Our Girls

by Dio Lewis

First, you must have low, wide heels, and broad soles, especially about the toes, affording a secure surface, upon which, in taking each step, you can push the body forward.

Second, the body about the waist must be perfectly at liberty. The corset is a deadly enemy to fine walking.

But given perfect freedom at the middle of the body, through which all the movements in walking must pass,—given this freedom of the trunk, with good shoes, and you have the prerequisites on which this general exercise of the body depends.

Suppose, instead of a free body, that you press a corset into the pit of the stomach, and press it in so as to make a scoop-shovel dip in that part of the body, of course you draw the shoulders forward, and push the bowels down out of their natural place. Then you walk like a deformed person.

With liberty of feet and liberty of body, you are ready to take your first lesson.

I once read a book about walking. It was a French book, and, if I remember right, it contained about one hundred and twenty pages. In it the most elaborate directions were given. We were told how to hold our heels and toes, what part of the foot to bring down first, how, when the foot had been brought down, it was to be moved during the step, just what angle must be maintained between the two feet, the style of movement in the ankle itself, management of the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the head, the arms, the hands, the thumbs, —the position of the thumbs was the subject of several pages.

I have sometimes thought that I would write a book on walking. I am sure I can write a better one than that French book, and my book would contain only four words. Let us see, we must have two leaves, and each leaf must be as large as your thumb nail. We have four pages.

Now we will proceed to print this book. On the first page we will print one single word, "chin"; on the second a single word, "close"; on the third page, "to"; now we approach the end of the volume; turn over, and on the last page we print the word "neck."

The volume is complete. No explanatory notes need be given, not another word need be said. Whoever carries the "chin close to neck" is all right from top to toe, and will walk well. Strange to say, the chin is the pivot on which the whole body turns in walking.

"Miss Howard, please stand here before us. Now push your chin forward after the manner of most girls in walking. There, girls, don't you see, her shoulders are wrong, hips wrong, wrong everywhere?