The Young Woman's Guide

by William A. Alcott

Let not the hardy, healthy young woman alone, be employed in this manner. It is useful and necessary, indeed, to her; but it is still more so to her in whom, to a light skin with light eyes and hair, are joined a slender frame, a narrow chest, and an unnatural and sickly delicacy. Whether this delicacy is the result of staying in the house, almost entirely secluded from light, air, and the extremes of heat and cold, or is inherited, makes very little difference. She who has it needs a great deal of exercise.

3. House-keeping.—Next to walking, and agricultural and horticultural exercise, house-keeping—or, as it is familiarly called, house-work—is probably the most healthy, and ought to be the most agreeable. And yet the bare statement of the fact, will be enough to induce many a fair reader, as I doubt not, to turn aside with pain and disgust.

The reasons why this employment is so healthy, are many and various. One is found in the fact, that it requires such a variety of exercise. Like farming and gardening, it calls into action, in the course of a day, and especially in the course of a week, nearly every considerable muscle of the body.

All these exercises seem, at first view, to have some advantages over walking. It should be remembered however, that nearly every muscle, and tendon, and bone in the whole human frame, is agitated, if it is not employed, in walking; and if the limbs are employed much the most, still the continued action of the whole body, though gentle, is in a few hours quite sufficient for all the purposes of health.

Every young woman should be determined to attend to, and understand, every kind of house-work. If a few kinds—as washing, for example—seem to be beyond her strength, she should only attend to them in part, according as she is able. It is pitiable to see a young woman of twenty, twenty-five or thirty, who cannot make bread, or iron a shirt, or boil a pudding—ay, and who cannot make and mend clothes, if necessary—simply because she has never been required to do it. Still more pitiable is it, as I have already said, to find those who have never done it, because they thought it would be demeaning themselves—or because they have acted upon the principle of doing nothing for themselves or others, as long as they can help it.

It is scarcely possible that a young woman twenty years of age, has not had ample opportunities for learning to do all kinds of house-work, provided it has been her fixed resolution to improve them; and I am fully assured that house-keeping, actively and cheerfully pursued, in all its parts, is sufficient to secure a tolerable measure of health to every individual. And yet I am equally confident, that if walking, or out-of-door labor, were superadded to this, in the way I have proposed and recommended, she would derive from it many important advantages, besides being still healthier. Indeed, no person, in any employment whatever, is so healthy as to exclude all possibility of further improvement. It is not yet known how healthy an individual may become.

4. Riding.—Horseback exercise, for those who cannot enjoy any of the three modes of which I have already spoken, is excellent. It is particularly valuable where there is a tendency to lung complaints, whether induced by wearing too tight a dress, or in any other manner. It should not be forgotten, however, that if the chest is very greatly diseased, this exercise may be one of the worst which could be taken.

As to riding in a carriage, unless it is an open one, I must honestly say I do not like it, as an exercise for those who can secure that which is better. Indeed, except for a medicinal purpose, I always prefer one of the three kinds named above. And as for medicine, I would have young women so live, and especially so exercise, as to have no occasion for it. But on this subject I intend to say something in another place.

I do not believe life is long enough, in general, to allow us to indulge, to any great extent, either in what are commonly regarded as passive exercises, or in amusements, as such: I speak now of those who are above twelve years of age. Not that those who are over twelve, do not need amusement. I would have every thing amusing—or at least interesting. I mean simply to say, that walking, and running, and gardening, and farming, and house-keeping, usually involve enough of physical exercise for health; and that where these are duly attended to—or even any one of them—what are commonly called amusement's will hardly be needed. In earlier life, they unquestionably may be. But I do not think well of passive exercises for any person, so long as they can be avoided. And heterodox as the advice may be regarded, I cannot help counselling the young, above all, never to ride in an easy carriage, or a railroad, or in a steamboat or other vessel or ship, as long as they can pursue the lawful purposes of life, in a lawful and proper manner, by means of walking. It is soon enough to ride when we cannot walk.

Those who are desirous to glorify God in whatever they do, as Paul expresses it, will understand and feel the force of what I am now going to say; while those who make it their business, in this world, to seek happiness, without being careful to do it through the medium of personal excellence or holiness, will perhaps only smile at what they suppose is a mere eccentricity of opinion.