The girl, of course, has not the strength for the protracted effort of the matured man, nor is such effort often required of her. Her studying is done quietly at home, undisturbed, usually, by any such cares and responsibilities as the man encounters. Hers is generally brain-work, not brain-worry. Yet the few hours a day exhaust her, because her vital system, which supports her brain, is feeble and inefficient. No girl is at school over six hours out of the twenty-four, and, deducting the time taken for recitation, recess, and the various other things which are not study, five hours, or even less, will cover the time she gives to actual brain-work in school, with two, or perhaps three, hours daily out of school. With the other sixteen hours practically her own, there is ample time for all the vigorous physical exercise she needs or could take, and yet allow ten, or even twelve, of those hours for sleep or eating. But notice, in any of these off-hours, what exercise these girls take. They walk to and fro from school, they play a few minutes at recess, they may take an occasional irregular stroll besides, and may indulge in a game of croquet, but all the time intent on their conversation, never thinking of the exercise itself, and the benefit it brings. Such things fill up the measure of the daily physical exercise of thousands of our American girls. It is the same thing for nearly all, save those from the poorest classes.
And what is the result? Exactly what such exercise—or, rather, such lack of it—would bring. The short, abrupt run, the walk to or from school, the afternoon stroll, or the miscellaneous standing about—none of these call for or beget strength of limb, depth of chest, or vitality. None of these exercises is more than almost any flat-chested, half-developed girl could readily accomplish without serious effort, and, going through them for years, she would need little more strength than she had at first.
But all this time her mental work comes in no meagre allowance. It is all the time pushing forward. Subjects are set before her, to grasp and master which requires every day hours of close application for months together. The number of them is also enlarging, and the task is constantly becoming more severe. A variety of influences spurs her steadily onward. Maybe it is emulation and determination which urges her on, not only to do well, but to excel. Maybe it is to gratify the teacher's pride, and a desire to show the good fruit of her work. Perhaps oftener than anything else the girl is in dread of being dropped into another class, and she resolves to remain with her present one at all hazards.
But with all this there is an advance in the amount and difficulty of the brain-work. No distinction is made between the delicate girl and the strong one. To those of a like age come like tasks. The delicate girl, from her indifference to physical effort, finding that for the time her weakness of body does not interfere with a ready-working brain, gradually inclines to draw even more away from livelier games and exercises, in which she does not excel, and to get more at her books. Can there be much doubt as to the result a few years later? Is it any wonder that the neglected body develops some partial weakness, or too often general debility? Is it at all a rare thing, in the observation of any one, to notice that this weakness, this debility, are very apt to become chronic, and that the woman, later on in life, is a source of anxiety and a burden to her friends, when instead of this she might have been a valued helper?
Now, if the body, during the growing years, was called on to do nothing which should even half develop it, while the brain was pushed nearly to its utmost, does it take long to decide whether such a course was a wise one? Leaving out entirely the discomfort to the body, is that a sensible system of education which leaves a girl liable to become weak, if not entirely broken down, before she is well on in middle age? Is this not like giving great care to moral and mental education alone, and actually doing almost nothing for their physical nature? Is this not an irrational and one-sided course, and sure to beget a one-sided person? And yet is not that just what is going on to-day with a great majority of the young girls in our land?
The moment it is conceded that a delicate body can be made a robust one, that moment it is equally plain that there can be an almost incalculable gain in the comfort and usefulness of the possessor of that body, not only during all the last half of her life, but through the first half as well. And yet, to persons familiar with what judicious, daily physical exercise has done, and can do, for a delicate body, there is no more doubt but that this later strength, and even sturdiness, can be acquired than that the algebra or geometry, which at first seems impenetrable, can be gradually mastered. The rules which bring success in each are in many respects identical. Begin to give the muscles of the hand and forearm, for instance, as vigorous and assiduous use as these mathematical studies bring to the brain, and the physical grasp will as surely and steadily improve as does the mental. Give not only the delicate girls, but all girls, exercises which shall insure strong and shapely limbs, and chests deep, full, and high, beginning these exercises mildly, and progressing very gradually, correcting this high shoulder, or that stoop, or this hollow chest, or that overstep, and carrying on this development as long as the school-days last. Let this be done under a teacher as familiar with her work as the mathematical instructor is with his, and what incalculable benefit would accrue, not to this generation alone, but to their descendants as well!
But will not this physical training dull the mind for its work? If protracted several hours, or the greater part of each day, as with the German peasant-woman in the field, or the Scotch fish-woman with her wares, no doubt it would. But if Maclaren of Oxford wanted but a little while each day to increase the girth of the chests of a dozen British soldiers three inches apiece in four months, is this very moderate allowance likely to work much mental dulness? Did Charles Dickens's seven to twelve miles afoot daily interfere with some masterly work which his pen produced each day? Did Napoleon's whole days spent in the saddle tell very seriously on his mental operations, and prevent him from conceiving and carrying out military and strategic work which will compare favorably with any the world's history tells of?
And what if this daily exercise, beside the bodily benefit and improvement which ensues, should also bring actually better mental work? Unbending the bow for a little while, taking the tension from the brain for a few minutes, and depleting it by expanding the chest to its fullest capacity, and increasing the circulation in the limbs—these, instead of impairing that brain, will repair it, and markedly improve its tone and vigor.
There ought to be in every girls' school in our land, for pupils of every age, a system of physical culture which should first eradicate special weaknesses and defects, and then create and maintain the symmetry of the pupils, increasing their bodily vigor and strength up to maturity. If several, or a majority, of the girls in a class have flat or indifferent chests, put them in a squad which shall pay direct and steady attention to raising, expanding, and strengthening the chest. If many have a bad gait, some stepping too long, others too short, set them aside for daily special attention to their step. If many, or nearly all, have an inerect carriage, wholly lacking la ligne of Dumas, then daily insist on such exercises for them as shall straighten them up and keep them up. The dancing-master teaches the girl to step gracefully and accurately through various dancing-steps. To inculcate a correct length of step, and method of putting the foot down and raising it in walking, is not nearly so difficult a task. If the "setting-up" drill of the West Pointer in a few weeks transforms the raw and ungainly country boy into a youth of erect and military bearing, and insisting on that bearing at all times throughout the first year gives the cadet a set and carriage which he often retains through life, is there anything to hinder the girl from acquiring an equally erect and handsome carriage of the body if she too will only use the means? If the muscles which, when fully developed, enable one to sit or stand erect for hours together are now weak, is it not wise to at once strengthen them?
But may not this vigorous muscular exercise, which tends to produce hard and knotted muscles in the man, take away the softer and more graceful lines, which are essentially feminine? If exercise be kept up for hours together, as in the case of the blacksmith, undoubtedly it would. But that is a thing a sensible system of exercise would avoid, as studiously as it would the weakness and inefficiency which result from no work. A little trial soon tells what amount of work, and how much of it, is best adapted to each pupil; then the daily maintaining of that proportion or kind of exercise, and its increase, as the newly-acquired strength justifies and invites it, is all that is required. Without that hardness and solidity which are essentially masculine, there still comes a firmness and plumpness of muscle to which the unused arm or back was a stranger. Instead of these being incompatible with beauty, they are directly accessory to it. "Elegance of form in the human figure," says Emerson, "marks some excellence of structure;" and again, "any real increase of fitness to its end, in any fabric or organism, is an increase of beauty."