fresh air, perhaps we need to make a little reëvaluation. Why, in the beautiful autumn and spring days, when it is just too cool to have the windows open without a fire, do we not, instead of closing our houses, have a little fire and open the windows? Is it because that would be too expensive? Then could we not have one less course at dinner or one less dress a year and keep the air? Why do we wait until we have time for a promenade before we “air” the baby? Why do we not put the baby in its carriage on a sunny porch? Is it because we think that the baby, in some mysterious way, derives benefit from the exercise of our legs? Why do we always eat and sleep within doors? Why, when we plan new houses, do we not arrange them so that the kitchen and serving pantry will communicate as easily with a porch as with the indoor dining room? Why do we not have roof gardens, where we can sleep under the beautiful stars in warm weather? A shower bath open at the top, so that we could take water and air and sun baths all at the same time, would add to the attractiveness of the roof, and it might also be possible to have arrangements there for our European breakfast or our afternoon tea. Why do we ever shut the sun out of unoccupied rooms? Why do we not let it blaze in its life-giving, sterilizing rays? Draperies again? Carpets? Curtains? Well, there is one consolation. The old-fashioned, fast dyes are being revived, and we may in time have furnishings that will stand the sun.

In the matter of muscular exercise, why do we have our working clothes (humorously so called) made so that they weigh down our legs and bind down our arms; while our play clothes, our golf, tennis, and bathing suits, are made so as to permit free muscular activity? Why do not women, when they do their housework, which would give play to every muscle if it had a chance, wear suits akin to gymnasium suits, less abbreviated in the skirt, perhaps, but not long enough to be stepped upon when the body is bent over? Why do we put skirts on the baby that is just learning to draw himself to his feet, when we know that he cannot avoid stepping upon them and wrenching his head forward? Why, in short, do we put skirts on any living creature until that living creature demands them? If we did not put skirts on our girls until they discovered that they were differently dressed from the rest of their sex, what a long period of free, healthful, muscular activity they would have! One of the prettiest sights I ever saw was the little girls of a New England town dressed for coasting in woolen tights and sweaters and tasseled caps.

On this subject of clothes the hygienist and the teacher of physical culture have done their best to reform us. The former has shown us grewsome cross-sections of people who have had their ribs displaced by tight lacing. The latter has stood up before us at exhibitions and assumed graceful poses. But somehow neither has related the subject sufficiently to life itself. It is only when we think of life as made up of desires that find expression only through the body, when we think that by a motion, by a posture, we can express love, hatred, sympathy, cordiality, that we begin to cherish the smallest muscle and to think of clothes, not with reference to whether they are tight or loose, but with reference to whether they help or hinder the body in its effort to express the inner life.

As to baths, why do we locate our bathrooms on the north side of the house, and then make junk shops of them by filling them with blacking boxes and medicine bottles and hot water bags and any other thing that is not wanted elsewhere? Given a nice, clean, white tub in an airy room, with the morning sun falling directly upon it, and who can resist a bath?