The excess of uninteresting details is a serious objection to many text-books of history and geography. It is very much to be regretted that the plan introduced in Woodbridge and Willard's Geography, by which details are systematized under general heads, is so widely neglected.
No experience has been more valuable to me than that relating to physical training. Few are aware how much can be done in schools to promote development, health, and the proper and graceful use of the body and limbs. My
residence in such a large number and variety of health establishments, in studying the causes and cure of the prevailing debility and diseases of American women, has led to the conviction that there are very few diseases or deformities which a teacher properly trained may not remedy by natural methods, and those which may be made a part of school training.
Here I would invite the special attention of mothers and teachers to a work on the Diseases of Women, by Dr. George H. Taylor, published by G. Maclean, 85 Nassau St., N. Y., in which such natural methods are presented, many of which can be employed in the family and school without the attendance of a physician.
In the early part of my school experience, a European lady artist of fine personal appearance offered to teach in my school a system of exercises by which she herself, once a humpback cripple, was restored to a perfect and graceful figure. These were disconnected exercises, one portion of which I introduced into my work on physiology and calisthenics as what could be easily
used in all schools without demanding a separate room and dress for the purpose.
Other portions I combined into a system of calisthenic exercises set to music, and demanding a separate room, and this method was extensively introduced into schools until Dr. Dio Lewis prepared his system, now extensively used.
The difficulties of Dr. Lewis's method are, that it demands a separate dress and room for the purpose, which multitudes of schools will not adopt, and also is so violent as to endanger the health of delicate young girls, while it has but little tendency to promote ease and gracefulness of person and movements. For these reasons it is constantly passing out of use after a short trial.
In place of this, I have originated another method by which personal defects and deformities are remedied, and gracefulness in the movement of head, body, and limbs promoted. It includes exercises which gently train all the muscles, which are varied and entertaining, and which are performed to music, the pupils singing songs prepared for each exercise.