It is hoped that increase of intelligence and moral power among mothers, and a combination among them to regulate fashions, may banish the pernicious practices that have prevailed. If a school-girl dress without corsets and without tight belts could be established as a fashion, it would be one step gained in the right direction. Then, if mothers could secure to their daughters daily domestic exercise in chambers, eating-rooms, and parlors in loose dresses, a still further advance would be secured.
A friend of the writer informs her that her daughter had her wedding outfit made up by a fashionable milliner in Paris, and every dress was beautifully fitted to the form, and yet was not compressing to any part. This was done too without the use of corsets, the stiffening being delicate and yielding whalebones.
Not only parents but all having the care of young girls, especially those at boarding-schools, have a fearful responsibility resting upon them in regard to this important duty.
In regard to the dressing of young children, much discretion is needed to adapt dress to circumstances and peculiar constitutions. The leading fact must be borne in mind, that the skin is made strong and healthful by exposure to light and pure air, while cold air, if not excessive, has a tonic influence. If the skin of infants is rubbed with the hand till red with blood, and then exposed naked to sun and air in a well-ventilated room, it will be favorable to health.
There is a constitutional difference in the skin of different children in regard to retaining the animal heat manufactured within, so that some need more clothing than others for comfort. Nature is a safe guide to a careful nurse and mother, and will indicate, by the looks and actions of a child, when more clothing is needful. As a general rule, it is safe for a healthful child to wear as little clothing as suffices to keep it from complaining of cold. Fifty years ago, it was not common for children to wear as much under-clothing as they now do. The writer well remembers how girls, though not of strong constitutions, used to play for hours in the snow-drifts without the protection of drawers, kept warm by exercise and occasional runs to an open fire. And multitudes of children grew to vigorous maturity through similar exposures to cold-air baths, and without the frequent colds and sicknesses so common among children of the present day, who are more carefully housed and warmly dressed. But care was taken that the feet should be kept dry and warmly clad, because, circulation being feebler in the extremities, this precaution was important.
It must also be considered that age brings with it decrease in vigor of circulation, and diminished generation of heat, so that more warmth of air and clothing is needed at an advanced period of life than is suitable for the young.
These are the general principles which must be applied with modification to each individual case. A child of delicate constitution must have more careful protection from cold air than is desirable for one more vigorous, while the leading general principle is retained that cold air is a healthful tonic for the skin whenever it does not produce an uncomfortable chilliness.
Sometimes it is asked, Why are women, especially young girls, so much more delicate and sickly than in former days? The true reply would be, it is because parents and teachers are doing every thing they can do to produce such mischiefs.
Sleeping in unventilated chambers; living in school-rooms and parlors heated to excess, and charged with poisonous gases; exposed to sudden variations of temperature from mismanagement; eating unhealthful food at irregular hours and to a dangerous excess; supplied with unhealthful confectionary to eat at any hour; indulging in exciting amusements, with late hours for sleep; the brain stimulated by a multitude of school duties and studies unrelieved by sufficient sleep or by muscular exercise; the dress contrived to impede vital functions, so as to force the upper organs on to the lower, generating the most cruel displacements and mental and bodily diseases; overheating the parts most injured by such treatment, and exposing the parts most important to keep warm; compressing feet and ankles so as to impede circulation, with high heels throwing all the muscles out of natural play, so as to increase all the dangerous tendencies to internal displacement; these are only one portion of the many contrivances adopted or allowed by parents and teachers to destroy the health of women and young girls.