Are not the majority of our women to-day, especially in town and city, physically weak? The writers on nervous disorders speak of the astounding increase of such diseases among us, of late years, in both sexes, but especially among the women. General debility is heard of nowadays almost as often as General Grant. Most of our women think two miles, or even less, a long distance to walk, even at a dawdling pace, while few of them have really strong chests, backs, or arms. (If they wish to test their arms, for instance, let them grasp a bar or the rung of a ladder, and try to pull themselves up once till the chin touches. Not two in fifty will do it, but almost any boy can.) Hardly a day goes by when a woman's strength is not considerably taxed, and often overtaxed.
There is no calling of the unmarried woman where vigorous health and strength—not great or herculean, but simply such as every well-built and well-developed woman ought to have—would not be of great, almost priceless value to her. The shop-girl, the factory operative, the clerk in the store, the book-keeper, the seamstress, the milliner, the telegraph operator, are all confined, for many hours a day, with exercise for but a few of the muscles, and with the trunk held altogether too long in one position, and that too often a contracted and unhealthy one. Actually nothing is done to render the body lithe and supple, to develop the idle muscles, to deepen the breathing and quicken the circulation—in short, to tone up the whole system. No wonder such a day's work, and such a way of living, leaves the body tired and exhausted. It would, before long, do the same for the strongest man. No wonder that the walk to and from work is a listless affair. No wonder that, later on, special or general weakness develops, and the woman goes through life either weak and delicate, or with not half the strength and vigor which might readily be hers.
And is it any better with the married woman? Take one of limited means. Much of the work about her home which servants might do, could she employ them, she bravely does herself, willing to make ten times this sacrifice, if need be, for those dearest to her. Follow her throughout the day, especially where there are children: there is an almost endless round of duties, many of them not laborious, to be sure, or calling for much muscular strength, but keeping the mind under a strain until they are done, difficult to encompass because difficult to foresee. In the aggregate they are almost numberless. A man can usually tell in the morning most of what is in front of him for the day—indeed, can often plan so as to say beforehand just what he will be at each hour. But not so the housewife and mother of young children. She is constantly called to perform little duties, both expected and unexpected, which cannot fail to tell on a person not strong. A healthy child a year old will often weigh twenty pounds; yet a woman otherwise weak will carry that child on her left arm several times a day up one or more flights of stairs, till you would think she would drop from exhaustion. Let sickness come, and she will often seem almost tireless, so devotedly will she keep the child in her arms. While children are, of course, carried less when they begin to walk, many a child two, or even three years old, is picked up by the mother, not a few times a day, even though he weighs thirty or forty pounds instead of twenty. Now for this mother to have handled a dumb-bell of that weight would have been thought foolish and dangerous, for nothing about her suggested strength equal to that performance. And yet the devotion of a weak mother to her child is quite as great as that of a strong one. Is it any wonder that this overdoing of muscles never trained to such work must sooner or later tell? It would be wonderful if it did not.
Yet now, suppose that same mother had from early childhood been trained to systematic physical exercise suited to her strength, and increasing with that strength until, from a strong and healthy child, she grew to be a hearty, vigorous woman, well developed, strong, and comely—what now would she mind carrying the little tot on her arm? What before soon became heavy and a burden—a willing burden though it was—now never seems so at all, and really is no task for such muscles as she now has. Instead of her day's work breaking her down, it is no more than a woman of her vigor needs—indeed, not so much as she needs—to keep her well and strong.
And, besides escaping the bodily tire and exhaustion, look at the happiness it brings her in the exhilaration which comes with ruddy health, in the feeling of being easily equal to whatever comes up, in being a stranger to indigestion, to nervousness and all its kindred ailments. This vital force, sparing her many of the doubts and fears so common to the weak, but which the strong seldom know, enables her to endure patiently privation, watching, and bereavement. And who is the more likely to live to a ripe old age, the woman who never took suitable and adequate exercise to give her even moderate vitality and strength, or she who, by a judicious and sensible system, suited to her particular needs, has developed such powers?
But, while this is all well enough for young girls, is it not too late for full-grown women to attempt to get the same benefits? The girl was young and plastic, and, with proper care, could be moulded in almost any way; but the woman already has her make and set, and these cannot readily be changed. Perhaps not quite so readily, but actual trial will show that the difficulty is largely imaginary. To many, indeed to most women, the idea is absolutely new, and they never supposed such change possible. Bryant, beginning at forty, made exercise pay wonderfully. Bear in mind how, with a few minutes a day, Maclaren enlarged and strengthened men thirty years old; that, out of his class of over a hundred, the greatest gain was in the oldest man in it, and he was thirty-five. Let us look at what one or two women have managed to effect by systematic and thorough bodily training. In "The Coming Man" Charles Reade says (p. 50), "Nathalie, a French gymnast, and not a woman of extraordinary build, can take two fifty-six-pound weights from the ground, one in each hand, and put them slowly above her head." She has "a sister who goes up the slack-rope. Farini saw her pitted against twenty sailors. The sailors had a slack-rope; she had another. A sailor went up as far as he could; the gymnast went as high on her rope at the same time. Sailor came down tired, the lady fresh. Another sailor went up, the lady ditto; and so on. She wore out the whole twenty, having gone up an aggregate of feet higher than St. Peter's Church at Rome. This feat is due to great strength, complete either-handedness, and the athlete's power of pinching a rope with the sinews of the lower limbs."
But is this great and unusual strength, especially of the arms, desirable in most women? Not at all; but that is not the point. When Farini says that the first step toward making one a skilled gymnast or acrobat is to bring up the weak arm, and shoulder, and side—usually the left—until equally strong with its, till now, superior mate, and that he is constantly doing that, he is doing more by far than would be needed to make most women, not as strong as acrobats and performers, but—a far more important matter—reasonably and comfortably so, sufficiently to keep nervous disorders away, to enable them to be far better equal to the daily duties, and to spend life with an appreciation and zest too often unknown by the weak woman; finally, to preserve for a woman the bloom and healthy look which once in a while she sees, even in a woman of advanced years, and which would be her own did she use the means to have it.
And what should a woman do to get this health and strength and bloom? Just what is done by the young girl. Indeed, there are a hundred exercises, almost any of which, faithfully followed up, would help directly to bring the desired result. With her, as with girl or man or boy, the first thing is to symmetrize, to bring up the weaker muscles by special effort, calling them at once into vigorous action, and to restore to its proper position the shoulder, back, or chest, which has been so long allowed to remain out of place. The symmetry once gained, then equal work for all the muscles, taken daily, and in such quantities as are found to suit best.
The variety of exercises open to woman, especially out-of-doors, is almost as great as to man. Every one knows some graceful horsewoman, and it is a pity there were not a hundred where there is one. One of the most expert of our acquaintance is the mother of one of the most gifted metaphysicians in the land, and he already is a middle-aged man. There are a few ladies in this country, and a good many in England, who think nothing of a five or six mile walk daily, and an occasional one of twice that length. Once in a while a married woman here will do some long-distance skating. In Holland, in the season, it is with many an every-day affair. Some of the best swimmers and floaters at the watering-places are women, and they certainly do not look much troubled with nervousness. More than one woman has distinguished herself in Alpine climbing. The writer once saw a woman, apparently about twenty-eight, a handsome, vigorous, rosy Englishwoman, row her father from Putney to Mortlake, on the Thames, a distance of four miles and three furlongs, not at racing pace, to be sure, but at a lively speed. The measured precision of that lady's stroke, the stately poise of the body and head, and the clean, neat, and effective feathering, would have done credit to an old Oxford oar.
What woman has done, woman may do. Bind one arm in a sling, and keep it utterly idle for a month, and meanwhile ply the other busily with heavy work, such as swinging a hammer, axe, or dumb-bell, and is it hard to say which will be the healthier, the plumper, the stronger—the live arm, at the end of the month? And will this only apply to men's arms, and not to women's? Who has usually the stronger, and almost generally the shapelier arm—the woman who, surrounded with servants, takes her royal ease, and has American notions and ways of exercise, or the busy maid in her kitchen? If the latter's arm is large, yet not well-proportioned, it simply means that some of its muscles have been used far more than the others.