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+Project Gutenberg's What a Young Woman Ought to Know, by Mary Wood-Allen
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: What a Young Woman Ought to Know
+
+Author: Mary Wood-Allen
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2009 [EBook #28458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT A YOUNG WOMAN OUGHT TO KNOW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Jeannie Howse and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+ | Transcriber's Note: |
+ | |
+ | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has |
+ | been preserved. |
+ | |
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Commendations
+from Eminent
+Men & Women
+
+
+_What
+A Young Woman
+Ought to Know_
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY REV. F.B. MEYER
+The Eminent English Preacher and Author
+
+[Illustration: REV. F.B. MEYER, B.A.]
+
+Minister of Christ Church, Westminster, London,
+Author of "Israel, A Prince with
+God," "Elijah; Tried by Fire," "The
+Bells of Is," etc., etc.
+
+ "The questions which are dealt with in the 'Self and Sex Series'
+ of books are always being asked, and if the answer is not
+ forthcoming from pure and wise lips it will be obtained through
+ vicious and empirical channels. I therefore greatly commend this
+ series of books, which are written lucidly and purely, and will
+ afford the necessary information without pandering to unholy and
+ sensual passion. I should like to see a wide and judicious
+ distribution of this literature among Christian circles."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY CHARLES M. SHELDON
+The Eminent American Preacher and Author
+
+[Illustration: CHARLES M. SHELDON, D.D.]
+
+Pastor of Central Congregational Church,
+Topeka, Kansas; author of "In His Steps,"
+"The Crucifixion of Philip Strong,"
+"Lend a Hand," "Born
+to Serve."
+
+ "It is a pleasure to call attention to the books of the 'Self and
+ Sex Series' which have been prepared with great wisdom for the
+ express purpose of teaching the truth concerning the subjects
+ which are painfully neglected."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY MRS. M.W. SEWALL
+The Eminent American Educator
+
+[Illustration: MRS. MAY WRIGHT SEWALL]
+
+Principal of the Girls' Classical School;
+former President of the International Council
+of Women; and Nominee of the International
+Congress of Women.
+
+ "I am profoundly grateful that a subject of such information to
+ young women should be treated in a manner at once so noble and so
+ delicate that any pure-minded teacher or mother may read or
+ discuss its pages with young girls without the slightest chance
+ of wounding the most delicate sensibilities, or by being
+ misunderstood."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY MRS. M.L. DICKINSON
+The Eminent American Christian Worker
+
+[Illustration: MRS. MARY LOWE DICKINSON]
+
+Former President of the National Council of
+Women; General Secretary of the Order of
+The King's Daughters; Emeritus Professor
+of Literature Denver University;
+Editor of "The Silver Cross;" Author
+of "The Temptation of
+Katharine Gray," "One
+Little Life,"
+etc., etc.
+
+ "Any young woman, knowing all that this volume teaches, has an
+ essential foundation for whatever other knowledge she may
+ acquire."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY MRS. M.B. CARSE
+The Eminent American Christian Worker
+
+[Illustration: MRS. MATILDA B. CARSE]
+
+Founder of the Woman's Temple, Chicago.
+
+ "As a mother, I can truly say that my heart goes out to you in
+ endorsement of this book. It is pure and instructive on the
+ delicate subjects that mean so much to our daughters, to their
+ future as home-keepers, wives and mothers, and to the future
+ generations. It can but create a more reverent ideal of life in
+ every girl who reads it, and I wish every daughter in the land
+ could reap of its benefit."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY MRS. E.C. STANTON
+The Eminent American Lecturer and Author
+
+[Illustration: MRS. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON]
+
+Noted Woman Suffragist, Lecturer
+and Author.
+
+ "Your books I consider a valuable addition to the literature of
+ the day on social ethics. The many facts you state are not only
+ important for a knowledge of social science, but involve good
+ health and morals."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY MR. C.N. CRITTENTON
+The Eminent American Philanthropist
+
+[Illustration: CHARLES N. CRITTENTON]
+
+Founder of the National Florence Crittenton
+Mission
+
+ "The frequent excuse which parents give for not enlightening
+ their children on these most important points is that they have
+ never known how to do so. This excuse can no longer be considered
+ valid.
+
+ "Dr. Wood-Allen has a remarkable gift in the facility and
+ refinement with which she is able to approach the most delicate
+ subject without arousing a single morbid and sensitive impulse."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY MRS. H. CAMPBELL
+The Eminent American Author and Educator
+
+[Illustration: MRS. HELEN CAMPBELL]
+
+Dean of the Department of Household Economics
+in the Kansas State Agricultural
+College. Author of "Prisoners of
+Poverty," "Wage Earners,"
+etc., etc.
+
+ "I cannot speak too warmly of your invaluable series. There is
+ hardly a woman in America so thoroughly qualified by education,
+ long experience, deep sympathies, and, most excellent of all
+ gifts, as deep common sense, as Dr. Mary Wood-Allen, to meet the
+ growing need, or rather the growing sense of need. Mothers and
+ fathers alike will be helped and enlightened by these simple,
+ clear-phrased, wholesome books, and they deserve all the success
+ already their own."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY L.M.N. STEVENS
+The Eminent Temperance Worker
+
+[Illustration: MRS. LILLIAN M.N. STEVENS]
+
+President of National Woman's Christian
+Temperance Union.
+
+ "I consider the book 'What a Young Wife Ought to Know' a wise and
+ safe teacher. It is a careful and delicate presentation of vital
+ truths which have to do with the happiness and welfare of home
+ life."
+
+
+
+
+COMMENDED BY EMINENT AMERICAN
+AUTHORS AND EDITORS
+
+MARGARET WARNER MORLEY
+
+Author of "The Song of Life," "Life and Love,"
+"The Bee People," etc.
+
+ "There is an awful need for the book, and it does what it has
+ undertaken to do better than anything of the kind I have ever
+ read. You may rely upon me to make it known wherever I can."
+
+
+ELISABETH ROBINSON SCOVIL
+
+Superintendent of the Newport Hospital, and
+Associate Editor of the Ladies' Home Journal;
+Author of "The Care of Children," etc.
+
+ "'What a Young Woman Ought to Know' is characterized by purity of
+ tone and delicacy of treatment.
+
+ "It is one which a mother can place with confidence in the hands
+ of her daughter. Reverent knowledge is the surest safeguard of
+ innocence, and it is every mother's duty to see that the young
+ girl committed to her charge is duly forearmed by being forewarned
+ of the dangers that lie around her."
+
+
+
+
+Pure Books on Avoided Subjects
+
+
+_Books for Men_
+
+_By Sylvanus Stall, D.D._
+
+"What a Young Boy Ought to Know."
+"What a Young Man Ought to Know."
+"What a Young Husband Ought to Know."
+"What a Man of 45 Ought to Know."
+
+
+_Books for Women_
+
+_By Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D.
+And Mrs. Emma F.A. Drake, M.D._
+
+"What a Young Girl Ought to Know."
+"What a Young Woman Ought to Know."
+"What a Young Wife Ought to Know."
+"What a Woman of 45 Ought to Know."
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY
+IN THE UNITED STATES
+THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+200-214 N. Fifteenth Street Philadelphia
+
+
+IN ENGLAND
+THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+4 Imperial Bldgs., Ludgate Circus, London, E.C.
+
+IN CANADA
+RYERSON PRESS
+Cor. Queen and John Streets, Toronto, Ontario
+
+[Illustration: MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.]
+
+
+
+
+NEW REVISED EDITION
+
+_Self and Sex Series_
+
+WHAT A YOUNG
+WOMAN
+OUGHT TO KNOW
+
+BY
+MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.
+
+National Superintendent of the Purity
+Department Woman's Christian Temperance
+Union; Author of "What a Young Girl
+Ought to Know," "Marvels of Our Bodily
+Dwelling," "Child Confidence Rewarded,"
+"Teaching Truth," "Almost a Man,"
+"Almost a Woman."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA, PA.: 200-214 N. FIFTEENTH STREET
+
+THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+LONDON: TORONTO:
+4 IMPERIAL BUILDINGS, THE RYERSON PRESS,
+LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C. QUEEN AND JOHN STREETS.
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY SYLVANUS STALL
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England.
+
+Protected by International copyright in Great Britain
+and all her colonies and possessions, including India
+and Canada, and, under the provisions of the Berne
+Convention in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain
+and her colonies, France, including Algeria and the
+French colonies, Haiti, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg,
+Monaco, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Tunis.
+
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+[PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES]
+
+Copyright, 1889, by SYLVANUS STALL
+Copyright, 1905, by SYLVANUS STALL
+
+
+
+
+TO
+THE DAUGHTER DEAR,
+WHOSE INTIMATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMPANIONSHIP FROM
+CHILDHOOD TO WOMANHOOD HAS MADE IT POSSIBLE
+FOR ME TO FEEL A SYMPATHETIC INTEREST IN
+THE LIFE-PROBLEMS OF ALL GIRLS, THIS
+BOOK IS MOST LOVINGLY
+DEDICATED
+BY HER
+MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WHAT ARE YOU WORTH?
+ PAGE
+
+The first great lesson to learn, your own importance--Probably
+twelve million young women in the United States--What it means
+for one of them to be sick--Woman's work in the world--The
+using of spiritual forces--How much are you worth to your
+home, to the community, to the state, to the nation, to the
+race? 21
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CARE OF BODY.
+
+Your body is your dwelling--It expresses you--We can judge of
+character by the external appearance--The body also an
+instrument and should be taken care of--Not "fussy" to take
+care of it in youth--We should prepare for life 27
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FOOD.
+
+A desire for health creates a desire to know how to obtain
+it--The question of diet--We eat to repair waste and to supply
+new material--Overstudy less a cause of illness than wrong
+eating--Tea and coffee not foods--Alcoholic beverages
+interfere with digestion--Dyspepsia produced by worry--We
+should give ourselves to our friends--Young women should study
+scientific cookery 33
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SLEEP.
+
+Every thought, activity, or motion causes expenditure of
+force--In sleep the energy restored--Amount of sleep
+needed--Effect of sleeplessness--Causes of unrefreshing
+sleep--Ventilation of sleeping rooms--Beauty sleep 39
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BREATHING.
+
+How often we breathe--What is accomplished by
+breathing--Office of oxygen in the blood--Breathing our
+measure of ability--Breathing gymnastics, their
+value--Importance of the diaphragm in breathing 47
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HINDRANCES TO BREATHING.
+
+Effect of sitting attitudes--How to counteract this--Wrong
+positions in standing--Restrictions of clothing--Rule for the
+tightness of clothing--Why tight dresses may feel comfortable 55
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ADDED INJURIES FROM TIGHT CLOTHING.
+
+The effect upon the heart--Danger of exercising in tight
+dress--Effect of tight clothing upon the kidneys, upon the
+liver, stomach, and bowels--How the bowels are held in the
+abdomen--Influence of tight clothing upon the pelvic
+organs--Upon the circulation--A tapering waist a deformity 61
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+EXERCISE.
+
+The purpose of physical culture--Balance between waste and
+supply--Gymnastic dress a necessity--Value of
+housework--Bicycle riding--Dancing--Skating--Lawn
+tennis--Running up and down stairs--Bathing 69
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+BATHING.
+
+Beauty of complexion--Condition of skin indicates condition of
+digestive organs--Pimples--Constipation--Thermal bath--Foot
+bath--Time to bathe--Daily baths--The use of
+soaps--Wrinkles--Care of the hands 77
+
+
+PART II.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CREATIVE POWER.
+
+We have Godlike powers: reason, imagination, conferring
+life--Organs of individual life same in both
+sexes--Differences between the sexes in size--Dignity of man 87
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BUILDING BRAINS.
+
+Babies born deaf, dumb, blind and helpless--The activities of
+the baby build its brains--Our brains develop through
+cultivation of the senses--Certain areas of brain govern
+certain movements of body--Can learn how to build up any part
+of brain--Professor Gates' experiments in training
+dogs--Creation of habits--Effects of malevolent passions, such
+as anger, worry, etc. 93
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+YOU ARE MORE THAN BODY OR MIND.
+
+You are neither body nor mind, you are spirit--Your
+relationship to God--God's obligation to us--Our obligation to
+Him--God's school--His method of teaching us. 99
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY.
+
+Differences between boys and girls--Boys need our
+sympathy--The crisis in the girl's life--Sex in
+mind--Description of the sex organs 105
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+BECOMING A WOMAN.
+
+All life from an egg--The human egg--Menstruation--Girls may
+injure themselves through ignorance--Value of sex. 113
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ARTIFICIALITIES OF CIVILIZED LIFE.
+
+Menstruation should be painless--Dr. Mary Jacobi's
+opinion--Dr. Emmett on the artificial life of young women. 119
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SOME CAUSES OF PAINFUL MENSTRUATION.
+
+Woman not necessarily a semi-invalid--Effects of wrong
+clothing on the young girl--Evils of novel reading--Evils of
+constipation--Congestions produced by displacements--Serious
+results of abdominal displacements--Value of abdominal
+bandage--How to make one--How to wear it--Effects of wrong
+attitude--Standing on one foot--Correct attitude. 123
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FEMALE DISEASES.
+
+Displacements of uterus--Leucorrhea--Patent medicines--Honest
+physicians--Sitz baths for reducing congestions--Age at which
+menstruation first appears--Non-menstruation and
+consumption--Mechanical hindrances to menstruation--
+Suppression--Scanty flow--Profuse flow--Treatment. 135
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CARE DURING MENSTRUATION.
+
+No long walks or rides--May pursue usual avocations--If pain,
+keep quiet--Do not use alcoholics of any kind--Use of
+heat--Use of cold--Should you bathe at this time--Arrangement
+of clothing and napkins--Mental serenity. 145
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+SOLITARY VICE.
+
+Its results--Causes--Lack of cleanliness--Pin-worms--All
+functions attended with pleasure--Sex not low--Its development
+accompanied by increased power--How overcome the bad
+habit?--Remove causes of pelvic congestions--Train the
+senses--Study clouds, leaves, shapes, birds, etc. 151
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+BE GOOD TO YOURSELF.
+
+What is real fun--The effects of a wrong idea of
+fun--Flirtations--Familiarities--Criticism of girls by young
+men--Class of girls who are most respected--Responsibility of
+girls--The conduct of a pure woman the safeguard of man. 159
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS.
+
+The meaning of friendship--Mother the girl's wisest
+confidante--Kissing--Friendship between brothers and
+sisters--Platonic friendships--The value of noble
+companionship. 169
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN GIRLS.
+
+Gushing girls--Manly friendships--The highest type of
+friendship--To love truly is to grow strong by true giving. 177
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+EXERCISES.
+
+Correct dressing--To overcome curvature--Round shoulders--To
+strengthen the back--To develop the chest--Abdominal
+muscles--To restore displaced organs. 181
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+RECREATIONS.
+
+Walking--Running--Riding--Skating--Rowing--Cycling--Tennis--
+Swimming--Skipping--Dancing--Card-playing--Theatre-going. 187
+
+
+PART III.
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+LOVE.
+
+Different ideas of different people--Much that is called love
+is selfishness--Love at first sight--Present conditions of
+society unnatural--Parents unwilling to teach their children,
+yet permit flirtations, etc.--What is love?--One word to
+express different phases of regard--Love of man and
+woman--Love should include mental congeniality, spiritual
+sympathy and physical attraction--Young people should have
+opportunity to get acquainted--Comradeship of young
+people--Love is a growth. 199
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+RESPONSIBILITY IN MARRIAGE.
+
+Who is the young man?--What are his antecedents, his talents,
+his habits?--What sort of a family does he belong to?--The
+wife marries her husband's family--Girls should know this--A
+mother's privilege. 209
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE LAW OF HEREDITY.
+
+A strange will--Should study the law of inheritance--Plant
+heredity--Race heredity--National characteristics--Individual
+inheritance--We are composite photographs--The law of heredity
+a beneficial law--Transmission of evil a warning--Bad tempers
+inherited--Atavism. 215
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+HEREDITARY EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, ETC.
+
+Alcoholism produces nerve degeneration--Tight lacing may have
+the same result--Nerve degeneracy may lead to
+alcoholism--Idiocy and inebriety increasing--Effects of
+wine--Evils of patent medicines--Inebriety of parents entails
+injury on offspring--Folly of marrying a man to reform
+him--Hereditary effects of morphine, chloral, etc.--Dangers of
+the tobacco habit--Inherited effects of tobacco. 223
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+EFFECTS OF IMMORALITY ON THE RACE.
+
+The law of God not a double law--The inherited effects of
+immorality--Millions die annually from its effects--
+Transmitted to child or wife--Contamination through a kiss. 235
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE GOSPEL OF HEREDITY.
+
+Inheritance of good so universal that we fail to think of
+it--Mercy shown to thousands of generations--Heredity not
+fatality--Effects of education transmitted--Experiments of
+Professor Gates on dogs--A divine inheritance. 241
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+REQUISITES OF A HUSBAND.
+
+What is the young man's inheritance?--What are his
+ideas?--What is his estimate of woman?--What are his
+defects?--Are there adequate reasons why some should not
+marry?--May not married people be happy without children--A
+girl should know something of the personal habits of her
+future husband--Should consider her own personal habits--How
+freely may young people talk together? 247
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+ENGAGEMENTS.
+
+Becoming engaged for fun--May not engaged young people throw
+aside restrictions?--Long engagements--The benefits of an
+engagement--Evils of a long engagement--Engagement a time of
+preparation--Sexual attraction not limited to local
+expression--Duty of the engaged young woman to her own
+family--Jealousy the quintessence of selfishness--Trust a
+suggestion to be true--Common sense needed in marriage--Hold
+your lover to the highest ideals. 255
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE WEDDING.
+
+Folly of preparing an elaborate trousseau--The way of one
+sensible girl--The wedding gifts--Bridal tours--The realities
+of wedded life. 267
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+During a number of years it has been my privilege to be the confidante
+and counsellor of a large number of young women of various stations in
+life and in all parts of the United States.
+
+These girls have talked freely with me concerning their plans,
+aspirations, fears and personal problems. It has been a great
+revelation to me to note with what unanimity they ask certain
+questions concerning conduct--queries which perhaps might astonish the
+mothers of those same girls, as they, doubtless, take it for granted
+that their daughters intuitively understand these fundamental laws of
+propriety.
+
+The truth is that many girls who have been taught in the "ologies" of
+the schools, who have been trained in the conventionalities of
+society, have been left to pick up as they may their ideas upon
+personal conduct, and, coming face to face with puzzling problems, are
+at a loss, and perhaps are led into wrong ways of thinking and
+questionable ways of doing because no one has foreseen their dilemma
+and warned them how to meet it.
+
+The subjects treated in this little book are discussed because every
+one of them has been the substance of a query propounded by some girl
+otherwise intelligent and well informed. They have been treated
+plainly and simply because they purport to be the frank conferences of
+a mother and daughter, between whom there can be no need of hesitation
+in dealing frankly with any question bearing on the life, health or
+happiness of the girl. There is therefore no need of apology; the book
+is its own excuse for being, the queries of the young women demand
+honest answers.
+
+Life will be safer for the girl who understands her own nature and
+reverences her womanhood, who realizes her responsibility towards the
+human race and conducts herself in accordance with that realization.
+
+Life will be nobler and purer in its possession and its transmission,
+if, from childhood onward to old age, the thought has been held that
+"Life is a gift of God and is divine," and its physical is no less
+sacred than its mental or moral manifestation; if it has been
+understood that the foundations of character are laid in the habits
+formed in youth, and that a noble girlhood assures a grand maturity.
+
+Dear girls who read this book, the mother-heart has gone out to you
+with great tenderness with every line herein written, with many an
+unspoken prayer that you will be helped, uplifted, inspired by its
+reading, and made more and more to feel
+
+ "A sacred burden is this life ye bear.
+ Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly;
+ Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly;
+ Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
+ But onward, upward, till the goal ye win."
+
+ MARY WOOD-ALLEN.
+ ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+THE VALUE OF HEALTH, AND RESPONSIBILITY IN MAINTAINING IT.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT A YOUNG WOMAN OUGHT TO KNOW.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WHAT ARE YOU WORTH?
+
+
+MY DAUGHTER DEAR:
+
+When I see you with your young girl friends, when I look into your
+bright faces and listen to your merry laughter and your girlish
+chatter, I wonder if any one of you understands how much you are
+worth. Now you may say, "I haven't any money in the bank, I have no
+houses or land, I am worth nothing," but that would only be detailing
+what you possess. It is not what you possess but what you are that
+determines what you are worth. One may possess much wealth and be
+worth very little.
+
+I was reading the other day that the first great lesson for a _young
+man_ to learn, the first fact to realize, is that he is of some
+importance; that upon his wisdom, energy and faithfulness all else
+depends, and that the world cannot get along without him. Now if this
+is true of young men, I do not see why it is not equally true of young
+women.
+
+It is not after you have grown old that you will be of value to the
+world; it is now, in your young days, while you are laying the
+foundation of your character, that you are of great importance. We
+cannot say that the foundation is of no importance until the building
+is erected, for upon the right placing of the foundation depends the
+firmness and stability of the superstructure. Dr. Conwell, in his
+little book, "Manhood's Morning," estimates that there are twelve
+million young men in the United States between fourteen and
+twenty-eight years of age; that these twelve million young men
+represent latent physical force enough to dig the iron ore from the
+mines, manufacture it into wire, lay the foundation and construct
+completely the great Brooklyn Bridge in three hours; that they
+represent force enough, if rightly utilized, to dig the clay from the
+earth, manufacture the bricks and construct the great Chinese Wall in
+five days. If each one were to build himself a house twenty-five feet
+wide, these houses would line both sides of eight streets reaching
+across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. For each one to
+be sick one day is equal to thirty thousand being sick an entire year.
+
+Now, if there are twelve million young men in the United States, we
+may estimate that there are an equal number of young women. Although
+we cannot calculate accurately the amount of physical force
+represented by these young women, there are some things we can tell.
+We know that for each one of these young women to be sick one day
+means thirty thousand sick one year. Just imagine the loss to the
+country, and the gain to posterity if it can be prevented!
+
+Rome endeavored to create good soldiery, but was not able to produce
+strength and courage through physical culture of the men alone. Not
+until she began the physical education of the women, the young women,
+was she able to insure to the nation a race of strong, hardy, vigorous
+soldiery. So the health of the young women of to-day is of great
+importance to the nation, for upon their vigor and soundness of body
+depend to a very great extent the health and capacity of future
+generations. We are told that in the State of Massachusetts, in one
+year, there were lost twenty-eight thousand five hundred (28,500)
+years of time through the illness of working-people by preventable
+diseases. Dr. Buck, in his "Hygiene," tells us that one hundred
+thousand persons die every year through preventable diseases, that one
+hundred and fifty thousand are constantly sick through preventable
+diseases, and that the loss to the nation, through the illness of
+working-people by diseases that might have been prevented, is more
+than a hundred million dollars a year. So we can see that each
+individual has a pecuniary value to the nation. You are worth just as
+much to the nation as you can earn. If you earn a dollar a day, you
+are not only worth a dollar a day to yourself and to your personal
+employer, but you are worth a dollar a day to the nation; and if,
+through illness, you are laid aside for one day, the nation, as well
+as yourself, is pecuniarily the loser.
+
+Young women could not build the houses that would line eight streets
+from New York to San Francisco, but, rightly educated, they could
+convert each one of these houses into a home, and to found a home and
+conduct it properly is to help the world. It is so easy to measure
+what is done with physical strength. We can see what men are doing
+when they build railroads, construct immense bridges and towering
+buildings, but it is more difficult to measure what is done through
+intellectual and spiritual forces; and woman's work in the world is
+not so much the using of strength as it is the using of those finer
+forces which go to build up men and women. With this thought in your
+mind, can you answer the question, How much are you worth? How much
+are you worth to yourself? How much are you worth in your home? How
+much money would your parents be willing to accept in place of
+yourself? How much are you worth to the community in which you live?
+How much are you worth to the state, the nation, the human race?
+
+You can recognize your value in the home when you remember how much
+you are the center of all that goes on there, how much your interest
+is consulted in everything that is done by father and mother. You can
+realize your value to the state when you realize how much money is
+spent for the education of young people, how cultured men and women
+give the best of their lives to your instruction. You cannot measure
+your value to the human race until you begin to think that the young
+people of to-day are creating the condition of the world in fifty or
+one hundred years to come; that you, through your physical health, or
+lack of it, are to become a source of strength or weakness in future
+years, if you are a mother. It is all right that young women should
+think of marriage and motherhood, provided they think of it in the
+right way.
+
+I want you to reverence yourself, to realize your own importance, to
+feel that you are a necessity to God's perfect plan. When we are young
+and feel that we are of no account in the world, it is difficult to
+realize that God's complete plan cannot be carried out without us. The
+smallest, tiniest rivet or bolt may be of such great importance in the
+construction of an engine that its loss means the incapacity of that
+piece of machinery to do its work. As God has placed you in the world,
+He has placed you here to do a specific work for Him and for
+humanity, and your failure to do that work means the failure of His
+complete and perfect plan. Now can you begin to see how much you are
+worth? And can you begin to realize that in the conduct of your life
+as a young woman you are a factor of immense importance to the great
+problem of the evolution of the human race? In the light of these
+thoughts I would like to have you ask yourself this question every
+day, How much am I worth?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CARE OF BODY.
+
+
+The question "How much are you worth?" is not answered by discussing
+your bodily conditions, for your body is not yourself. It is your
+dwelling, but not you. It, however, expresses you.
+
+A man builds a house, and through it expresses himself. The external
+appearance causes the observer to form an opinion of him, and each
+apartment bears the impress of his individuality. To look at the house
+and then to walk through it will tell you much of the man. The outside
+will tell you whether he is neat, orderly and artistic, or whether he
+cares nothing for the elements of beauty and neatness. If you go into
+his parlor, you can judge whether he cares most for show or for
+comfort. His library will reveal to you the character of his mind, and
+the dining-room will indicate by its furnishings and its viands
+whether he loves the pleasures of sense more than health of body. You
+do not need to see the man to have a pretty clear idea of him.
+
+So the body is our house, and our individuality permeates every part
+of it. Those who look at our bodily dwelling can gain a very good
+idea of what we are. The external appearance will indicate to a great
+extent our character. We glance at one man and say, "He is gross,
+sensual, cruel, domineering;" at another and say, "He is intellectual,
+spiritual, fine-grained, benevolent." So we judge of entire strangers,
+and usually find the character largely corresponds to our judgment,
+if, later, we come to know the person.
+
+The anatomist and microscopist who penetrates into the secrets of his
+bodily house after the inhabitant has moved out can tell much of his
+habits, his thoughts, his capacities and powers by the traces of
+himself which he has left on the insensate walls of his dwelling. The
+care of the body, then, adds to our value, because it gives us a
+better instrument, a better medium of expression.
+
+The old saying, "A workman is known by his tools," is equally true of
+the body. The carpenter who cares for his saws, chisels and planes,
+who keeps them sharp and free from rust, will be able to do better
+work than the one who carelessly allows them to become nicked, broken,
+handleless or rusted. The finer the work which one does, the greater
+the care he must take of the instruments with which he works. A
+jack-knife will do to whittle a pine stick, but the carver of
+intricate designs must have his various sharp tools with which to make
+the delicate lines and tracings.
+
+When we speak of health and physical conditions in discussing the
+question of your value, we are discussing the instrument upon whose
+integrity depends your ability to demonstrate your value.
+
+Many young people think it nonsense to pay attention to the
+preservation of health. I have heard them say, "O, I don't want to be
+so fussy! It will do for old folks to be coddling themselves, but I
+want a good time. I'd rather die ten years sooner and have some fun
+while I do live."
+
+I wonder what these same young people would think if they should hear
+a workman say, "Well, I have here a fine kit of tools; I am assured
+that if they are destroyed they will never be replaced; but now, while
+I am learning my trade, I don't want to be 'so fussy' about keeping
+them in order. It will do for 'boss workmen' to take care of
+everything so constantly, but now I want to break stones with these
+delicate hammers, to cut nails with these razor-bladed knives, to
+crack nuts with these slender pincers. By and by, when I am older,
+I'll use them as they should be used, but I think it's all nonsense to
+be so careful now." If in later years you should hear him complain
+that he had nothing to work with, would you feel like pitying him?
+
+No "kit of tools" was ever so complete as is the bodily instrument
+given to each one of us. Its mechanism has been the inspiration of
+inventors; it combines all forms of mechanical devices; its delicacy,
+intricacy, completeness and adaptability challenge the admiration of
+the philosopher, the engineer, the master mechanic.
+
+I cannot here tell you of all its wonders,[1] but I would like to give
+you such an exalted idea of its importance that you would look upon it
+with reverence and take a justifiable pride in keeping it in perfect
+working order. I would like to make you feel your personal
+responsibility in regard to its condition.
+
+You know that in the ages past men believed the body to be the
+individual, and they endeavored through care of the body to build up
+mental as well as physical power. In those days the acrobat and the
+sage were found working side by side in the gymnasium, the one to gain
+physical strength, the other to increase his mental ability, and each
+profited as he desired.
+
+When men made the discovery that the body is not the individual, but
+merely his dwelling and instrument of expression, they came to feel
+less regard for it, and lost their interest in its care and culture.
+Even the early Christians, forgetting what Paul said about the body as
+a temple, began to call it vile, and thought it an evidence of great
+piety to treat it with contempt. I have read of one religious sect who
+believed that the Creator of the body could not have been the Creator
+of the soul, and held that the chief object of God's government was to
+deliver the captive souls of men from their bodily prisons.
+
+When men began to understand that the thinking principle was the real
+self and the body merely a material encasement, it was no wonder that
+they valued the body less and held mind as of great value. They failed
+to see that mind without a material organ of expression is, in this
+world, of no account. A great pianist with no piano could not make
+music, and he would be considered a strange being if he did not care
+for his instrument most scrupulously. Think of a Rubinstein
+voluntarily breaking the piano strings or smashing the keys, while he
+made discordant poundings, and excusing himself by saying that it was
+"fussy" to take care of a piano until it was old. You cannot imagine
+such a thing. We can all appreciate the value of a man-made instrument
+or machine; but the God-created body, a combination of machines and
+instruments of marvelous power and delicacy, we neglect or treat with
+absolute, positive injury, and excuse ourselves on the ground that
+when it is old we will treat it more kindly.
+
+Melville says it is a sin to die, ignoring what is to be done with the
+body. "That body," he says, "has been redeemed, that body has been
+appointed to a glorious condition."
+
+It seems to me we prize the body far more after its use for us is at
+an end than while it is ours to use. We do not neglect the dead; we
+dress them in beautiful garments, we adorn them with flowers, we
+follow them to the grave with religious ceremonies, we build costly
+monuments to place over their graves, and then we go to weep over
+their last resting-place.
+
+After all, is it not life that we should value? Life here and
+hereafter, not death, is the real thing for which we should prepare,
+and earthly life without a sound body is not life full and complete.
+Life is joy, vigor, elasticity, freedom from pain or illness,
+enjoyment of all innocent pleasures in maturity as well as in youth.
+We have no right to look forward to decrepitude, to failure in zest of
+living, to lessening of real enjoyment because of coming years. Life
+should increase in beauty and usefulness, in ability and joyousness,
+as the years bring us a wider experience, and this will be the case if
+we in youth have been wise enough to lay the foundation of health by a
+wise, thoughtful, prudent care of our bodies and our minds.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] This Dr. Mary Wood-Allen has done in a volume entitled "Marvels of
+Our Bodily Dwelling." This book teaches physiology and hygiene, by
+metaphor, parable, and allegory in a most charming way. Superbly
+illustrated. 12mo. Price, cloth, $1.50, post free.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FOOD.
+
+
+If I can arouse in your mind a most earnest desire to be strong and
+vigorous, I shall not find it necessary to give you very minute
+directions, for if you have the ambition you will find the way. If I
+could excite in you an intense longing to visit Paris, I should know
+that you would begin to seek for the way of getting there. If I could
+create in you an earnest aspiration to be well and physically strong,
+I should know that you would seek for the books that would give you
+the necessary instruction. It will not be needful to talk of rules and
+restrictions if I can make you feel the glory of having a sound body.
+
+If you were starting on a journey, I should not need to warn you of
+by-paths, of traps, or of dangers if I could be assured that your eye
+was fixed upon your ultimate destination. So it is in the matter of
+health; and yet there are some general rules or principles which I
+might lay down for your consideration.
+
+In regard to the matter of diet. I do not want you to be hampered by
+"don'ts" and restrictions as to what you shall eat, but I do want you
+to eat with the thought in view that eating is to be governed by
+judgment and not by the pleasures of sense. Why do we eat? Not merely
+because the food tastes good. There is a better reason. We eat to
+live. We know that the food which we take into our bodies is digested,
+elaborated and assimilated--that is, made over into ourselves--and
+unless this digestion, elaboration and assimilation is properly
+conducted, we shall not be fully and completely nourished. Our body is
+made up of cells; the food which we eat is transformed into cell
+structure, and this new cell-material takes the place of the worn-out
+cells. Our reason would tell us that if too little material is
+furnished, cells will not be properly repaired and ill-health will
+follow. Our reason would tell us in the same way that if too much
+material is furnished, the machine will be clogged and the work will
+not be properly done. We will also understand at once that an
+irregular supply of new material would interfere with the elaboration
+of that which is undergoing the process of digestion and assimilation.
+We can see, too, that unless the various tissues receive the material
+which they can transform into themselves, they will not be fully
+repaired. If material is taken into the system which supplies no
+tissue with what it needs, this material becomes a source of
+irritation.
+
+These general rules borne in mind are sufficient to guide us into a
+wiser life than if we do not understand them; and, understanding
+these general principles, we will be anxious to study the particular
+rules which govern digestion and assimilation.
+
+I have known young women in college to be so absolutely ignorant or
+indifferent to physiological law as to be injuring themselves
+constantly by disobedience of such laws. I knew one girl, supposed to
+be a very fine student, and to have brought on "fits" by overstudy,
+while away at school. I had an opportunity to investigate the case,
+and I discovered that she had been eating from morning till night. She
+carried nuts, and candy, and apples in her pocket, had pickles and
+cake in her room, and studied and munched until it was no doubt a
+disturbed digestion, rather than an overused brain, that caused the
+"fits."
+
+If you will eat regularly of plain meat, vegetables, fruits, cereals,
+milk and eggs, plainly prepared, and avoid rich pastries, cakes,
+puddings, pickles and sweetmeats, you will have compassed the round of
+healthful diet, and need give yourself very little anxiety in regard
+to anything more. I should like to emphasize the fact, however, that
+tea and coffee are not foods. They are irritants, stimulants,
+nerve-poisons. They bring nothing to the system to build it up. They
+satisfy the sense of hunger without having contributed to the
+nourishment of the body. If you are wise you will avoid them. You
+will not create for yourself any false necessities. You will avoid
+the use of alcohol in all forms, whether wine, ales, beer or cider, as
+well as in the stronger forms, because you will know that these
+products interfere with digestion. Dr. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, has
+made an experiment which proved that sherry to the amount of 1 per
+cent. of the contents of the stomach retarded digestion nearly 4 per
+cent.
+
+He calculates that 1 per cent. of sherry would be equal to two tenths
+of 1 per cent. of alcohol, and it would be necessary to take less than
+an ordinary tablespoonful of the wine to obtain this percentage.
+
+When 3 per cent. of claret was used (equivalent to three-tenths of 1
+per cent. of alcohol), there was marked diminution in digestive
+activity. This certainly proves that even the so-called light wines
+are injurious, and certainly the drinks that contain a large per cent.
+of alcohol must be that much more hurtful.
+
+If you use good judgment both as to the quality and quantity of foods,
+you need then give the matter very little thought. People sometimes
+make themselves dyspeptics by worrying about what they eat. Eat what
+is set before you, making a judicious choice both as to variety and
+quantity, and then determine that your food shall digest.
+
+When you live upon the higher plane of thought, you will not be so
+much interested in the question of food as regards gustatory
+pleasure. You will understand that eating is a necessity, but you will
+not be thinking about it; you will not be desiring to please the sense
+of taste; you will see that there are higher forms of sociability than
+mere eating with friends, and you will not be so interested in late
+suppers, and in various forms of sense gratification because you enjoy
+more thoroughly the higher pleasures. You will serve your friends with
+delicate food, simply and daintily prepared, and seasoned with that
+wit and wisdom which remain as a permanent mental pabulum. You will
+make them feel that when you come to visit them you come not to get
+something to eat, but to enjoy them, to receive from them the
+inspiration which they can give. We often treat our friends as if we
+thought they came as beggars for physical food. It is a much higher
+compliment to treat them as though we thought they came to exchange
+thoughts with us, to walk with us in the higher paths of living, and
+that the physical food we give them is only incidental. I was once
+entertained where a company of intelligent, cultured people were
+assembled, and we did not see the hostess from the time we entered the
+house until supper was served. She sat at the table, worried and
+anxious, and after the supper was over she did not make her appearance
+until just as we were about to leave. She did not pay us the high
+compliment of giving us herself, but she bestowed upon us that which a
+hired cook might have given.
+
+You remember what Emerson says: "I pray you, O excellent wife, cumber
+not yourself and me to get a curiously rich dinner for this man and
+woman who have just alighted at our gate. These things, if they desire
+them, they can get for a few shillings at any village inn; but rather
+let that stranger see, if he will, in your looks, accents and
+behavior, your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, that
+which he cannot buy at any price in any city, and which he may travel
+miles and dine sparely and sleep hardly to behold."
+
+It would indeed be worth your while to study food scientifically, to
+know how to prepare dainty and tempting dishes wholesomely, and then
+to serve your guests with such beauty of manner, such graciousness of
+courtesy, that they will remember the meal they have taken with you as
+idyllic in its simplicity, beauty and helpfulness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SLEEP.
+
+
+Shakespeare writes of "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of
+care." The metaphor is striking, but not accurate. To knit up that
+which is ravelled implies using the old material in repairing the
+damage, but that is not the way in which the body is rebuilt. The old
+material is thrown out and new material put in its place, and that
+largely takes place during sleep. We have read of brownies who came at
+night and swept and churned and baked while the housewife slept. So,
+in our bodily dwelling, the vital forces are our brownies, and they
+can work more uninterruptedly while we are asleep than when we are
+calling on them to move us from place to place, or to aid us in
+various activities.
+
+Much of life's processes must remain a mystery to us, but certain
+things we have learned, and one is that perfect health cannot be
+maintained, strong nerves cannot be constructed, nor a clear brain be
+built without plenty of sleep. The baby sleeps almost continually
+because he is building so much new structure. The growing child needs
+more sleep than the adult; but even after reaching maturity sleep
+cannot be materially lessened without injury to the whole
+organization.
+
+We appreciate the need of food. We are often very needlessly alarmed
+for fear that we shall starve from one meal to the next, but few of us
+realize that food cannot be assimilated, built into tissue, without
+some hours in which the vital forces can devote themselves wholly to
+the work of assimilation. During the working hours of the day we are
+expending force. The brain is using it in thought, the muscles are
+calling for force in various activities, the emotions are expending
+energy, and each of these activities is creating changes in the cells
+of the body. We know that life in the body is only possible through
+constant death of the atoms of which it is composed. We can only live
+because we are constantly dying. Huxley says, "For every vital act,
+life is used up. All work implies waste, and the work of life results
+directly or indirectly in the waste of protoplasm (which is the cell
+substance). Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical
+loss, and in the strictest sense he burns that others may have light."
+
+Each word, thought, activity, emotion causes expenditure, and unless
+expenditure is in some way made good, there will be bankruptcy. How
+shall we get back the energy we have expended and so restore our vital
+forces to their equilibrium? The protoplasm of which our cells are
+made we can obtain from the protoplasm of animal and vegetable
+substances which we eat, but we cannot use the material unless we are
+sometimes at rest, and by quiescence of brain and muscle give a chance
+for worn-out cells to be removed and new material put in their place.
+It is when we lay our bodies down in the beautiful repose of slumber
+that this process can go on with most perfect results. Then, when all
+the forces can be concentrated on the process of nutrition, will
+nutrition be most perfect. When we awake refreshed after a night of
+sound sleep we are really fed. It is quite doubtful if, in a normal
+condition, we would want food until we had been at work some time and
+by destroying tissue have created a demand for more new material.
+
+If we were only half as anxious that food should be assimilated--that
+is, made over into ourselves--as we are that it should be put into the
+stomach, we would be very careful to secure for ourselves a due amount
+of good sleep. And what is a due amount? That depends. I once heard of
+a servant girl whose mistress complained of her because she did not
+get up early in the morning, and the girl's excuse was, "But, ma'am, I
+can't get up early because I sleep so slow."
+
+It seems a ridiculous statement, and yet there is a germ of truth in
+it. In some people the vital processes go on with such rapidity that
+the old, worn-out material will be eliminated and the new material
+built into the body in a comparatively short time. Seven hours of good
+sleep, perhaps, make them feel strong and rested and able to start on
+a new day's work with courage and ease. In others the vital processes
+are hindered or work feebly and slowly, and eight or nine hours of
+sleep scarcely suffice to complete the work of restoration. What is
+the obvious inference? Simply that each one shall judge for himself;
+but each should be wise enough not to confuse sleeplessness with
+having had sufficient sleep.
+
+Very frequently the loss of sleep makes it difficult or impossible to
+sleep, and not until the excited condition of nerves can be calmed,
+can refreshing slumber be obtained. Young women who attempt to be in
+school and in society at the same time often bring themselves into the
+condition of insomnia or sleeplessness, and foolishly fancy that
+because they do not sleep they do not need it.
+
+It is not at all difficult to understand that if you are constantly
+taking money out of the bank, you must also be constantly putting
+money in, or some day you will be told that your account is already
+overdrawn and your draft will not be honored. One can overdraw for a
+time, and right here is the danger with young people. They fancy,
+because they are not at once told that they are overdrawing, that
+their bank account is unlimited, and then, when it is too late, they
+find themselves on the verge, if not clear over the verge, of
+bankruptcy.
+
+How shall you know whether you sleep enough? If you will make it a
+rule to go to bed by ten o'clock every night, and go to sleep at once,
+and sleep soundly and waken with a clear head and a rested feeling,
+you may infer that you have slept enough. If you are still tired or
+dull, something is wrong. You may have been in bed long enough, but
+your room may not have been ventilated, and so you may be poisoned by
+breathing over and over again the emanations from your own body. Or
+for some reason the process of digestion and assimilation may not have
+been carried on, and poisons have been created instead of being
+eliminated.
+
+If you waken unrefreshed, I should want to inquire into your habits of
+life. Was there opportunity for fresh air to enter your room? Was
+there in it no uncovered vessel, no old shoes in the closet, no soiled
+underclothing, nothing that could contaminate the atmosphere? Did you
+eat a hearty supper late in the evening? Is your system oppressed with
+a superabundance of sweets? Are you living on simple, wholesome food,
+or eating irregularly of all sorts of trash? There may be many causes,
+you see, for your "tired feeling" in the morning, and instead of
+taking some "Sarsaparilla," or other drug, I should try to find out
+the cause and remove it.
+
+Many people are afraid of night air, and scrupulously shut it out of
+their sleeping-rooms, and yet, what kind of air can you get at night
+but night air? And is it not better to have pure night air from out of
+doors than the impure night air of a close room? I once went with two
+ladies to ascend the Rigi in Switzerland, in order to see the sun
+rise. One of these was a Polish countess, who took with her a little
+black-and-tan terrier. The hotel at the Rigi Staeffel was crowded, and
+we thought ourselves very fortunate to secure a room with three beds.
+The Countess disposed herself in one bed with her little dog, and I
+took one bed, saying to my friend, "You'll please open the window
+before you go to bed?" "O certainly," she replied.
+
+The little Countess sprang up in evident alarm. "Open the window!" she
+cried; "why, we'd all take our death of cold! I beg of you don't do
+it. I could not sleep a wink if the window were open."
+
+My friend spoke reassuringly to her, and she at length grew quiet,
+when my friend surreptitiously raised a window and we went to sleep.
+The next morning the Countess asked, with a strange air of
+incredulity, "Were you in earnest when you spoke about opening the
+window? Why, I never heard of such a thing in my life. I know I
+should have been ill if you had persisted in having the window open."
+
+My friend and I exchanged glances silently. We knew she was not ill
+and she had slept with the window open, but doubtless she would have
+been ill had she known it was open, for she had a wonderful
+imagination. When we were called at three o'clock to get up and go to
+the top of the mountain to see the sun rise, she turned herself
+luxuriously in her bed and said she could imagine it. She had taken
+this journey and "climbed the mountain" (that is, was carried up in a
+chair, with her dog in her lap), to see the famous sunrise on the
+Rigi, and then remained in bed and imagined it! Her imagination seemed
+entirely satisfactory, and so we did not quarrel with her.
+
+Sleep is the most positive beautifier, the best cosmetic. The term
+"beauty sleep" is no misnomer. Sleep freshens the complexion, smoothes
+out wrinkles, clears out the brain, strengthens the muscles, puts
+light into the eyes and color into the cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BREATHING.
+
+
+The first thing you did when you came into this world was to inspire,
+that is, to breathe in. The last thing you will do will be to expire,
+that is, to breathe out. And between your first inspiration and your
+last expiration there will have been the process of respiration, that
+is, breathing in and out at an average rate of twenty times a minute.
+Twenty times a minute means twelve hundred times an hour, or nearly
+thirty thousand times a day, or over ten million times a year. If you
+should live to be fifty years old, you will have breathed in and out
+over five hundred million times. We eat three times a day, twenty-one
+times a week, over a thousand times a year, fifty thousand times in
+fifty years, but we breathe over five hundred million times in fifty
+years.
+
+We realize the importance of eating, but we can live days without
+food. On the other hand, we cannot live many seconds entirely without
+air. We must infer from all this that breathing is more important than
+eating. How can it be? From our food our body is rebuilt. What
+life-process is accomplished by breathing?
+
+To understand this, we must learn what processes are going on in the
+body, by means of which food is converted into tissue, into heat and
+energy. These processes we find are chemical, and may be likened to
+the combustion of wood or coal in the furnace. We know that fire must
+have air in order to burn. Burning is the process of oxidation or
+combustion of oxygen with the atoms of fuel and the formation of a new
+substance thereby. Coal, we are told, consists of carbon and nitrogen,
+both of which readily combine with oxygen, and in the process of
+uniting heat is liberated, and waste compounds thus formed pass off
+through the smokestack or chimney. We may not understand this
+scientifically, but we know that if we want the fire to burn well we
+must give it draft or air.
+
+Our bodies are living engines, and use food and air instead of coal
+and air. Food in the body without air is like the coal in an engine
+without air; and air is useful only because it brings oxygen to unite
+chemically with the food. This process is going on all over the body.
+Each little microscopical cell is a furnace in which oxidation is
+taking place; and not only is energy liberated, but reconstructive
+processes are going on, new tissues are being formed, and old tissues
+removed.
+
+But how can the oxygen get to the cells in all parts of the body? We
+can readily see how it gets to the air-cells of the lungs, but it
+would do little good if it stopped there. It must be carried in some
+way to all the minutest cells of all the tissues. This is done through
+the breathing. The blood goes to the lungs, and there it gives out the
+waste material it has collected in its journey through the body and
+takes up oxygen. The blood goes to the lungs dark in color from its
+load of waste. It is changed to a bright red by taking up oxygen. Each
+red blood-corpuscle takes a load of oxygen, carries it to its
+destination, and gives it to some tissue to be used up in the chemical
+process of oxidation, upon which depends our life and energy. During
+the hours of rest the tissues are busy in this process, and during
+exercise the energy stored up in the tissue-cells is liberated and
+waste created. So we see that the process is a continual round of
+taking food and air, using them in rebuilding tissue, then using up
+the tissue by exercise and casting out the waste products. And now we
+can begin to understand that we live in proportion as we breathe. Dr.
+Holbrook says: "The activity of the child is in close relation to the
+strength of its lungs; so, too, is the calmness, dignity and power of
+a man in proportion to the depth and tranquility of his respiration.
+If the lungs are strong and active, there is courage and boldness; if
+feeble, there is cowardice and debility. To be out of spirits is to be
+out of breath. To be animated and joyous is to be full of breath."
+"Breathing," writes Dr. von der Deeken, "is an actual vivifying act,
+and the need of breath as felt is a real life-hunger and a proof that
+without the continual charging of the blood-column with the proper
+force, all the other vital organs would soon stagnate and cease action
+altogether."
+
+Now I wonder how many young women really know how to breathe. "Why,"
+you say, "we have always breathed!" And I reply, "So you have, to some
+extent; but do you really breathe, or do you just let a little current
+of air flow gently through a part of your lungs, not reaching the
+minute air-cells at all, or have you crippled a large part of your
+lung-power by the restrictions of tight clothing?" Now you shrug your
+shoulders and say, with a little irritation, perhaps, "O, now she is
+going to scold about corsets and tight-lacing, and I do not wear my
+clothes tight." But I am not now going to talk of lacing; I am going
+to talk about singing, and speaking, and real living. The highest
+class of living creatures are those that have most power to breathe.
+The cold-blooded animals breathe little, and are slow-moving creatures
+with deficient sensation and small powers of action. Man has large
+lung-capacity and should be full of life and power, and will be, if he
+understands himself. One benefit of exercise is the added impulse
+given to the heart and lungs, calling for more breath, and bringing
+more blood to the lungs to receive the added supply of oxygen.
+
+If we were wise we would practise the art of deep, voluntary
+breathing, as a daily form of gymnastics. What would it do for us?
+Wonderful things, if we may believe the doctors. Even in the old Greek
+and Roman times the doctors recommended deep breathing, the voluntary
+holding of air in the lungs, believing that this exercise cleansed the
+system of impurities and gave strength. And all our scientific
+discoverers have proven that they were right, and modern doctors have
+only learned more of the process and added to the wisdom of the
+ancients. Professor Lehwess says that he uses deep breathing not only
+as a health remedy but as a cure for muscular convulsions, especially
+chronic spasms; and he says that he bases his method for the cure of
+stuttering mainly upon respiratory and vocal exercises, "whereby," he
+says, "we work on enervated muscles, and make their function bring
+them into permanent activity and make them obedient to our will." Thus
+not only will the respiratory system be enlarged and quickened, and
+the lungs strengthened, but the blood circulation is promoted and
+those injurious influences overcome which often take away the
+stutterer's courage for speaking.
+
+Dr. Niemeyer, of Leipzig, urges breathing in these words: "Prize air;
+use good, pure air; breathe fresh air in your room by night and day."
+Dr. Bicking says that respiratory gymnastics are the only effectual
+remedy for pulmonary affection, especially for consumption. The
+Marquise Ciccolina claims that by the teaching of breathing gymnastics
+she has cured people of a tendency to take cold easily; she has
+benefited cases of lung and heart trouble, and she has cured nervous
+asthma even in cases that have lasted from childhood to maturity. Dr.
+Kitchen asserts that if the various structures of the body, including
+the lungs, are in a sufficiently healthy state, consumption cannot
+find a soil in which to commence its ravages, or, if already
+commenced, can be cured by attention to the general health, by pure
+air and deep breathing.
+
+All this proves that the breathing is of great importance--of just as
+much importance to women as to men. It used to be thought that women
+breathe naturally with the upper part of the chest and men with the
+abdominal muscles, but we have now learned that in the breathing of
+both men and women the diaphragm should be used and the lower part of
+the chest expanded. The breathing should neither be thoracic--that is,
+with the upper part of the chest--nor abdominal. It should be
+diaphragmatic; that is, with the expansion of the sides of the lower
+part of the chest, thus filling every air-cell and bringing the
+life-giving oxygen to the blood. The importance of the diaphragm as
+the breathing muscle cannot be overestimated. A diaphragm, you know,
+is a partition across a cylinder; the diaphragm is a muscular
+partition across the cylinder of the body, dividing the lungs from the
+abdomen. In breathing, the diaphragm becomes tense, and in becoming
+tense becomes also flattened, just as an umbrella does by being
+opened. In fact the opening and shutting of an umbrella gives a very
+good idea of the motion of the diaphragm in breathing. We can realize,
+then, how much larger around the body will be when the lungs are fully
+inflated than it is when we breathe the air out and the lungs are
+empty. A few minutes spent each day in exercising in diaphragmatic
+breathing would be of great advantage in increasing beauty of form, in
+giving strength and power to the voice, in improving the complexion
+and adding to the health, and therefore to the happiness. In taking
+these exercises, one should either stand erect or lie flat upon the
+back and draw the air in through the nose, keeping the mouth closed.
+Draw in gently, allowing the chest to expand at the sides, hold the
+air for a little time, and then breathe out slowly.
+
+These exercises performed in a room that is well ventilated, or,
+better still, in the pure air of outdoors, will do much toward driving
+away headaches, clearing the brain, giving better judgment, stronger
+will, and a clearer, happier, brighter disposition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HINDRANCES TO BREATHING.
+
+
+This little conversation will be on the hindrances to deep breathing,
+for if we make up our minds that it is so important to breathe deeply
+we shall be very anxious to know how to avoid the hindrances to deep
+breathing. First, let me speak of attitude. If you study physiology
+and note the arrangement of the internal organs, you will very easily
+see that when the body is compressed in a sitting attitude there must
+be a hindrance to full and deep breathing. The girl who is running the
+typewriter or the sewing-machine, or the girl who is working as
+bookkeeper or stenographer, or the girl at her studies, is sitting so
+that it will not be possible to breathe deeply, for the lungs are
+encroached upon by the crowding together of the other _viscera_ (which
+means the vital organs) and the action of the breathing muscles is
+impeded by compression. As you will readily observe, there can be no
+lifting of the chest in this compressed attitude, no complete
+flattening of the diaphragm, no full inflation of the minute
+air-cells; therefore, as we have learned, the blood is not thoroughly
+purified, and actual poisons created by the vital processes
+accumulate in the brain and tissues until you feel overpoweringly
+weary and stupid. You cannot think, because you cannot fully breathe.
+
+You have often found, when sewing, that the machine would get, as you
+say, bewitched. It wouldn't feed, the thread would break or the needle
+would snap, and the whole work go wrong. Put the machine away, take a
+rest, and the next day, without doing anything at all to the machine,
+you find that it runs perfectly. The trouble was with yourself. It is
+so with the girl who is running the typewriter. She finds that it
+makes mistakes in spelling, things go wrong altogether. It "acts up,"
+as she would say. So with the girl who is bookkeeper. The figures will
+not add themselves up right. Now if, under these circumstances, the
+girl would get up, go to the door, take a few deep breaths and expand
+the lungs fully, she would relieve the internal congestion consequent
+upon the cramped position, the brain would be freed from the
+accumulated poison, and as a consequence the troublesome problems
+would soon be solved, the typewriter would spell correctly, the
+figures would add themselves up accurately, and life would become
+brighter at once. Five minutes spent each hour in deep breathing of
+pure air would add both to the quality and quantity of work done, and
+so be a saving of time. This certainly is of great value to you in
+your work in the world.
+
+After working-hours are over, the girl should make a special effort to
+sit erect for other reasons than that of breathing, though that is
+reason enough.
+
+But wrong sitting-postures are not the only attitudes that interfere
+with deep breathing. Very often the position in standing is also
+objectionable. When one stands with the weight resting on the heels
+the body is thrown out of balance, and as a consequence the shoulders
+are not on a vertical line with the hips. In this attitude it is
+impossible to manifest fullness of life, because the lungs are not
+fully inflated with air at each breath. We live, enjoy, accomplish
+only in proportion to our breathing ability. As one writer says, "The
+deep thinker, the orator, the fine singer, must of necessity be a good
+breather."
+
+The most serious hindrance to deep breathing is found in the
+restrictions of the clothing. I do not say of the corsets, because
+tight bands or waists can also compress the body and make full
+breathing impossible. Of course you say your dresses are loose, and
+you run your hand up under your waist to prove it to me. I will not
+argue the question with you, but I will ask you to argue it with
+yourself.
+
+If breathing is the measure of your living and doing, then if, in the
+least degree, you limit by your dress your breathing, the dress is too
+tight. "Well," you ask "how shall I know if I am hindering my
+breathing? My dress feels comfortable. It seems to me that I breathe.
+Is there any way that I can prove whether my dress is tight or not?"
+
+It is true that one becomes accustomed to uncomfortable things and
+scarcely realizes that they ever were uncomfortable. The dress may
+seem a little tight when you first put it on, then it begins to grow
+comfortable, and after a while it feels loose, and you say it
+certainly is loose. I will give a simple rule by which you may know
+whether your clothing is loose enough or not. Unfasten every article
+of clothing; dress, corset, skirt-bands, everything. Now breathe in
+slowly until every air-cell is full. It may take some practice to do
+this, but persevere until you find the chest elevated and filled to
+its utmost extent. It should swell out at the sides along the line of
+the insertion of the diaphragm. There should be no heaving of the
+chest. Now, with the lungs so completely filled with air, bring your
+dress waist together without pulling a particle. Will it fasten
+without pressing out a bit of air from the lungs? If so, it is loose
+enough. If, however, you have to pull it together, even to the tiniest
+extent, you have pressed out some of the air. The minute air-cells
+that have thus been emptied cannot be again filled while the dress is
+fastened. Therefore you are defrauded of your rightful amount of air,
+and because part of the air is pressed out, the lungs take less space
+and the dress seems looser. You can understand how that would be.
+
+The trouble is that our dresses are usually fitted over empty lungs.
+The dressmaker pulls the dress together, squeezes the air out of the
+lungs, and fastens the dress. Now you can readily understand that it
+will be impossible to fill those air-cells so long as the dress is
+worn, and yet it may not seem uncomfortable, because we become
+accustomed to it. Nature has made us so that we can accustom ourselves
+to many things that are not absolutely healthful, but this should not
+make us willing to live unhealthfully when it is possible to avoid
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ADDED INJURIES FROM TIGHT CLOTHING.
+
+
+We have talked of the effect of tight clothing upon the breathing
+power. Let us see what other injuries arise from wearing the dress too
+tight. In the first place, the action of the heart is impeded. The
+heart is a hollow muscle which must be continually filled with blood
+and emptied again many times a minute from the moment of birth till
+the moment of death. You have been lying down for an hour; let me
+count your pulse. Now sit up for a few moments. I find, now, that it
+beats faster. Now stand up, and it beats still faster. You see, it
+increases continually as you get into the erect position. Now walk
+quickly across the floor and you will see how much it has increased
+again in rapidity.
+
+You will realize how much the dress interferes with the action of the
+heart better from an illustration. Professor Sargent made an
+experiment with a number of girls. One day they were dressed in
+perfectly loose clothing. He counted the pulse of each. It beat on the
+average of eighty-four times in a minute. He had them run five hundred
+and forty yards in the space of two and a half minutes. The pulse was
+again counted. It had increased to one hundred and fifty-six beats in
+a minute. This illustrates the effect of exercise even in loose
+clothing. The next day at the same time, dressed with a corset which
+reduced the waist to twenty-four inches, they ran the same distance in
+the same length of time, and then he found that the pulse had run up
+to one hundred and sixty-eight beats in a minute, showing how much
+harder it was for the heart to do its work when restricted by tight
+clothing. No acrobat would attempt to perform feats of strength or of
+agility if restricted even so much as by a belt.
+
+The Russian Government has issued an edict that the soldiers must wear
+their pantaloons held up by suspenders, for it has been demonstrated
+that when they wear them supported by a belt around the waist they are
+not able to do a fair amount of work. The Austrian Government has also
+decreed that the pantaloons of soldiers are not to be suspended by
+belts because of the increase of kidney difficulty caused thereby.
+
+We will understand why kidney difficulty is caused by tight clothing
+when we study the location of the kidneys and how they are affected by
+compression of the ribs. Most people think the kidneys lie low down in
+the back, but in reality they lie up under the short ribs, and the
+pressure of tight clothing brings the ribs to bear directly upon the
+kidneys, injuring them in such a way as often to cause disease.
+
+The heart and lungs are protected by a bony framework called the
+thorax, but below the thorax there is no protection for the internal
+organs except that of the muscles, therefore the corset or tight
+clothing can do most damage to the vital organs below the diaphragm.
+The largest of these is the liver. It should lie close up under the
+diaphragm, from which it is suspended. Under the influence of tight
+clothing it is often pressed over on the right side, sometimes
+extending over the whole front of the body, or even as low down as the
+navel. It is rutted by the pressure of the ribs. The corset liver is
+well known in the dissecting-room. Sometimes, where corsets are not
+worn and tight skirts are worn, supported by the hips, the liver has
+almost been cut in two, the pieces being only held together by a
+sufficient band of tissue to keep them from dying.
+
+When Hiram Powers, the great sculptor, was in this country, he once
+attended an elegant party, and was observed watching very intently a
+beautifully dressed, fashionable woman. A friend, noticing his
+interest, said to him, "What an elegant figure she has, hasn't she?"
+
+"Well," said Powers, "I was wondering where she put her liver."
+
+You see, Powers had studied the human body, and when he saw such an
+outline as the figure of a fashionable woman, he knew that some
+internal organ must be displaced in order to create that tapering
+waist, and his anxiety was for the internal organs. As an artist he
+did not admire the tapering waist, as is shown by the beautiful marble
+statue which he made. No artist would perpetuate in marble the figure
+of the fashionable woman.
+
+Not only is the liver thus displaced, but the stomach is often pressed
+out of its original position, which should be also close up under the
+diaphragm, towards the left side. By the pressure of clothing it is
+sometimes pushed down until it lies in the abdominal cavity, even as
+low down as the navel. This is the statement of Dr. J.H. Kellogg, who,
+in his sanitarium at Battle Creek, examines hundreds, or even
+thousands of women in a year, and asserts that it is almost impossible
+to find a woman whose stomach is where it belongs. This is a serious
+matter, because no organ can do its work properly when it is out of
+its rightful position. We understand this in any machinery except that
+of the human body. We would not meddle with a man-made machine because
+that would hinder its perfect working, but we do not hesitate to
+interfere with the body, forgetful that it, too, is a machine,
+divinely created, and with powers most fateful to us for weal or woe.
+
+But the harm is not all done by the displacement of the organs
+mentioned. The bowels suffer, and we can best understand what is done
+to them when we understand how they are placed in the abdominal
+cavity.
+
+Let me take the ruffle you are making. The mesentery is a delicate,
+narrow membrane about twenty feet long. We will compare it to the
+ruffle. Folded in it at one edge are the small intestines, just as I
+can run this bodkin into the hem of this ruffle. The other edge of the
+mesentery is gathered up as you have gathered the ruffle. It is
+gathered into a space of about six inches in length, and is fastened
+up and down the spine in the region of the small of the back. You can
+see, if I gather up twenty feet of this ruffle into a space of six
+inches, how the mesentery, with the intestines folded in the free
+edge, are held in the abdominal cavity. They are held loosely, and at
+the same time so that the intestines cannot be tied in knots or loops
+upon each other. In this way the ruffle flares out into the abdominal
+cavity. The intestines should stay in their place close up under the
+liver and stomach, but if pressure is brought to bear around the body
+at this point, the bowels begin to sag into the abdominal cavity. The
+abdominal walls lose their tonicity because they are so compressed
+that they cannot have a perfect circulation, the bowels sink down
+still further into the pelvis, and pull upon their attachment in the
+small of the back, creating backache. The stomach sags down into the
+cavity; the liver sinks, and all the organs pull upon their
+attachments; so it is no wonder that women have backaches and
+headaches, and their eyes feel bad, and they are unable to stand or
+walk. We don't want small rooms in our dwelling-houses, we don't like
+it if we haven't sufficient space for our furniture; but in this
+bodily house in which we dwell we are quite willing to constrict the
+rooms in which the vital organs or furniture are placed, until
+everything is huddled together in the closest pressure, so that the
+organs are unable to do their work. It wouldn't matter in our parlors
+if the chairs and tables were huddled close together, for they are not
+constantly changing in size, but it does matter in a room where
+machines must have space to work and such space is not permitted them;
+and we cannot expect good work where we crowd machinery so that it
+does not have adequate room.
+
+The influence of tight clothing upon the pelvic organs is to displace
+them and create a great many difficulties which we know as "Female
+Diseases." But these, in my opinion, are not the most important
+things. The important things are the displacement of the vital organs
+of the body--those organs without which we cannot live, and those
+organs the perfect working of which is necessary both to our health
+and our happiness. If we are wise we will be exceedingly anxious that
+every vital organ shall be allowed to hold its own position, to do
+its own work, with plenty of room.
+
+The impeding of the heart-action by tight clothing is not in itself
+the most serious effect of this restriction. The serious trouble is in
+the disturbance of the circulation. Upon a perfect circulation depends
+perfect nutrition. The blood must go in sufficient quantity to every
+organ in order that it may be fully nourished. When the waist is
+compressed the organs do not receive their full amount of blood. It is
+retained, and therefore the organs are congested. The feet are cold
+because the blood does not reach them in sufficient quantity, and the
+brain, it may be, is hot, because the blood is not taken from the head
+with enough rapidity and furnished to the other organs. So we find
+that tight clothing interferes with the integrity and health of every
+organ in the body, and consequently with our happiness and with our
+usefulness.
+
+The reason we admire the tapering waist is because we have been
+wrongly educated. We have acquired wrong ideas of beauty. We have
+accepted the ideals of the fashion-plate rather than those of the
+Creator. We find that some form of physical deformity maintains in
+almost every country. The Chinese deform the feet, and we think this
+is barbarous, but it is really not as serious as the deforming of the
+vital parts of the body. The Flathead Indian is deformed in babyhood
+by being compressed between boards until the head changes its shape.
+Among some savage nations the leg is bandaged for a few inches above
+the ankle and for a few inches below the knee and the central part is
+allowed to expand as it will, and this deformity to them constitutes
+beauty. Among other nations, holes are made in the ears and pieces of
+wood are inserted. The size of these pieces is gradually increased
+until the lobe of the ear will hang down upon the shoulder and a piece
+of wood as large as a man's arm be worn in the ears. All of these
+things seem to us most horrible; yet, after all, they are not as much
+an insult to the Divine Architect of the body as the deformity
+practised by civilized and so-called Christian people, who by
+restriction of the waist interfere with the vital organs and prevent
+the body from being perfect in its development, or perfect in its
+action. The activity of the body is an evidence of its life, and if it
+is so tied up that it cannot be active, it certainly is not in the
+fullest condition of life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+EXERCISE.
+
+
+You said to me, my daughter, that you wanted to join the class in
+Physical Culture. I asked you why, and you said because you thought
+you needed to build up in certain parts of the body. You were
+defective in muscular development; you needed also to acquire grace,
+you thought. And I said, "Is muscular development the primary object
+of physical education?" You seemed to think that it is. Now I want to
+talk to you a little along that line, and to demonstrate to you, if I
+can, that physical education is not primarily for the building up of
+big muscle, or for the gaining of power to do great feats of bodily
+strength or skill. The object of physical education is to develop a
+quickly responsive, flexible instrument for the soul to use, for that
+is what the body is. Physical culture, rightly conducted, aims to
+secure the highest condition of the body through the exercises that
+are required by the laws of the body. Law, physical law, governs the
+body, and exercise should be according to this law. The first object
+of exercise is to make a vital supply for the whole body. This is
+first secured by proper attitude. If we stand or sit properly we gain
+a proper position of the vital organs, and then they will do their
+work well, and the result will be more perfect nutrition.
+
+The use of certain organs increases supply, and the use of others
+quickens waste; a balance should be maintained between the two. We
+must nourish the life-sustaining organs before using the organs which
+use up brain-supply, therefore we want to be sure that we are working
+according to these laws. A great many people have an idea that
+physical culture means building up big muscle. They measure the
+muscles of the arm and of the leg, and judge by their increase in size
+of the value of the exercise. This is not a correct measurement.
+Individuals may weigh themselves down by development of muscles until
+they have not sufficient internal vital force to carry so much weight.
+If we could only balance between the organs which supply nutriment and
+the organs which use it up, we would keep in perfect health.
+
+We want to learn how to secure a maximum of results with a minimum of
+force. That is, we want the body to be quickly responsive, to be
+flexible, to be so that we can use it for the things we want to do
+without wasting strength, and yet without being weighed down by a
+superabundance of muscular tissue.
+
+The first desideratum in taking exercise is to have every organ of the
+body free, therefore a gymnastic dress is a necessity. Then we should
+have the exercise conducted by some one who understands the
+peculiarities of each individual and knows just what exercises are
+suited for her in her special physical condition. They should also be
+directed by one who understands perfectly that the girl with an anaemic
+brain, that is, with a brain having too little blood, cannot be
+conducted on the same plan as the exercise of the girl who has a
+superabundance of blood in the brain.
+
+The best exercise is that which employs the mind pleasantly. A good
+deal of exercise may be obtained in housework, and, if conducted with
+pleasure in the work, may be of great physical advantage. Not long ago
+I listened to a very charming talk by a lady whose dress betokened her
+a woman of society. She wore white kid gloves, a dainty flower bonnet,
+and in herself appeared an exponent of leisure and happiness. Her
+address was entitled "The Home Gymnasium," and I supposed that it
+would consist of descriptions of machinery that could be put up in
+one's own dwelling for gymnastic purposes, but I soon found that her
+home gymnasium meant household duties. She said one could scrub the
+table and obtain the best exercise for arms and chest, and at the same
+time produce an article or piece of furniture which would be a delight
+to the eye in its whiteness and brightness. She said that in
+scrubbing the floor one obtained very much the same movement that
+would be given in the gymnasium, while at the same time the exercise
+would conduce not only to the personal advantage but to the happiness
+of the family. She spoke of sweeping, and dusting, and bed-making, and
+expressed herself as competent to do all these kinds of work, in fact,
+as doing them. And she said she never felt more of a lady than when
+scrubbing her kitchen floor, and she was not ashamed to be seen by her
+friends at this work. If any one rang the door-bell, she said she
+would simply put on a clean apron and go to the door, and remark
+without hesitation that she was just scrubbing her kitchen floor, but
+she was glad to see her friends.
+
+This sort of a home gymnasium is at the command of nearly every girl,
+and if she can bring herself to feel an interest in this home
+gymnastic exercise, she may find it conducive not only to her own
+physical well-being, but to the comfort and happiness of all about
+her.
+
+The question is often asked whether bicycle-riding is injurious for
+girls, and I would say that in my opinion it depends largely upon the
+girl. Has she good common sense? Of course I am speaking of the girl
+who is in a normal condition of health. A girl of extreme delicacy, or
+who is subject to some functional difficulty, or the victim of some
+organic disease, might not find it advantageous to ride. A physician
+should, in these cases, be consulted. But for the ordinary girl, the
+girl of fairly good health, if she will learn how to sit properly upon
+her saddle, will have the good sense to ride with judgment, it seems
+to me that the exercise must be productive of great good.
+
+My own experience is somewhat limited. I made some discoveries in my
+attempts to ride. In the first place, I learned that it was important
+to know how to sit. In reading a book on "Physical Culture and Hygiene
+for Women," by Dr. Anna Galbraith, I found this sentence: "Sit upon
+the gluteal muscles, and not upon the perineum." This was a revelation
+to me. I found that I had been doing the thing which was not proper,
+and bearing the weight almost entirely upon the perineum had caused
+constant rectal irritation. The gluteal muscles, closely held
+together, form a firm support for the body without injuring any of the
+vital organs. I found that by distributing the weight--a little upon
+the handle-bars, and some upon the feet--I was able to sit with less
+weight and heaviness upon the saddle. I found, too, that it was quite
+important to have the saddle high enough, so that the legs might be
+fully extended at each stroke, and with these precautions I found the
+wheel a source both of enjoyment and of strength.
+
+The harm done by the wheel I believe in most instances to be due to
+an ill-adapted saddle or a lack of good judgment in the amount of
+exercise taken. It is such a fascinating exercise, one seems to be
+flying and scarcely realizes how much of nerve-force is being
+expended. If the girl learning to ride will be prudent, gauging the
+amount of exercise by her amount of strength; if she will gradually
+acquire the needed strength before attempting long wheeling trips; if
+she will be judicious and not ride, perhaps, during the first two or
+three days of menstruation, there seems to be no reason why the
+ordinary girl should not be entirely benefited by this most delightful
+form of exercise. It is not as objectionable, to any degree, as the
+exercise of dancing. Dancing is a most fascinating amusement, and if
+it only could be conducted under proper circumstances it would be very
+delightful. In itself it is not so objectionable as in its
+concomitants; the late hours, the improper dressing, the hearty
+suppers in the middle of the night, the promiscuous association and
+the undue familiarity of the attitude of the round dance are what make
+dancing objectionable. If dancing could be conducted out of doors, in
+the daylight, with intimate friends, without the round dances, only
+those forms of dancing which may be likened to gymnastics, as the
+contra-dance, the cotillion, the objections to dancing would be
+largely removed, but I am of the opinion that a large share of the
+fascination of dancing would go at the same time.
+
+Skating is a delightful, invigorating form of exercise, if conducted
+with judgment. One objection to it is that the girl will skate until
+wearied, and then, in that exhausted condition, perhaps ride home, or
+take a long, tiresome walk from the pond to her residence, all of
+which is sapping her unduly and annulling the value of the skating as
+an exercise.
+
+Lawn-tennis is delightful and beneficial, provided it is undertaken
+with due judgment and the girl is properly dressed. In fact, the
+subject of dress is so closely associated with that of exercise that
+they can never be considered separately. Even the moderate exercise of
+walking, conducted in the dress of the fashionable woman, is in itself
+an element of danger, whereas more violent exercise in a loose dress
+becomes a means of increased strength and vigor.
+
+I am often asked if girls should be allowed to run up and down stairs.
+I see no reason why girls should not go up and down stairs just as
+freely as boys, if they are properly dressed; but going up and down
+stairs in tight clothing is certainly very injurious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+BATHING.
+
+
+You and your girl friends take much pains with your personal
+adornment. You spend time in curling your hair and in putting on
+ribbons and laces, but I sometimes think you do not pay as much
+attention to personal cleanliness as you ought. It would seem as if
+some of you thought that powder would cover a defect in cleanliness
+and perfumery would conceal the odors of the person; but indeed it
+seems to me that the stylish make-up of your dress or the curl of your
+hair is of very little importance compared with the care of your
+health.
+
+You each desire to have a beautiful complexion. I used to be told in
+my childhood that beauty was only skin-deep, but I have learned
+better. I know that even the beauty of the complexion depends upon the
+integrity of the nutritive organs as well as upon the care and
+attention given to matters of personal cleanliness.
+
+I read the other day of a discussion between two young men concerning
+the cleanliness of girls of their acquaintance. One young man noticed
+that although one of the girls wore a very pretty dress-gown, she had
+forgotten to clean her finger-nails. The other remarked that many
+things in regard to a girl's personal cleanliness could be learned by
+riding behind her on a tandem. The two then commented favorably upon
+the girl whose nails were pink, whose ears and neck were clean, her
+teeth white and dazzling, and her hair well brushed. I might say, in
+passing, that this hair-brushing time at night may be well employed in
+reviewing the experiences of the day in order to learn the lessons
+they teach, and thereby to avoid to-morrow the mistakes of to-day.
+
+These same young men also said that the complexions of some girls
+suggested the idea of too little fresh air and too much candy. This,
+they agreed, it was impossible to hide with powder. So we see that the
+care of the skin is quite important if one would have the respect and
+the admiration of her associates.
+
+The skin is a very beautiful, complex and delicate covering of the
+body. It consists of six layers, and contains arteries, capillaries,
+lymphatics, nerves, sweat glands, sebaceous glands, pigment, etc. So
+you see that the care of the skin involves much. One writer has said,
+"At the skin man ends and the outlying universe begins."
+
+The skin, filled with nerves, is continually reporting to the brain
+concerning what is the condition of all parts of the body. The
+condition of the skin reflects the condition of the digestive organs.
+Many girls are trying to cure pimples on the face by the use of salves
+and lotions, when in all probability all that they would need to do to
+gain a good complexion is to pay attention to diet, to quit eating
+between meals, and not to eat so much pastry, pickles or sweetmeats.
+Our athletes and pugilists are learning that they must take care of
+the skin if they would keep in good condition, and they are what in
+horses would be called well groomed. The skin is rubbed, cared for,
+kept active, because it is understood that it is an organ of
+sensation, of secretion, of excretion, of absorption, and of
+respiration. More solid matter is thrown out from the skin than from
+the lungs, in the proportion of eleven to seven. It is even more than
+the excretion from the bowels.
+
+The skin is an organ of breathing. This seems strange to us, but it
+really does take up oxygen and give out carbonic acid, so upon the
+condition of the skin will depend very largely the condition of the
+general health. We can detect a constipated condition of the bowels
+through the color and odor of the skin.
+
+Many girls feel that it is more delicate to neglect the care of the
+bowels than to attend to a daily evacuation, but if they would
+remember that it is just as indelicate to carry effete or dead matter
+about in the bowels as it would be to carry it upon the person in any
+other way, they would realize that it is only politeness and
+refinement to see that this part of their bodily housekeeping is duly
+attended to. If the bowels do not do their work the skin will be
+obliged to take extra labor upon itself; so, as we have said, by the
+odor of the skin we can detect the fact that the skin is doing the
+work that should be done by the bowels. When a person is sick the
+condition of the internal organs is shown in the complexion, and
+nothing more clearly indicates health than the condition of the skin.
+
+If this is so important, how shall we care for the skin? First, by
+bathing. The tin bath-tub of the Englishman accompanies him in all his
+travels, and has penetrated even to the jungles of Africa. Bathing
+appliances are marks of civilization, and the bath-room is becoming a
+necessity. Where the bath-room does not exist it is easy to bathe
+thoroughly and completely. A wash-basin of water, with a sponge and
+towel, furnish all that is absolutely necessary. A most convenient
+bath is the portable thermal bath, an arrangement of rubber cloth that
+can be opened out to form a square enclosure in which the person sits,
+with the head in the free outside air, the body enveloped in steam
+generated by an alcohol lamp. This, followed by a quick sponge-bath of
+cool water, is a most efficient way of cleansing the skin; and this
+bath may be used in any room, no matter how beautifully furnished,
+without soiling the carpet or furniture in the least.
+
+One great secret of healthful bathing is, when warm or hot water is
+used, to follow it by an immediate application of cold water, which
+leaves the skin in a tonic condition. In preparation for going out in
+cold weather, nothing is so efficient a protection from the cold as a
+foot-bath. Soak the feet for a few minutes in water as warm as is
+comfortable, then plunge them into cold water and remove immediately,
+or throw cold water over them, wipe them thoroughly dry, rub them with
+a little olive oil, draw on a pair of clean, warm hose, and the feet
+are not only warmed, but are protected against cold and will stay
+warm. These precautions will prevent one taking cold from the
+foot-bath. Care of the feet is a great necessity not only for health,
+for equalizing the circulation, but for the prevention of unpleasant
+odors.
+
+As to time of bathing, I suppose that the body is at its highest point
+of vital power at about ten o'clock in the morning, but this is, for
+most people, the most inconvenient time for a bath. The circumstances
+of the individual are to be consulted, and also the effect of bathing.
+There are those who are made nervous by taking a bath, consequently
+they will not be benefited by taking one just before going to bed. In
+other cases the bath conduces to slumber. This depends very largely
+upon the amount of blood in the brain. A person with an anaemic brain
+will not be benefited by the bath at bedtime, but the person whose
+brain is overcharged with blood will find the evening bath quieting.
+
+I would not advise everybody to take a daily bath. There are those who
+are benefited by it; there are others who might be injured by it. It
+is best to study personal peculiarities and to watch the effect of the
+bath. If, within a few hours, or the next day, there is great
+exhaustion, one might naturally conclude that the bath was not
+altogether beneficial. There are those in such delicate health that a
+cold bath at any time does not seem desirable; but constant attention
+will secure perfect cleanliness, as the arms and chest can be bathed
+one day, the abdomen and back another, the lower extremities still
+another day, and so the whole body be compassed twice or more in the
+space of a week.
+
+In regard to the use of soap for bathing purposes, the finest, purest
+soaps should be used, and these alone. It is generally supposed that
+pure, white castile soap is the best. Various soaps are widely
+advertised, while some that claim to be of the very best are not
+always up to the requisite standard. Yet one can tell by a little
+experience what soap is of pure quality, and such soap can be applied
+even to the face without injury.
+
+In washing the face the hand is probably the best instrument, with the
+thumb under the chin, the fingers turned toward the upper part of the
+face. The manipulation should be against the direction of forming
+wrinkles, wherever there is a tendency for wrinkles to appear. They
+can be held in check by the judicious manipulation of the fingers in
+the opposite direction. Wrinkles are created by obliterating the
+capillary circulation of the skin. The manipulation increases the
+circulation, and so tends to overcome wrinkles. The expression of the
+face may form wrinkles. I saw a girl the other day on a street-car who
+continually held her eyebrows elevated, forming longitudinal lines
+across her forehead, which had become as fixed in her youthful face as
+if she had been seventy years of age. This was a lack of care in the
+governing of the expression of the face, and also a lack in keeping up
+the capillary circulation.
+
+The care of the hands may be considered also while discussing the
+question of bathing. The hands should be kept clean, the finger-nails
+particularly cared for, as much of the beauty of the hands depends
+upon the delicate appearance of the finger-nails. The manicure sets,
+which are at the disposal of almost every young woman of the present
+day, are a very great addition to toilet appurtenances. The curved
+scissors, the polisher, the blunt ivory instrument for pushing back
+the fold of skin from the root of the nail, all of these used but a
+few moments in the day will conduce to great beauty in the hands, even
+for those who are doing housework.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+NEED OF SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE; SOME FORMS OF AVOIDABLE DISEASE, THEIR
+REMEDY AND PREVENTION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CREATIVE POWER.
+
+
+It is a wonderful thought that God shares His divine endowments with
+man; that He, being our Father, hath bestowed upon us the power to
+manifest His characteristics. We are proud of these Godlike powers. We
+talk of our Godlike reason, and it is divine. We know that God
+reasons. We have evidence of it in the material world about us, and
+when we use our reason we are "thinking God's thoughts after Him."
+
+God has the marvelous power of imagination, using that word in its
+noblest sense. He has the power to conceive something in thought
+before it actually exists. He must have seen all the glories of the
+material universe, worlds upon worlds circling through space, moon and
+stars, the beauty of forest and stream, of tinted flower and
+iridescent insect wing before they were brought into being, and He had
+the power to create them. Man has this wonderful gift of imagination.
+The inventor sees the machine in his thought before he attempts to
+build it. The poet has the germ of his poem in mind, even the rhythm
+and rhyme, before he puts it on paper. To the imagination of the
+artist the canvas glows with color before his brush has touched it.
+The sculptor, looking at the rough block of marble, sees within it the
+imprisoned shape of beauty which his genius shall liberate to delight
+the world. The musician hears, singing through his brain, the
+marvelous harmonies which, put upon paper, shall entrance all hearers.
+Certainly this glorious gift of imagination is Godlike. But it would
+be useless if it were not accompanied by creative power. The inventor
+must be able to create as well as to imagine the engine. The poet, the
+musician, the artist fails of deserving the name if he cannot embody
+his thought in a form that others may recognize. He must not only
+imagine, but create. In some degree every intelligent human being has
+these powers. The housewife imagines her dinner before she prepares
+it, and a well-cooked dinner, placed upon a well-appointed table with
+care and taste, manifests something of the ability of the inventor and
+the artist. The same may be said of her who designs and creates an
+elegant costume, or arranges a room with taste and skill.
+
+We appreciate the housewife's culinary creation; we admire the
+tasteful creation of the dressmaker; we wonder at the glorious
+creation of artist or musician; perhaps we even envy them. But food
+and clothing pass away and are forgotten. Even the grand symphony, the
+beautiful picture, the graceful statue, may pass into oblivion, and
+man forget that they ever existed.
+
+But humanity is endowed with creative powers that are not transient.
+The brains builded by the individual are transmitted to his posterity
+from generation to generation.
+
+God's greatest power is that of conferring life, sentient life. We
+might have imagined that that marvelous power he would have kept for
+Himself alone, but He has not done so. We have also the power to
+confer life. We can call into existence other human beings, and endow
+them with the record of our own lives, giving to them our form, our
+features, our measure of vitality, our tendencies, our habits; and
+these human beings whom we have thus called into life will never die.
+What diviner, more responsible gift could God have conferred upon us
+than this? What more worthy of our devout study? In this reverent
+attitude of mind let us study this gift of creative power, learning
+what we may of its scope and purpose and the material organs through
+which it works.
+
+In your study of physiology in school you took up the organs of
+individual life. You studied the framework of the body, its machinery,
+its internal vital mechanism. You studied about digestion, nutrition,
+respiration, elimination, and in this you learned nothing of physical
+differences between individuals. All were considered as having the
+same organs, used in the same way. Girls have the same number of
+bones as boys, the same number of muscles, of vital organs. They
+sleep, breathe, eat, digest, grow, according to the same plan. So far
+there seems no reason why there should be any distinction of male and
+female. But as we come to study what is called special physiology we
+discover physical differences and reasons for their existence.
+
+There are certain differences of form that are discernible at a
+glance. Men are usually larger than women. They have heavier bones and
+bigger muscles. They have broad shoulders and narrow hips, and have
+hair upon the face. Women have smooth faces, more rounded outlines,
+narrower shoulders and broader hips. In man the broadest part of the
+body is at the shoulders, in woman at the hips. This is significant of
+a great fact which will be manifest to you when you understand the
+functions of each sex. Although each has the same general plan of
+individual life, there are special functions which determine the trend
+of their lives. The man's broad shoulders are indicative that he is to
+bear the heavy burdens of life--struggles for material support--and
+woman's broad hips indicate that she is to bear the heavier burden of
+the race.
+
+When we come fully to understand the deep significance of sex, we
+shall find in it a wonderful revelation of possibilities of
+development into a God-likeness that will stir our hearts to their
+very depths.
+
+Humanity so weak, so lacking in appreciation of his possibilities, so
+groveling when he should soar, has been endowed with powers that give
+him control over the destiny of the race. We may well exclaim, with
+Young:
+
+ "How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
+ How complicate, how wonderful is man!
+ How passing wonder He who made him such!
+ Who centred in his make such strange extremes!
+ From diff'rent natures, marvelously mix'd!
+ Connection exquisite of distant worlds!
+ Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain!
+ Midway from nothing to the Deity!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BUILDING BRAINS.
+
+
+When you were born you were, as all babies are, deaf, dumb, blind, and
+helpless, but immediately the external world began to act upon you.
+Then began the process of mind-building. You began to experience
+sensations of heat and cold, of hunger, of pain. The eyes began at
+once to recognize the light, the ears to become aware of sounds. After
+a time, objects were made clear to your sight and certain sounds were
+recognized. You learned your mother's face and voice, and, little by
+little, became acquainted with all the objects in the world of home.
+You began to use your limbs, and in this also you were at work
+building your mind. We do not sufficiently realize that every aimless
+movement of the baby has in reality a great purpose--that of creating
+brainpower sufficient to enable the baby to control itself in all its
+voluntary movements. We do not think that the fluttering hands and
+little kicking feet are really building brains, but this is so. And
+all of life's experiences have been building brain for you ever since.
+
+Professor Elmer Gates tells us that only about ten per cent. of our
+brains are cultivated, that there is a vast field of brain
+possibilities lying undeveloped in each one of us, and that these
+possibilities are to be developed through cultivation of the senses.
+So while I have been talking to you of the care of your body, I have
+been advocating that which will in reality develop mind.
+
+We have learned that certain areas of brain govern certain movements
+of body. For example, anatomists know not only where the general motor
+area is located, but they can indicate the very spot where any special
+motor-force is generated.
+
+In the case of a mill girl who was subject to epilepsy and had pain in
+her right thumb at each attack, it was decided to remove the part of
+the brain which governed the motions of that thumb. This they could do
+because they knew just where that motor-center lies, and yet they were
+able to take out no more than that, for when the wound was healed she
+had full use of all of her hand except the thumb.
+
+We may know that by exercising a certain organ we are building up a
+certain part of the brain. For example, the man who has cultivated his
+hearing until he can hear sounds inaudible to ordinary men, has made
+for himself more brain-cells in the hearing area. If he has cultivated
+his sight assiduously, he has created more visual cells. If his touch
+has been cultivated, his brain has received new touch
+sensation-cells. And Professor Gates asserts that his mental ability
+has been thereby increased. You will be interested in hearing of his
+experiments with animals and what he has learned therefrom.
+
+He says he has demonstrated that it is possible to give to an animal
+or a human being more brains, and consequently a better use of the
+mental faculties. During twelve months, for five or six hours a day,
+he trained dogs to discriminate colors. He placed several hundred tin
+pans, painted different tints, in the yard with the dogs. At one time
+he put their food under pans of a certain tint. When they had learned
+to go at once to these pans for their food, he changed the color.
+Again he arranged it so that they would receive an electric shock if
+they touched pans of any color save the particular one. They soon
+learned to avoid all the pans except those of this tint. So, by many
+different methods, he trained them to recognize shades and tints until
+they could discriminate between seven shades of red and as many shades
+of green, and in many ways they manifested more mental ability than
+any untrained dog. While these dogs were being trained, another group
+of dogs were being deprived of the use of sight by being kept in a
+darkened room.
+
+At the end of the year both groups of dogs were killed and their
+brains dissected. He found that the dogs kept in the darkness had
+less than the usual number of cells in the seeing areas, and the cells
+were smaller, while the dogs which had been trained to discriminate
+between tints and shades of color many times a day had a far greater
+number of larger and more complex brain-cells in the seeing areas than
+any dog of that age and species ever had before. "Therefore," says
+Professor Gates, "mind activity creates organic structure."
+
+Prof. Gates discovered other things of equal importance. He carried
+his observations to successive generations, and found that the fifth
+generation was born with a far greater number of brain-cells than
+could be found in animals not descended from trained ancestors.
+
+This is not only interesting, but of value. You will remember, in our
+talk concerning your value, we spoke of your value to the race, and
+learned that in cultivating yourself in any direction you were adding
+to the welfare of future generations. That was only a general
+statement, and now you can see how it can be. You see that if you can
+make more brains for yourself you are also making more brains for your
+posterity. Or if you fail to make brains for yourself, posterity will
+in like degree be defrauded.
+
+Many people have the idea that we are obliged to be satisfied with our
+dower of mental ability, and so are excusable for failing to reach as
+high a level as some others. If we really believed that we could
+create brains we would not sit down and sigh over small mental
+capacity, but go to work at once in building minds for ourselves.
+
+And first, we must learn to control our thoughts and make them go
+where we send them. In too many cases thoughts wander here and there,
+with no power governing and guiding them.
+
+When we are sauntering in the wood we sometimes come upon pathways,
+and we know at once that many, many footsteps of men or animals have
+been needed to make the paths. If those who walked here had wandered
+each in his own way, no path would have been made. One pair of feet
+going often over the same ground will make a path. So the thoughts,
+traversing the same areas of brain, will make records on the
+brain-cells which we may call paths. Every time a thought follows the
+same line it creates a deeper impression, and makes it easier to go
+over the same territory again. In this way habits are formed. If the
+thoughts are good, the habits will be good; if evil, the habits will
+be bad.
+
+It is not hard to understand how much easier it is to form a habit
+than to overcome it. The emotions, like the thoughts, create habits;
+but, more than this, they create actual physical conditions.
+
+It was my pleasure and profit once to have a conversation with
+Professor Gates in his laboratory, and he showed me an instrument
+wherein he condenses the breath. He then subjects it to a chemical
+reagent, and by the precipitate formed he knows what was the mental
+condition of the individual, whether he were angry, sorrowful or
+remorseful. In five minutes after a fit of anger he finds the
+excretory organs beginning to throw out the poison which anger has
+created. Only five minutes suffice to create the poison, but half an
+hour is none too much to eliminate it.
+
+Think what must be the bodily state of one who is constantly irritated
+or angry, who feels jealousy, hatred, or revenge. With body poisoned
+by these malevolent passions he cannot feel well, for his physical
+organs cannot do good work unless fed by pure blood. Professor Gates
+finds that the benevolent emotions create life-giving germs in the
+body; so, to love others is not only helpful to them, but it also
+gives us new life.
+
+Anger, worry, hatred, jealousy, are suicidal emotions. We cannot for
+our own sakes afford to indulge in them, while from selfish reasons
+alone we should be incited to kindness, generosity, sympathy, and
+love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+YOU ARE MORE THAN BODY OR MIND.
+
+
+We have talked of your body and your mind, but as yet not of yourself.
+You are not body; you are not mind; but you possess both. You are
+spirit, created by God, who is spirit; therefore you are His child.
+You may not have thought much of this fact, but that has not changed
+the fact. No failure to recognize God as your father changes His
+relationship to you. No conduct of yours can make you any less His
+child.
+
+"Well," you may say, "if that is so, what does it matter, then, what I
+do? If disobedience or sin cannot make me less God's child, why should
+I be good and obedient?" Because, dear heart, your conduct changes
+your attitude towards Him. You might not know that I am your mother;
+you might know it and choose to disobey my wishes; yet in both cases I
+should still be your mother, and no more or less in one case than in
+the other. But you will have no difficulty in understanding that in
+one case you would be a loving, helpful, obedient daughter, a comfort
+and delight to me; in the other, a disobedient, willful, unloving
+daughter, a care and trouble.
+
+We are God's children, each of us, dependent on His love and bounty
+for protection, food, friends, intellect, even life. Is it dignified
+and noble in us to ignore and disobey Him? Indeed the most worthy and
+dignified thing we can do is to recognize ourselves as God's children
+and be obedient. It is a wonderful glory to be a child of God. It
+means that we have Godlike powers. The children of human parents are
+like them in their capacities. Children of God must have capacities
+that are Godlike.
+
+This is true even of the most ignorant or degraded. They have in
+themselves divine possibilities.
+
+If you can get this thought fully engrafted into your consciousness,
+it seems to me you can never willfully do wrong, can never condescend
+to a mean or ignoble deed, because you recognize your divine
+inheritance, and feel compelled by it to live truly, nobly.
+
+Being children of God puts on us certain obligations towards Him, but
+it also puts on God certain obligations towards us. "What!" you say;
+"God the Infinite under obligations to man, the finite? The Creator
+under obligations to the created?" Oh, yes.
+
+We recognize the fact that human parents are under obligations to care
+for their children, to protect them, to educate them, to give them
+opportunities. Even such are the obligations of God towards His human
+children, and He fulfills them. All our earthly blessings are from His
+hand. Home, friends, shelter, food, are gifts of His love. He takes
+such minute care of us that if for one second of time He would forget
+us, we should be annihilated. He educates us. He does not send us away
+to a boarding-school where we hear from Him but seldom, but He has a
+home-school where He is both Father and Teacher, and His methods of
+instruction are divinely wise.
+
+The injudicious love of earthly parents often induces them to do for
+their children things it would be far better to let the children do
+for themselves. I once knew a boy of seven years, as intelligent as
+the ordinary child, who had never been allowed to go down stairs alone
+in his life for fear he would fall. This unwise care of the parents
+had resulted in the child's being timid, fearful, and unable to care
+for himself. He would cry if he fell, and would lie still sobbing
+until some one came to pick him up and quiet him with caresses. At the
+same time I saw a boy of four who could run up and down stairs, go to
+the store alone to make purchases, and who, if he fell, would jump up
+quickly, saying, "O, that didn't hurt." Which child had been better
+protected--the one who had been cared for by an overindulgent parent,
+or the one who, by judicious stimulation to self-help, had learned to
+care for himself?
+
+God teaches us how to help ourselves, and circumstances of life which
+we so often think hard and cruel are only the means by which we are
+being trained to be strong. The things we call failure, worriment, and
+hardship, are only the little tumbles by which we are learning to
+walk.
+
+The heathen philosopher, Seneca, says: "God gives His best scholars
+the hardest lessons." We know how proud we would feel if our
+school-teacher would say, "This is a hard problem, but I believe you
+can solve it." We would be stimulated to work night and day to justify
+his confidence in our ability. But when a little trial comes in life
+we are quite apt to say, "God is so hard in His dealings with me. Why
+should He be so unkind?" instead of saying: "These hard things of life
+are a test of my scholarship, and are an evidence of my Teacher's
+confidence in my ability."
+
+I would like you to get this thought fixed in your mind so firmly that
+you will feel sure that all circumstances of life are but lessons in
+God's great school, and, rightly used, will be the means of promoting
+you to higher grades.
+
+No scholar wants to stay always in the primary department because it
+is easy there. He welcomes each promotion, although he knows it means
+harder lessons and new difficulties. He looks forward to college or
+university with pride, even though lessons grow harder and harder.
+
+God's school of earthly life has in it all grades of advancement. Will
+you be a studious, courageous scholar and try to learn life's lessons
+well? It is such a wonderful thing to be a child of God, for that
+means to be an heir of God, an heir of His wisdom, His strength, His
+glory, His powers. "All things are yours," says Paul; "life, death,
+things present and things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's,
+and Christ is God's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY.
+
+
+With a feeling of reverence for ourselves we now take up the subject
+of special physiology to learn what makes us women. In the study of
+general physiology we find very few physical differences in the sexes,
+but when we come to investigate what is called the reproductive system
+we find entire difference of structure and of function.
+
+Boys and girls in early childhood are much alike in their
+inclinations. They both love activity--to run, to climb, to shout, to
+laugh, to play. If left to themselves one sees not much more
+difference between boys and girls than between different individuals
+of the same sex. But as they grow and develop they begin to take on
+characteristics that indicate the evolution of sex.
+
+The boy grows rapidly in height, his voice breaks, the signs of a
+moustache appear, he seems constrained and embarrassed in society, and
+yet he begins to show more politeness towards women and more of an
+inclination to be gallant to girls. He is becoming a man, and assumes
+manlike airs. Often, too, he becomes restless and willful, hard to
+govern, self-assertive, with an assumption of wisdom that provokes
+laughter from his elders. The boy is passing through a serious crisis
+and needs much wise and loving care. There are inner forces awakening
+that move him strangely; he does not understand himself, neither do
+his friends seem to understand him. Sometimes they snub and nag him,
+sometimes they tease and make fun of him. In either case he does not
+find home a happy place, and frequently leaves it to seek more
+sympathetic companionship elsewhere.
+
+I once spoke to an audience of women and girls along this line, and
+appealed to the mothers and sisters to be kind to the boys in their
+homes who were between twelve and eighteen years of age, to remember
+that they were passing through the critical period of transition from
+boyhood to manhood, and to try and help them by sympathy and kindness.
+Some time later, as I was on the train, a young lady came and sat down
+by me and said: "I want to thank you for what you said to us the other
+day about boys. I have a brother about sixteen, and we have done just
+as you said; we have teased him about his moustache, and his voice,
+and his awkwardness, and laughed the more because it seemed to touch
+him. He had gotten so that he never would do anything for us girls,
+and we called him an old bear. Since I heard you I concluded that we
+had done wrong and I would make a change, so that evening I said
+kindly, 'Charlie, don't you want me to tie your cravat? I'd like to,
+ever so much.' I shall never forget the surprised look he gave me. It
+seemed as if he could not believe that I, his sister, wanted to do
+something to please him, but as soon as he saw I really meant it he
+accepted my offer with thanks, and since then it seems as if he could
+not do enough for me. Really I have almost cried to think that so
+little a thing would make him so grateful. I have invited him to go
+out with me several times, and he seems so glad to go. Then I've begun
+to make things for his room--little fancy things that I never thought
+a boy would care for--and he has appreciated them so much. Why, he
+even stays in his room sometimes, now, instead of going off with the
+boys. And the other day, when one of the boys came to see him, I heard
+him say, 'Come up and see my room,' and the other boy said, 'Well, I
+wish some one would fix up _my_ room in such a jolly fashion.'
+Really," said the girl, "if you have done nothing on your trip but
+what you have done for me, in showing me how to be good to my brother,
+it has paid for you to come."
+
+I often think of this little incident when I see boys at this critical
+age who are snubbed and teased just because they are leaving the land
+of boyhood to begin the difficult climb up the slopes of early manhood
+towards the grander height of maturity; and I wish all parents,
+sisters and older brothers would manifest a sympathy with the boy who,
+swayed by inner forces and influenced by outward temptation, is in a
+place of great danger.
+
+The girl at this period is also passing through a crisis, but this
+fact is better understood by her friends than is the crisis of the
+boy's life. Her parents are anxious that she shall pass the crisis
+safely, and they have more patience with her eccentricities. She, too,
+often shows nervousness, irritability, petulance, or willfulness. She
+has headaches and backaches, she manifests lassitude and weariness,
+and is, perhaps, quite changed from her former self. She weeps easily
+or over nothing at all. She is dissatisfied with herself and the whole
+world. She feels certain vague, romantic longings that she could not
+explain if she tried. She inclines toward the reading of sensational
+love stories, and if not well instructed and self-respecting may be
+easily led into flirtations or conduct that later in life may make her
+blush to remember. Certain physical changes begin to be manifest. She
+increases rapidly in height, her figure grows fuller and more rounded,
+her breasts are often sore and tender. Hair makes its appearance on
+the body, and altogether she seems to be blossoming out into a fuller
+and riper beauty. She is changing from the girl to the woman, and this
+is a matter of sex. At this time the organs of sex, which have been
+dormant, awaken and take on their activity, and it is this awakening
+which is making itself felt throughout her whole organization.
+
+We are sometimes apt to think that sex is located in certain organs
+only, but in truth sex, while centralized in the reproductive organs,
+makes itself manifest throughout the whole organization. I used to
+feel somewhat indignant when I heard people talk of sex in mind, and I
+boldly asserted that it did not exist, that intellect was neuter and
+had no reference to sex; but I do not feel so now. When I see what an
+influence the awakening of sex has upon the entire body and upon the
+character, I am led to believe that sex inheres in mind as well. That
+does not mean that the brain of one sex is either inferior or superior
+to the other; it means only that they differ; that men and women see
+things from different standpoints; that they are the two eyes of the
+race, and the use of both is needed to a clear understanding of any
+problem of human interest.
+
+You know that the true perspective of objects cannot be had with one
+eye only, for each eye has its own range of vision, and one eye can
+see much farther on one side of an object than the other can. You can
+try this for yourself.
+
+If, then, in viewing the vital problems of life we have the man's view
+only or the woman's view only, we have not the true perspective. We
+cannot say that either has superior powers of vision, but we can say
+that they differ, as this difference is inherent in them as men and
+women, and not merely as individuals.
+
+Instead, then, of looking at sex as circumscribed, and perhaps as
+something low and vulgar, to be thought of and spoken of only with
+whispers or questionable mirth, we should see that sex is God's
+divinest gift to humanity, the power through which we come into the
+nearest likeness to Himself--the function by which we become creators
+and transmitters of our powers of body, mind, and soul.
+
+It is important that a young woman should understand her own structure
+and the functions of all her organs, and so, with this feeling of
+reverence for sex, we will begin this study.
+
+The trunk of the body is divided into three cavities; the upper or
+thoracic cavity contains the heart and lungs; the central or abdominal
+cavity contains the organs of nutrition, the stomach, liver, bowels,
+etc.; the lower or pelvic cavity contains two organs of elimination,
+the bladder and the rectum, and also the organs of reproduction, or of
+sex. Between the outlet of bladder and bowels is the inlet to the
+reproductive organs. This inlet is a narrow channel called the vagina,
+and is about six inches in length. At the upper end is the mouth of
+the womb or uterus. The words mean the same, but womb is Anglo-Saxon
+and _uterus_ is Latin, and as Latin is the language of science, we
+will use that word. The uterus is the little nest or room in which the
+unborn baby has to live for three-fourths of a year. It is a small
+organ, about the size and shape of a small flattened pear. It is
+suspended with the small end downwards, and it is hollow. It is held
+in place by broad ligaments that extend outward to the sides, and by
+short, round ligaments from front to back. These ligaments do not hold
+it firmly in place, for it is necessary that it should be able to rise
+out of the pelvic into the abdominal cavity during pregnancy, as the
+baby grows too large to be contained in the small pelvic space.
+
+On the posterior sides of the two broad ligaments are two small oval
+organs which are called ovaries, meaning the place of the eggs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+BECOMING A WOMAN.
+
+
+Perhaps you will remember that I once told you that all life is from
+an egg, the life of the plant, the fish, the bird, the human being. In
+the book "What a Young Girl Ought to Know" we discussed how all life
+originates in an egg, and why there must needs be fathers as well as
+mothers. We found that some eggs were small, were laid by the mothers
+in various places, and then left to develop or to die. Others were
+larger, covered with a large shell, and kept warm by the mothers
+sitting over them until the little ones were hatched. Others were so
+small that they developed in the mother's body until, as living
+creatures, they were born into the world. This is the case with the
+human being. He is first an egg in the mother's ovary. When this egg
+has reached a certain stage of development it passes from the ovary
+through a tube into the uterus. If it meets there, or on its way
+there, the fertilizing principle of the male, it remains there and
+develops into the child. If it does not meet this principle, it passes
+out through the vagina and is lost.
+
+But the eggs, or ova--which is the Latin word meaning eggs--do not
+begin to ripen until the girl reaches the age of thirteen or fourteen,
+or, in other words, until she begins to become a woman. This passing
+away of the ovum (singular of ova) is called ovulation, and it occurs
+in the woman about every twenty-eight days. The uterus is lined by a
+mucous membrane similar to that which lines the mouth, and at this
+time of ovulation this membrane becomes swollen and soft, and little
+hemorrhages, or bleedings, occur for three or four days, the blood
+passing away through the vagina. This is called menstruation.
+
+Sometimes, when girls have not been told beforehand of the facts of
+menstruation, they become greatly frightened at seeing this blood and
+imagine that they have some dreadful disease. If they have no friend
+to whom they can speak freely they sometimes do very injudicious
+things in their efforts to remove that which to them seems so strange
+and inexplicable. I have known of girls who washed their clothes in
+cold water and put them on wet, and so took cold and perhaps checked
+the menstrual flow, and as a consequence were injured for life, or may
+even have died years after as a result of this unwise conduct.
+
+The girl who is wisely taught will recognize in this the outward sign
+of the fact that she has reached womanhood, that she has entered upon
+what is called the maternal period of a woman's life, the period when
+it is possible for her to become a mother.
+
+This does not mean that she should become a mother while so young. It
+only means that the sex organs are so far developed that they are
+beginning to take up their peculiar functions. But they are like the
+immature buds of the flower, and need time for a perfect development.
+If she understands this, and recognizes her added value to the world
+through the perfecting of her entire organism, she will desire to take
+good care of herself, and during these years of early young womanhood
+to develop into all that is possible of sweetness, grace, purity, and
+all true womanliness.
+
+Girls who are not wisely taught sometimes feel that this new physical
+function is a vexatious hindrance to their happiness. It is often
+accompanied with pain, and its periodical recurrence interferes with
+their plans for pleasure, and they in ignorance sometimes say,
+rebelliously, "O, I hate being a woman!"
+
+A young woman once came to consult me professionally. She was a
+well-formed, good-looking girl, to all outward appearance lacking
+nothing in her physical make-up; but she was now twenty-two and had
+never menstruated, so she was aware that for some reason she was not
+like other girls. She came to ask me to make an examination and find
+out, if possible, what was wrong. She was engaged to be married, and
+knew that motherhood was in some way connected with menstruation, and
+she thought it might be possible that her physical condition would
+preclude the possibility of her becoming a mother, and, if so, it
+would be dishonorable to marry. Upon examination I discovered that all
+the organs of reproduction were lacking. When I disclosed this fact to
+her she exclaimed, with sadness, "Oh, why was I not made like other
+girls? I have heard them complain because they were girls, but I think
+if they were in my place, and knew that they could never have a home
+and children of their own, they would feel they had greater reason
+then to complain."
+
+I think so, too. We seldom think of the fact that upon sex depend all
+the sweet ties of home and family. It is because of sex that we are
+fathers, mothers and children; that we have the dear family life, with
+its anniversaries of weddings and birthdays. It is through sex that
+the "desolate of the earth are set in families," and love and
+generosity have sway instead of selfishness. For this reason we ought
+to regard sex with reverent thought, to hold it sacred to the highest
+purposes, to speak of it ever with purest delicacy, and never with
+jesting or prurient smiles. I do not want you to center your thought
+on the physical facts of sex, but I would like to have you feel that
+womanhood, which is the mental, moral and physical expression of sex,
+is a glorious, divine gift, to be received with solemn thankfulness.
+
+I want you, for the sake of a perfect womanhood, to take care of your
+bodily health, and yet I do not want you to feel that a woman must of
+necessity be a periodical semi-invalid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ARTIFICIALITIES OF CIVILIZED LIFE.
+
+
+Menstruation is a perfectly physiological process and should be
+without pain. Indeed, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi maintains that a woman
+ought to feel more life, vigor and ambition at that period than at any
+other time. As a fact, however, the majority of civilized women feel
+more or less lassitude and discomfort, and many suffer intensely.
+Whenever there is actual pain at any stage of the monthly period, it
+is because something is wrong, either in the dress, or the diet, or
+the personal and social habits of the individual. We certainly cannot
+believe that a kind and just God has made it necessary for women to
+suffer merely because they are women, and the observation of travelers
+among uncivilized peoples seems to indicate that where life is
+conducted according to nature's laws, the limitations of sex are less
+observable.
+
+It is difficult for us to understand how very far our lives are from
+being natural. Professor Emmett, a world-renowned specialist in
+diseases peculiar to women, says: "At the very dawn of womanhood the
+young girl begins to live an artificial life utterly inconsistent with
+normal development. The girl of the period is made a woman before her
+time by associating too much with her elders, and in diet, dress,
+habits and tastes becomes at an early age but a reflection of her
+elder sisters. She may have acquired every accomplishment, and yet
+will have been kept in ignorance of the simplest features of her
+organization, and of the requirements for the preservation of her
+health. Her bloom is often as transient as that of the hothouse plant,
+where the flower has been forced by cultivation to an excess of
+development by stunting the growth of its branches and limiting the
+spread of its roots. A girl is scarcely in her teens before custom
+requires a change in her dress. Her shoulder-straps and buttons are
+given up for a number of strings about her waist and the additional
+weight of an increased length in skirt is added. She is unable to take
+the proper kind or necessary amount of exercise, even if she were not
+taught that it would be unladylike to make the attempt. Her waist is
+drawn into a shape little adapted to accommodate the organs placed
+there, and as the abdominal and spinal muscles are seldom brought into
+play they become atrophied. The viscera are thus compressed and
+displaced, and as the full play of the abdominal wall and the descent
+of the diaphragm are interfered with, the venous blood is hindered in
+its return to the heart."
+
+Since Professor Emmett wrote this, public sentiment has changed, and
+it is no longer unladylike for girls to exercise; but with this
+increased freedom in custom should also come increased physical
+freedom through healthful clothing that allows perfect use of every
+muscle, more especially of the breathing muscles. I am sure you would
+rather pay out your money for that which shall add to your health and
+real happiness than to pay physicians to help you from suffering the
+just penalty of your own wrongdoing, and that is why I am anxious to
+give you this needed instruction. I do not care to have you study much
+about diseases, but I want you to understand very fully how, through
+care of yourself, to prevent disease.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SOME CAUSES OF PAINFUL MENSTRUATION.
+
+
+There should be no pain at menstruation, but that pain is quite common
+cannot be denied. Let us look for other causes than are found in the
+dress.
+
+One frequent cause is found in the ignorance of girls, and their
+consequent injudicious conduct at the time of the beginning of sexual
+activity. At this time of life the girl is often called lazy because
+she manifests lassitude, and this is nature's indication that she
+should rest. The vital forces are busy establishing a new function,
+and the energy that has been expressed in bodily activity is now being
+otherwise employed. The girl who has been properly brought up, whose
+muscles are strong, and whose nervous supply is abundant, may have no
+need of especial care at this time, but the average girl needs much
+judicious care, in order that her physical womanhood shall be
+healthfully established. She should be guarded from taking cold, from
+overexertion, from social dissipation, and especially from mental
+excitement, and other causes of nervousness. I would like to call your
+attention to the great evil of romance-reading, both in the
+production of premature development and in the creation of morbid
+mental states which will tend to the production of physical evils,
+such as nervousness, hysteria, and a host of maladies which largely
+depend upon disturbed nerves.
+
+Girls are not apt to understand the evils of novel-reading, and may
+think it is only because mothers have outlived their days of romance
+that they object to their daughters enjoying such sentimental reading;
+but the wise mother understands the effects of sensational reading
+upon the physical organization, and wishes to protect her daughter
+from the evils thus produced.
+
+It is not only that novel-reading engenders false and unreal ideas of
+life, but the descriptions of love-scenes, of thrilling, romantic
+episodes, find an echo in the girl's physical system and tend to
+create an abnormal excitement of her organs of sex, which she
+recognizes only as a pleasurable mental emotion, with no comprehension
+of the physical origin or the evil effects.
+
+Romance-reading by young girls will, by this excitement of the bodily
+organs, tend to create their premature development, and the child
+becomes physically a woman months, or even years, before she should.
+
+In one case it became my duty to warn a girl of eleven, who was an
+omnivorous reader of romances, that such reading was in all
+probability hastening her development, and she would become a woman in
+bodily functions while she ought yet to be a child. Her indications of
+approaching womanhood were very apparent. By becoming impressed by my
+words she gave up romance-reading, devoted herself to outdoor sports,
+to nature studies, and the vital forces diverted from the reproductive
+system were employed in building up her physical energy, her health
+improved, her nervousness disappeared, and three years later her
+function of menstruation was painlessly established.
+
+A frequent cause of painful menstruation is found in habitual neglect
+of the bowels. The evils of constipation are common to the majority of
+women and girls, and the foundation is laid in childhood. Mothers are
+not careful enough in instructing children in the need of care in this
+respect, and so the habit is formed early in life, and the results are
+felt later.
+
+If the bowels are not evacuated regularly the matter to be cast out of
+the body accumulates in the rectum and large bowel, and by pressure
+the circulation of the blood is impeded and congestion ensues. This
+extends to all the pelvic organs; the uterus and ovaries thus
+congested will soon manifest disease, and painful menstruation be the
+result.
+
+One of the most frequent causes of pain is congestion produced by
+displacements. People are very apt to think that the displacement of
+the uterus is the main factor, but in my opinion it is a secondary
+condition, and not the one to be first considered. The uterus is a
+small organ, not vital to the individual, is very movable, and not
+sensitive, so that its displacement alone could hardly be considered
+sufficient to cause so great a train of evils as is frequently
+manifest. But the liver, stomach and bowels are large, vital organs,
+and their displacement leads to greater consequences. You learned at
+school that the bowels are over twenty feet in length, weigh as much
+as twelve or fifteen pounds, are supported in a way that makes it
+possible for them to sag into the abdominal cavity and press upon the
+pelvic organs. Dr. Emerson, of the Boston School of Oratory, asserts
+that in most adults the stomach and bowels are from two to six inches
+below their normal location; and, as I have said before, Dr. Kellogg
+often finds the stomach lying in the abdominal cavity as low down as
+the umbilicus. What has caused this sagging of the abdominal viscera?
+They certainly must have been intended to keep their place unless
+there has been some interference. We find just such interference in
+the ordinary arrangement of the clothing. Tight waists and bands, and
+skirts supported by the hips, are cause sufficient for these
+displacements.
+
+Just above the hips there is no bony structure to protect and support
+the soft, muscular parts. They yield to pressure, and the internal
+viscera, deprived of muscular support, sink until they rest on the
+pelvic organs. If, when you look at your abdomen, you see depressions
+or hollows on each side below the floating ribs, you may know that the
+bowels have sagged down out of place. If you feel great weariness,
+backache, or a dragged down feeling in standing or walking, you may
+know that the contents of the abdomen are pulling on their attachments
+or pressing on the pelvic organs. Thus displaced, circulation is
+hindered and the organs all become congested, or filled with blood
+that moves very slowly. This congested condition is increased at
+menstruation, and great pain may result.
+
+It is well to have the counsel of some good, honest physician under
+such circumstances, but should you be where it is not possible to have
+such counsel, you may still be able to do something to help yourself.
+In the first place, you can rearrange your clothing so as to relieve
+all the organs from external weight or pressure, and, in the second
+place, you can support the abdominal walls by applying pressure from
+below. I have known cases of painful menstruation entirely relieved by
+simply supporting the bowels by a bandage, thus relieving the uterus
+of pressure and allowing a free circulation through all the internal
+organs.
+
+A very simple and practical bandage can be made at home at almost no
+cost, either in time or money. Buy some thin, cheap cotton flannel.
+Take lengthwise of the goods a strip long enough to go around the body
+at the hips, which will be a yard or a little over, and wide enough to
+fit from the thighs up to the waist, perhaps eight inches. Put darts
+on the sides and in the center of the back, to make it fit the figure.
+Make a couple of straps four inches wide and half a yard long; cut off
+one end of each diagonally. Sew these slanting ends to the lower side
+of the band about four inches from the center, that is eight inches
+apart, and so that the short side of the strap will be towards the
+center. Do not hem either band or straps, but overcast them; then they
+will not feel uncomfortable.
+
+In order to adjust the band properly it will be well to lie down on
+the back upon the bandage with the knees raised. Press the hands low
+down upon the abdomen and raise the contents. Repeat this several
+times; then draw the bandage around, pin with safety pins, draw the
+straps up between the limbs and fasten with safety pins to the
+bandage. The support thus given is found to be very comfortable, and
+girls who have much trouble in walking or standing during their
+menstrual periods would find this simple bandage a great help at that
+time.
+
+When the bandage is removed at night you should rub and manipulate the
+abdominal walls so as to increase the circulation and stimulate in
+them a better circulation and thus make you stronger.
+
+By deep breathing in a proper standing attitude the abdominal viscera
+are lifted upward, and if the firmness of the abdominal walls is at
+the same time increased by exercise, the difficulties may be largely
+overcome. Some exercises will be found in Chapter XXIII. which are
+calculated to strengthen the walls and to lift the internal organs.
+
+I wish to call your attention to a cause of displacement that is quite
+generally overlooked, and that is, a wrong attitude.
+
+Dr. Eliza Mosher has made a very thorough study of this matter, and
+she says that the common habit of standing on one foot is productive
+of marked deformities of both face and body and of serious
+displacements of internal organs. It is seldom a girl or woman can be
+found whose body is perfectly symmetrical. By standing on one foot,
+the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen
+the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support
+has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down
+until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the
+side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is
+stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so
+the uterus remains permanently dislocated.
+
+Dr. Mosher thinks that standing continually with the weight on the
+left foot is more injurious than bearing it on the right foot, for it
+causes the uterus and ovaries to press upon the rectum and so produces
+a mechanical constipation, especially during menstruation.
+
+Wrong habits of sitting will produce the same results. If the girl
+sits at school with one elbow on the desk, the head will be turned to
+the opposite side and the spine will be inclined from the
+perpendicular, and a lateral curvature be likely to result. If she
+carries her books always on the same side, it will tend to increase
+the curvature. If she sits with both elbows supported, her shoulders
+will be pushed up. If her body is twisted as she sits, a strain comes
+upon the muscles, and some ligaments will be lengthened and others
+shortened, thus producing a lateral curvature.
+
+To sit "on the small of the back," that is, slipping down in the
+chair, bracing the shoulders against the chair-back, tends to injure
+the nerves by pressure, and also to create a posterior curvature of
+the spine.
+
+Does it not seem unfortunate that we should allow ourselves even to
+form such wrong habits of sitting and standing? And now we ask, How
+shall we know when we are in a correct attitude?
+
+We have comparatively few correct examples to imitate. I notice people
+everywhere, and I see that old and young stand incorrectly. The head
+is poked forward, the shoulders are rounded, the chest is flattened,
+and the curve in the lower part of the back is straightened. The whole
+figure is out of balance, and therefore not harmonious. Not only is
+the beauty of the figure destroyed, but the internal organs are
+displaced. Many a mother who sees her daughter thus growing
+round-shouldered keeps telling her to throw her shoulders back; but to
+follow this command only increases the difficulty. The shoulders are
+not primarily at fault, but the trouble originates in non-use of the
+front waist muscles. These muscles, weakened by disease because of
+tight clothing and corset steels, and also by cramped positions in
+school or at work, refuse to hold the body erect, and it "lops" just
+at this point. This "lopping" disturbs the harmonious relation of the
+weights of shoulders, abdomen, head, and the large lower gluteal
+muscles with which nature has cushioned the lower part of the body,
+and so they are obliged to readjust themselves to balance each other,
+and the awkward, ungainly, unhealthful posture results.
+
+What is needed is to restore the right relation of these weights and
+all will again be harmonious. Do not interfere with the shoulders, but
+straighten the front of the body by elevating the chest and raising
+the head until it is supported directly on the spine, letting the
+shoulders take care of themselves. If the abdomen is now held back and
+the gluteal muscles raised, the beautiful curves of the spine will be
+restored, the shoulders will be straightened, and the internal organs
+will have a chance to resume their natural position.
+
+A very easy way of finding out if you have the correct attitude is to
+place your toes against the bottom of the door. Now bring your chest
+up to touch the door, and throw the lower part of the spine backward
+so that there will be a space between the abdomen and the door. Place
+the head erect, with the chin drawn in towards the neck, and you will
+have very nearly the correct attitude. It may seem a little tiresome
+at first, because you will be apt to hold yourself in position with
+needless tension of muscles, but you will soon learn to relax the
+unnecessary tension, and then you will find the position the most
+comfortable possible. You can walk farther without fatigue, and stand
+longer without backache, because the body is placed in the attitude in
+which all parts occupy their designed relation to each other.
+
+One very important fact is that in the wrong attitude the abdominal
+organs crowd down into the pelvis, while in the correct position they
+are supported and kept from sagging, so that the matter of a correct
+attitude is not only a matter of beauty, but also of health.
+
+In sitting, also, the most comfortable posture is the most healthful;
+that is, with the body squarely placed on the seat, and equally
+supported upon the pelvis--not leaning back against the chair, unless
+the chair should chance to be so constructed that it supports the
+lower part of the back and keeps the body erect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"FEMALE DISEASES."
+
+
+We hear a great deal in these days of "female diseases," by which is
+meant the displacements of the organs of the reproductive system; that
+is, of the uterus, ovaries, etc. These displacements are many, for the
+uterus may not only drop down out of place, but it may be tipped
+towards one side or the other, to the front or the back; or it may be
+bent upon itself in various directions. These different displacements
+cause much pain, and often result in ulcerations and profuse
+discharges which are known as the "whites," or scientifically as
+leucorrhea.
+
+I only mention these things incidentally, so that I may call your
+attention to the things you may do to prevent them.
+
+A great many girls and women are spending large sums of money in being
+doctored for these difficulties who need not suffer with them at all
+if they had known how to dress healthfully; and many are bearing much
+anxiety over the possibility of becoming sufferers with these
+distressing diseases who could have their burden of fear removed by
+the knowledge that "female diseases," in the great majority of cases,
+are the results of wrong habits of dress and life. Leucorrhea is not
+a disease. It is a symptom of abnormal conditions, and to be cured it
+is needful that the conditions shall be understood.
+
+Dr. Kellogg says, "Leucorrhea may result from simple congestion of the
+bloodvessels of the vaginal mucous membrane, due to improper dress. It
+may also be occasioned by taking cold, and by a debilitated condition
+of the stomach."
+
+Leucorrhea is merely an abnormal increase of a normal secretion. All
+mucous membrane secretes mucus in small quantities--enough to keep the
+membrane moist. When from any cause this secretion is increased, we
+have what is called a catarrhal condition. As all cavities that
+communicate with the air are lined with mucous membrane, this
+catarrhal condition may exist in the nose, the throat, the eyes, the
+ears, the bowels, or the reproductive organs, and will be named
+according to the location.
+
+A natural increase of this secretion takes place just before and after
+menstruation, and should occasion no anxiety, but if continued during
+the remainder of the month, especially if very profuse, of offensive
+odor, or bloody in character, it needs the attention of the skilled
+physician.
+
+I do not wish to make you think constantly of yourself as diseased,
+and so I do not give you directions as to local self-treatment. Many
+symptoms can be overcome by general care of the health-habits of the
+girl, and if they do not yield to this general care it is better to
+consult a responsible physician than to tamper with yourself.
+
+And here let me give you a word of warning. If you need medical care,
+never consult the traveling doctors who advertise to do such wonderful
+things. They charge big fees and give a little medicine and then move
+on, and you have no redress if they have not accomplished all that
+they have promised. They live off the gullibility of people. Again,
+never take patent medicines. Wonderful discoveries, favorite
+prescriptions and the like may be harmless, and they may not. And even
+if they are, how can you judge that they are suited to your special
+case? That they cured some one else is not proof that they will
+benefit you, and you run a risk by taking them as an experiment. One
+very serious danger in the taking of patent medicines is the fact that
+they are so largely alcoholic in composition, and girls and women have
+all too often been led into the alcohol habit and become habitual
+drunkards through taking some advertised remedy.
+
+Another has correctly said: "If you need the consultation and advice
+of a physician go to your family physician, or, if you prefer, go to
+some other physician; but always select one whose moral character and
+acknowledged ability render him a suitable and safe adviser in such a
+time of need. Above all things avoid quacks. The policy they pursue is
+to frighten you, to work upon your imagination, and to make such
+alarming and unreliable statements as will induce you to purchase
+their nostrums and subject yourself to such a series of humiliations
+and impositions as will enable them to pilfer your purse and without
+rendering you in return any value received, but likely leave you in a
+much worse condition than they found you."
+
+You will probably be advised by your personal friends, who may know of
+your ailments, to take hot douches, and perhaps you may wonder why I
+do not prescribe them for leucorrhea, and kindred difficulties.
+
+I do not commend them for the fact that I do not want you to be
+turning your constantly anxious thought towards yourself in these
+matters. If you need such treatment, let it be prescribed by your
+physician, who knows exactly your condition. As far as possible turn
+your thoughts from the reproductive system. Take care of your general
+health, dress properly, obey all the rules of hygiene in regard to
+diet, sleep, bathing, special cleanliness, and care, and then forget
+as far as possible the physical facts of womanhood.
+
+An excellent addition to your general bathing can be taken once a week
+in the form of a sitz bath, which is effective for cleanliness, and
+also for the reduction of congestion. If you have no sitz bath-tub,
+an ordinary wash-tub can be made to answer by raising one side an inch
+or two by means of some support. Have the water at a comfortable
+temperature, say about 98 degrees, and if you have no thermometer you
+can gauge the heat by putting in three gallons of cold water and add
+one gallon of boiling water. Sit down in the tub and cover yourself
+with a blanket. In about ten minutes add by degrees a gallon of cold
+water. Remain sitting a minute or two longer, then rub dry.
+
+Many people are afraid to use cold water after hot, in bathing, for
+fear they will take cold, but that is just the way to prevent such a
+result from the hot bath. The hot water has caused all the pores on
+the surface of the body to open, and the bodily heat is rapidly lost
+through this cause. The cold water, quickly applied, causes the pores
+to close, leaves the skin in a tonic condition, and conserves the
+bodily heat. One should never take a hot bath without following it
+with a _quick_ cold application to the surface. It should continue,
+however, but for a moment.
+
+This kind of a bath is very useful for all chronic congestions of the
+abdominal and pelvic viscera, such as piles, constipation, painful
+menstruation, leucorrhea, or other affections of the reproductive
+organs. It is also very helpful in headaches due to congestion of the
+brain. If there is too little blood in the brain it might produce
+wakefulness, but when the brain is too full of blood this bath tends
+to produce sound and refreshing sleep.
+
+A foot bath may be taken at the same time as the sitz bath, and in
+this case the water should be warmer than that in the sitz bath, and
+as the person rises from the sitz bath she should step into it, so
+that her feet will get the tonic effect of the cold water.
+
+The average age at which menstruation first appears is fourteen, but
+some girls menstruate as early as eleven, while others may not develop
+till some years later. Frequently, when the girl does not manifest
+this symptom of womanly development, the mother becomes anxious and
+begins to give forcing medicines. She knows that girls often die with
+consumption in their early young womanhood, and has heard that it was
+because they did not physically develop, and she fears that such
+danger threatens her daughter, and imagines that if something can be
+done to "bring on her courses," as she expresses it, the danger will
+be averted.
+
+In this case she has reversed cause and effect. The consumptive girl
+did not menstruate because she had not the vitality to do so. The
+consumption was the cause, the non-menstruation the effect. To produce
+hemorrhage from the reproductive system by strong, forcing medicines
+is only to increase the danger. The only thing to do is to improve the
+general health, and if the girl can increase in strength until she
+has more vital force than suffices to keep her alive, the function
+that is vital--not to her, but to the race--will establish itself.
+
+The failure of the menses to appear at the average age may be due
+merely to a slow development, and in this case there is nothing to do
+but wait. If the girl seems well, if she has no backache, no headache,
+no general lassitude, no undue nervous symptoms, the mere
+non-appearance of the menses need occasion no alarm. If, however, she
+has these symptoms, it is an evidence that nature is attempting to
+establish the function and is hindered either by general lack of
+vitality or by some local condition, and in either case the giving of
+forcing medicines would be a mistake. The weekly sitz bath would do no
+harm as a semi-local measure. All proper precautions should be
+observed as to maintenance of general health and mental serenity, and
+if these do not prove sufficient the physician should be consulted.
+
+In the case I mentioned, where the reproductive organs were lacking,
+the girl had been subjected to a long course of home medication which
+had proven disastrous to her digestion, and yet, as will be readily
+understood, had not resulted in the establishment of a function that
+is dependent upon organs which, in this case, did not exist.
+
+Sometimes there are slight mechanical hindrances which can only be
+determined by the physician, though their presence will be indicated
+by the symptoms of menstruation without the accompanying sanguineous
+discharge. In these cases the home medication is dangerous. If the
+girl regularly has symptoms of approaching menstruation, with pain and
+bloating, and these subside without flow, it would be wise to consult
+the physician instead of resorting to domestic remedies or letting the
+matter go on without attention.
+
+Quite frequently the first appearance of menstruation is followed by
+weeks or even months of freedom from its reappearance. In these cases
+no alarm need be felt as long as the general health is not affected.
+Again, there may be suspension of the function from change of
+surroundings. Girls who go away to school often suffer from
+irregularity. I have known of a case where the girl never menstruated
+during the school year, but was perfectly regular during vacations.
+
+These cases may be accounted for by the nervous strain, the using up
+of vital forces in mental effort to such degree that there is nothing
+left with which to carry on the menstrual function. In all such cases
+it is wise to watch carefully the general health, and if all functions
+are not properly conducted, to reduce the strain until the vitality is
+able to keep all functions in order.
+
+Girls are sometimes disturbed because the flow is scanty, and think
+they should do something to increase the amount. It is no doubt true
+that profuse menstrual flow is the result of our artificial lives. If
+we lived more normally we should have naturally a scanty menstrual
+flow. Therefore if a girl has good health and no monthly pain and the
+flow is scanty, she may consider herself as more nearly in a normal
+state, and be thankful.
+
+If, however, the menses are suddenly less than normal it denotes a
+suppression, which may be the result of cold, exhaustion of body,
+weariness of nerves, mental anxiety, or disturbance of the emotions.
+
+If gradual suppression occurs, accompanied by loss of health, it
+indicates some constitutional difficulty or local trouble which
+demands professional counsel.
+
+Profuse menstruation is also a relative term, as there is no definite
+standard as to amount of menstrual flow, nor the length of time it
+should continue. The profuseness must be measured by the condition of
+the individual. Where health seems fully maintained there would appear
+no cause for anxiety. But if there is a marked increase over the
+amount usual for the individual, if great weakness and prostration is
+produced, either at the time or afterward, it may be called profuse,
+and the cause may be either debility, that is weakness, or plethora,
+which means fullness. If from the latter, there will be throbbing
+headache, pain in the back, and general signs of fever. If from
+debility, there will be pallor, weakness, and perhaps an almost
+continuous flow.
+
+As may be imagined, the treatment in the two cases will differ. The
+full-blooded girl should be put on a plain, unstimulating diet, with
+plenty of out-door exercise during the month, but about twenty-four
+hours before the flow is expected she should have complete mental and
+physical rest. She should remain in bed, and apply cold wet cloths
+over the abdomen and between the thighs for an hour at a time, with
+intervals of at least one-half hour between the applications. The
+bowels should be freed from all fecal matter, and cool, small enemas
+be given two or three times a day. If these simple measures do not
+avail, the doctor should be consulted.
+
+The pale and debilitated girl needs to rest. Sometimes, if hemorrhage
+continues almost from one period to the next, she should remain in bed
+even after the flow seems checked. The great desideratum is to build
+up the general health, not by tonics, which are usually only
+stimulants, but by the judicious observance of the laws of health.
+This will, in many cases, call for the advice of the physician, who
+can see and study the patient and her special conditions. It is not
+safe to trust to book-doctoring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CARE DURING MENSTRUATION.
+
+
+I have said that I do not want you to think yourself a semi-invalid
+and so be "fussy" about yourself, but I have also said that I want you
+to take care of yourself at all times, and especially during your
+menstrual periods. How can you make these ideas agree with each other?
+
+I know that many writers say that a girl should spend one day each
+month in bed, or at least lying down; that there are some things that
+should always be forbidden to girls, simply because they are girls,
+such as running up and down stairs. These wholesale restrictions make
+girls rebellious at their womanhood. I simply want you to use good
+sense at all times in your care of yourself.
+
+Knowing the fact that just before and during menstruation the uterus
+is heavier than at other times, because engorged with blood, and
+remembering that it is loosely suspended, it is easy to understand
+that long walks or severe exercise at the menstrual period will more
+easily cause it to sag, and this sagging becoming permanent may cause
+pain, backache, and other discomforts. Therefore, having good sense,
+you will not plan to take long rides or walks or do any severe
+exercise. At the same time moderate exercise in proper clothing will
+tend to relieve pelvic congestion by equalizing the circulation, and
+if the clothing is properly adjusted and the muscles are strong and
+well-developed, an ordinary amount of physical activity may be
+beneficial rather than harmful.
+
+Girls are so often told that they must not walk at their monthly
+periods, must not study, must not ride, etc., etc., that it really is
+no wonder that they feel it a very undesirable thing to be a woman. My
+observation leads me to believe that if girls from earliest childhood
+were dressed loosely, with no clothing suspended on the hips, if their
+muscles were well developed through judicious exercise, they would
+seldom find it necessary to be semi-invalids at any time. In fact, we
+do sometimes find a young woman who has no consciousness of physical
+disturbance during menstruation. She can pursue her usual avocations
+without hindrance, and finds her physical womanhood no bar to any
+enjoyment.
+
+This is as it should be; but as girls have not all been well developed
+and properly dressed, we cannot assert that all girls can be
+indifferent to physical conditions at this time. If a girl is well,
+has no pain or discomfort, then I would say, let her use good common
+sense in the ordering of her daily life and give the matter no special
+or anxious thought. If she has pain or uneasiness, let her govern her
+life accordingly, using care, taking some rest at the time of the
+menses; but, above all things, let her arrange her clothing at all
+times so as to secure for herself absolute freedom of movement. Then
+let her, during the intervals between the menstrual periods, endeavor
+by judicious exercise to build up strong muscular structure around the
+vital organs, such structure as will support the _viscera_ where they
+belong, and in time she will probably find herself growing free from
+menstrual pain.
+
+During the painful periods resulting from congestion it is often
+advisable to keep the recumbent position, and to use heat both
+externally and internally. However, I would advise never using
+alcoholic beverages. Their apparent usefulness lies principally in the
+hot water with which they are administered, and the danger of forming
+the alcohol habit is too great to justify their use.
+
+There are cases of nervous pain at menstruation that are aggravated by
+heat and diminished by cold. I knew such a case where a girl at
+school, suffering with menstrual pain, alarmed teachers and friends by
+wringing towels out of cold water and laying them over her abdomen.
+But the alarm subsided when they saw that the pain soon passed away
+under the cold application. The girl was one in whom there were no
+local congestions, but great nervous exhaustion and heat always
+increased her sufferings, while cold allayed.
+
+I have read that a woman should not bathe or change her underwear
+while menstruating. I cannot see how soiled clothing can be more
+healthful than that which is clean; and if well-aired, I should no
+more object to your putting on clean underwear than to your changing
+your dress. Most especially would I advise a frequent change of
+napkins, in order to remove those which are soiled from their
+irritating contact with the body. A full bath during menstruation
+would, for most people, be unadvisable, but the cleansing of the
+private parts is imperative. For this, tepid water, with good soap,
+may be used daily or oftener. Other parts of the body may be rubbed
+with a wet cloth, followed by vigorous, dry rubbing. Cleanliness at
+all times is certainly a mark of refinement.
+
+You should use good sense and not run out in thin slippers on wet or
+cold ground; but if your feet get wet through accident, keep in motion
+until you can make a change of shoes and stockings. There is little
+danger from wet feet to those in good health, if they keep in vigorous
+motion.
+
+As to other rules, they are those that pertain to the care of health
+at all times: loose clothing, deep breathing, wholesome food, plenty
+of sleep, sunlight, pure air, exercise according to your strength,
+and, above all, serenity of mind, accepting the fact of physical
+womanhood, together with a recognition of its sacredness and dignity.
+
+As a minor item, I would suggest that the napkins be fastened to
+straps that go over the shoulder and are then joined together in front
+and back to an end piece, on each of which a button is sewn.
+Buttonholes in the napkins at the corners, diagonal from each other,
+will make them easily attached or removed. The napkins should be of a
+material that is quickly absorbent of the flow. Cheesecloth is cheap,
+and can be burned or otherwise disposed of after using. It may be
+protected by an outer strip of unbleached muslin which is almost
+water-proof.
+
+A very comfortable way of arranging napkins that are to be used from
+time to time is to take a piece of linen or cotton diaper sixteen
+inches square. About three inches from one end, make on each side an
+incision four inches long. Fold this strip in the middle lengthwise,
+and sew together up to the end of the incisions. This makes a band
+with a sort of pocket in the middle. Hem the cut edges. Fold the
+napkin over, four inches on each side, that is as deep as the
+incisions. Then fold crosswise until you can enclose the whole in the
+pocket in the band. This makes a thick center and thin ends by which
+to attach the napkin to the suspender.
+
+I hold that mental serenity is one of the essentials of healthful
+menstrual periods, and this cannot be had if the mind is continually
+troubled and the thought centered on the physical condition. I would
+be glad to have your mind freed from the ideas of sex matters as far
+as possible. It is a scientific fact that thinking continually of an
+organ tends to disturb that organ. I know a man who was so afraid of
+heart disease that he felt of his pulse every few minutes and kept a
+stethoscope on the head of his bed to listen to his heart in the
+night. I would have been surprised had he not had heart trouble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+SOLITARY VICE.
+
+
+As the reproductive system awakens to activity it naturally attracts
+the attention of the girl, and an effort should be made to call her
+thoughts to other themes.
+
+As I have said before, the reading of sensational love stories is most
+detrimental. The descriptions of passionate love scenes arouse in the
+reader a thrill through her own sexual organism that tends to increase
+its activity and derange its normal state. Girls often mature into
+women earlier than they should, because through romances, through
+jests of associates in regard to beaus and lovers, and through
+indulgence in sentimental fancies their sexual systems are unduly
+stimulated and aroused. This stimulation sometimes leads to the
+formation of an evil habit, known as self-abuse. The stimulation of
+the sex organs is accompanied with a pleasurable sensation, and this
+excitement may be created by mechanical means, or even by thought.
+Many girls who are victims of this most injurious habit are unaware of
+its dangers, although they instinctively feel that they do not want it
+known. Others who would not stoop to a mechanical exciting of
+themselves do so through thoughts, and do not know that they are just
+as truly guilty of self-abuse as the girl who uses the hand or other
+mechanical means.
+
+The results of self-abuse are most disastrous. It destroys mental
+power and memory, it blotches the complexion, dulls the eye, takes
+away the strength, and may even cause insanity. It is a habit most
+difficult to overcome, and may not only last for years, but in its
+tendency be transmitted to one's children.
+
+If you have from the first thought nobly of yourself, you will have
+fallen into no such debasing habit. But if, through ignorance, you
+have acquired it, how shall you overcome it?
+
+I should hesitate to write more on this subject did I not know that
+many girls fall victims to this evil through ignorance, and many who
+thus fall could and would have been saved had they been rightly
+instructed. I therefore desire that you shall be wise.
+
+Every normal function of the body is attended with a pleasurable
+sensation. We enjoy eating, seeing, walking. Odors bring sensations
+which are agreeable, the sense of touch may give pleasure, and as we
+enjoy these sensations in fact, so we may enjoy them in memory or in
+imagination. We can recall the beauty of the rose, the perfume of the
+mignonette, the flavor of the orange, or we can imagine new
+combinations of these delights. We feel joy or grief through reading
+vivid descriptions, or we can ourselves create imaginary scenes in
+which we are actors, who suffer or enjoy.
+
+The reproductive system is the seat of great nervous susceptibility,
+and the excitation of these nerves gives a pleasurable sensation. This
+excitation may be thought a local mechanical irritation or it may be
+mental. In little children it may be caused by lack of cleanliness of
+the external organs. An irritation is produced, and an attempt to
+allay this by rubbing produces an agreeable feeling, which may be
+repeated until the evil habit of self-abuse is formed.
+
+Sometimes constipation, by creating a pelvic congestion, will have the
+same result. Sometimes clothing which is too small may, by undue
+pressure on the parts, call the thought of the child to these organs,
+and in an attempt to remove the pressure by pulling the clothing away
+the habit may be begun.
+
+Sometimes the tiny pin-worms in the rectum may wander into the vagina,
+and the little girl feel a constant annoyance, which rubbing allays
+temporarily, but which results in the evil habit of the use of the
+hands to produce an agreeable sensation. Thus through avoidable causes
+the evil habit may be acquired. Then it may be taught by one thus
+learning it to another who, without this instruction, would never have
+acquired it.
+
+But new dangers arise as the girl approaches the age when the
+reproductive system begins to take on the activity that indicates
+approaching womanhood. The normal congestion of the parts causes a
+hitherto unknown consciousness of sex, and unless she is warned she
+may at this period acquire the habit without knowing its evils.
+
+All functions necessary to the preservation of the individual life are
+attended with pleasure, and so are those which are for the
+continuation of the species. While the emotion may be pleasurable, it
+is at the same time the most exhausting, that can be experienced. We
+see that in some forms of animal existence parenthood is purchased at
+the expense of the life of the parent; and while in the human being
+the procreative act does not kill, it exhausts, and no doubt takes
+from the vital force of those exercising it. One can feel justified to
+lose a part of her own life if she is conferring life upon others, but
+to indulge in such a waste of vital force merely for pleasure is
+certainly never excusable, and least excusable of all is the arousing
+of pleasurable emotions by a direct violation of natural law.
+
+The only natural method of arousing a recognition of sexual feeling is
+as God has appointed in holy marriage, and the self-respecting girl
+feels that no approach of personal familiarity is either right or
+proper. But it may be that she does not know that feelings may be
+awakened by the imagination which are as wrong morally as, and more
+injurious physically than, actual deeds, and so may allow her mind to
+revel in fancies that would shock her as actualities.
+
+I received a letter not long ago from a young woman who most
+emphatically asserted that she would never, never, never permit
+familiarities, and then most innocently says, "but it wouldn't be
+wrong to imagine yourself enjoying the embrace of some certain one,
+would it?"
+
+It is just this idea that there is no wrong in thought that weakens
+virtue's fortress and renders it easily demolished. Girls who would
+shrink from use of mechanical means to arouse sexual desire will
+permit themselves to revel in imaginary scenes of love-making with
+real or unreal individuals, or in mental pictures which arouse the
+spasmodic feelings of sexual pleasure, and yet be unaware that they
+are guilty of self-abuse.
+
+Sexual feeling in itself is not base, but it can be debased either in
+thought or in deed. Rightly considered, it is the indication of the
+possession of the most sacred powers, that of the perpetuation of
+life.
+
+"Passion is the instinct for preservation of one's kind, the voice of
+the life principle, the sign of creative power." These last four words
+open before us a wonderful field of thought. "Creative power!" What
+does that mean? Is creative power limited to reproduction of kind? Do
+you not create when you work out with brain some idea and then embody
+it in some visible form? Worth is said to create an artistic dress,
+the actor creates his part in the play, the musician creates the
+arrangement of harmonies which are represented in musical signs, and
+in the same sense you may be in a myriad of ways a creator.
+
+With the beginning of activity of sexual life in yourself came
+increased development and new energy, beauty, and power, and the
+preservation and right use of that life will continue to be a source
+of power. "When the signs of this creative power come throbbing and
+pulsing in every fiber, it only shows that one has more and greater
+ability to create than ever before. One knows by this that she can now
+do greater work than she has done or is doing;" so says one writer.
+
+Is it not a beautiful thought that this feeling, which we have
+supposed we must fight as something low, is in reality the stirring of
+a divine impulse which we can control and govern and make to serve us
+in all high and noble deeds?
+
+If you hold such noble thoughts in your heart concerning yourself, you
+will need no threatenings to keep you from self-debasement and
+self-defilement. You will not need to be told of the loss of physical
+strength or of beauty, of memory or of reason, through evil habits of
+solitary vice, for they will have no temptation for you, even as you
+do not need threats of police and prisons to keep you from stealing,
+because honesty is the active and guiding principle of your life.
+
+But supposing you have already acquired the evil habit and are now
+awakened to the wrong you are doing yourself; you observe the lack of
+lustre in the eye, the sallow, blotched complexion; you realize your
+loss of nerve-power manifested in cold and clammy hands, backache,
+lassitude, irritability, lack of memory, and inability to concentrate
+thought. What shall you do to overcome and to gain control of
+yourself? The question is a serious one, for no habit is more
+tyrannical than the dominion of unrestrained sexual desire. Its
+victims often fight for years, only to be conquered at last. If there
+was no cure but in fighting, I should feel that the case was almost
+hopeless.
+
+The very first thing to do is to change the mental attitude in regard
+to the whole matter of sex; to hold it in thought as sacred, holy,
+consecrated to the highest of all functions, that of procreation.
+Recognize that, conserved and controlled, it becomes a source of
+energy to the individual. Cleanse the mind of all polluting images by
+substituting this purer thought; then go to work to establish correct
+habits of living in dress, diet, exercise, etc. See to it that there
+are no such causes of pelvic congestions as prolapsed bowels, caused
+by tight clothing or constipation; keep the skin active; and, above
+all, keep the mind healthfully occupied.
+
+The victim of self-abuse has, through the frequent repetition of the
+habit, built up an undue amount of brain that is sensitive to local
+irritation of the sex-organs or to mental pictures of sex-pleasure.
+She must now allow this part of the brain to become quiescent, and she
+should go to work to build up other brain centers. Let her train her
+sight by close observation of form, color, size, location. Let her
+cultivate her sense of hearing in the study of different qualities of
+sound, tone, pitch, intensity, duration, timbre; her sense of touch,
+by learning to judge with closed eyes of different materials, of
+quality of fiber, of the different degrees of temperature, of
+roughness or smoothness, of density; in fact, let her endeavor to
+become alert, observant, along all the lines of sense-perception. Let
+her study nature, leaf-forms, cloud-shapes, insects, flowers, birds,
+bird-songs, the causes of natural phenomena; and, above all, let her
+keep out of the realm of the artificial, the sentimental, the
+emotional, and, holding firmly to the thought that creative energy is
+symbolized by desire and can be dignified and consecrated to noblest
+purposes, she will find herself daily growing into a stronger, more
+beautiful self-control.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+BE GOOD TO YOURSELF.
+
+
+I witnessed the other day a parting between two men. The elder, as he
+took the younger by the hand, said, "Good-by, my boy; be good to
+yourself;" and the younger responded, heartily, "Oh, there is no
+danger but I'll be that." I wondered, as I saw the laughing face, so
+full of the indications of the love of pleasure, if he really would be
+good to himself, or if he would interpret it to mean to indulge
+himself in all kinds of sensuous gratification. It is a great thing to
+be truly good to one's self, and I would give the injunction with the
+highest ideal. Be good to your real self with that true goodness that
+sees the end from the beginning, that realizes the tendency of certain
+forms of pleasure, and that claims the privilege of being master of
+the senses, and not their slave.
+
+"Well," you say, rather deprecatingly, "you can't expect young people
+to act as staid and wise as you old folks. We want some fun." So you
+do, and that is perfectly right. You should want fun and have fun. All
+I ask is that you shall try to understand what real, true fun is.
+
+I have seen young folks pull the chair from under some one "for fun,"
+and the result was pain and perhaps permanent injury to the object of
+the joke.
+
+I have known young men to imagine they were having "fun" when they
+went on a spree, to get "gloriously drunk," as they phrased it. You
+can see no fun in this. You realize that it is a most serious tragedy,
+with not an element of real fun in it, involving, as it does, the loss
+of health, the risking of life, the possibility of crime, the
+heart-break of friends, and perhaps even death. It is altogether a
+wrong idea of fun.
+
+I have known girls in the secrecy of their rooms to smoke cigarettes
+"for fun," and in that I am sure that you see no amusement. It was a
+lowering of the standard of womanhood; it was tampering with a poison;
+it was something to be ashamed of, rather than something to call fun.
+
+I have known young men and women to enter into flirtations "for fun."
+I knew a girl whose chief delight seemed to be in getting young men in
+love with her, only to cast them aside when tired of their adoration.
+She called this fun, but it was cruelty. In olden times men amused
+themselves by throwing Christians to wild beasts and watching them
+while being torn to pieces. This was their idea of fun, and the
+flirt's idea of amusement seems to be of the same order. She plays
+with the man as the cat with the mouse, and experiences no pangs of
+conscience when, torn and bleeding in heart, she tosses him aside for
+a new victim.
+
+There are other young people who would not enter into such serious
+flirtations, and yet are unduly familiar with each other. They mean
+nothing by their endearments and familiarities, and neither will
+suffer any pangs when the pleasant intimacy is ended. Can we not call
+this innocent fun? They have indulged in some unobserved
+hand-pressures, or a few stolen kisses; but neither believed the other
+to mean anything serious. It was only fun; what harm could there be in
+that?
+
+Many girls to-day are reasoning thus, and many of these may pass
+through the experience without loss of reputation; they may
+subsequently marry honorably, and become respected and beloved
+mothers. But ask any of these girls, in her mature years, when her own
+daughters are growing up around her, if she wants them to pass through
+the same experiences. I once knew a beautiful young woman who thought
+it was fun to have these familiar intimacies with young men, because,
+as she said, she knew how far to go. I saw her in her maturity, with
+daughters of her own, and heard her say that when she recalled her own
+girlish escapades, even in the darkness of the night the blushes would
+rush over her from head to foot, and in heartfelt agony she would say
+to herself, "Oh, I wonder if my girls will ever do so?"
+
+It was fun to her in her girlhood; it was shame to her in her mature
+remembrance; it was agony when she saw it possible to her own
+children.
+
+True fun is fun in anticipation, fun in realization, fun in
+retrospection, and fun in seeing it repeated by succeeding
+generations. If it fails to be fun in any of these instances, it fails
+to be genuine.
+
+I like to see young people full of vivacity. I like to hear their
+merry laughter, to witness their innocent pranks; but I do not like to
+see them laughing at the sufferings of others, or amusing themselves
+with dangers of any kind. Above all, I regret to see them playing with
+the fire of physical passion.
+
+Many a girl who to-day is lost to virtue had no idea that she was
+starting on this downward road. She was only having a good time. She
+was pretty, attractive, and admired. Young men flattered her with
+words, and when they held her hand, or put their arm around her, she
+took it as another compliment to her charms. She did not see that it
+was only selfishness, only a desire to feel the thrills of physical
+pleasure which this contact with her person aroused. She would have
+felt humiliated had she recognized this fact, and it seems to me that
+girls should understand the feelings that prompt young men to take
+personal familiarities.
+
+The young man might deny the fact to the girl, but he understands it
+well enough as a fact, and he loses a measure of respect for her
+because she is willing to permit his advances. The girl no doubt
+imagines that these are sweet little secrets between herself and the
+young man, when perhaps he is discussing her openly with his young men
+friends. I have even heard such discussions on railway trains, carried
+on in no very low tones, between young men, well dressed and with all
+the outward appearances of gentlemen, and I have wondered how Jennie
+and Sadie and Clara and Nellie, whose names I heard openly mentioned,
+would have felt to have heard themselves described as "a nice, soft
+little thing to hug," or "she knows how to kiss."
+
+Do you imagine these young men would have thus spoken had they truly
+respected the girls? They might say "They are nice girls," but would
+they say, in their deeper consciousness, "They are true,
+self-respecting, womanly girls, and I honor them?"
+
+"But what is a girl to do?" asks one. "If she is prudish she won't get
+any attention. She has to allow a certain innocent freedom, or young
+men won't go with her."
+
+Do you really believe that, dear girl? Let me tell you what young men
+have said to me. Said one, "O, we have to be familiar with the girls.
+They all expect it, and would be offended if we were just friendly and
+manifested no familiarities." Do you suppose girls ever thought of the
+possibility of the young men saying that? When they are pleading for
+permission to be familiar they do sometimes say, "Why, all the girls
+allow it," but they also add, "so there can be no harm;" while among
+themselves they are laughing at the credulity of the girls, or
+accusing them of making it necessary for the young men to take
+"innocent" liberties in order to have the good will of the girls.
+
+A young man may assure you most emphatically that he respects you none
+the less, although you allow him to hold your hand or kiss you at
+parting, but he knows it is not true, and he will admit it to others
+rather than to the girl herself. Truthful young men say, "Of course,
+we have the most respect for the girls who keep us at a distance."
+"But they won't pay us attention," say the girls. "Is that so?" I
+asked of a young man. "Are you more earnest in pursuit of the girl who
+courts approaches, or the girl who holds you at bay?" "Why!" responded
+he, with emphasis, "the girls ought to know that a boy wants most that
+which is hardest to get; but we are actually obliged to treat the
+girls with familiarity or they won't go with us." And this young man
+seemed really surprised when I assured him that girls supposed they
+were obliged to accept caresses in order to have the attention of
+young men. Then this same young man spoke of something that I know to
+be too often true. He said, "It is strange, if the girls don't want
+these things, that they act as they do, for they actually invite
+familiarity. In fact, many times I would have been glad to be
+respectfully friendly, but the girls did not seem satisfied, and by
+many little ways and manners they indicated that they were ready to be
+caressed. I think they mean to be good girls, but they put an awful
+lot of temptation in a fellow's way."
+
+No doubt these girls did not realize what they were doing, but I
+believe every young woman should have so clear an understanding of
+human nature as to know that she is playing with a dangerous fire when
+she allows caresses and unbecoming familiarity. She ought to know
+that, while she may hold herself above criminal deeds, if she permits
+fondlings and caresses she may be directly responsible for arousing a
+passion in the young man that may lead him to go out from her presence
+and seek the company of dissolute women, and thus lose his honor and
+purity because a girl who called herself virtuous tempted him. Is she
+in truth more honorable than the outcast woman? She has allowed
+familiarities in the matter of embraces and kisses, and she may not
+know what thoughts have been inspired in the mind of the young man by
+her unguarded conduct. She may feel indignant at the suggestion,
+because she has meant no harm, but in reality she should blush that
+her own familiar conduct has given him a tacit right to think of her
+with even greater freedom.
+
+Girls have a wonderful responsibility in regard even to the moral
+conduct of young men, and the self-respecting girl will guard herself
+not only from the contamination of touch, but from an undue freedom of
+thought.
+
+Do you say she cannot govern the thoughts of men? I reply, she can to
+a great extent. By a dress that exposes her person to public gaze, or
+even more seductively hides it under a film of suggestive lace, she
+has given a direction to the thoughts of those who look at her. She
+has declared that their eyes may touch her, that their thoughts may be
+occupied with an inventory of her physical charms. She has openly
+announced that she is willing to be appraised by eyes of men as a
+beautiful animal. What wonder if their thoughts go further than her
+public declaration, and that they may freely surmise the charms that
+still remain hidden?
+
+When a girl, by putting herself into graceful attitudes in tempting
+nearness to a young man, casts coquettish glances, she has done that
+which will give a turn to the thought which may prove provocative of
+deeds.
+
+"I am afraid of that girl," said a young man who desired to live
+purely. "May be she does not mean it, but her poses and glances make
+it almost impossible for me to keep my hands off of her. I am obliged
+to leave her for fear that I shall kiss her when she looks so
+mischievously alluring."
+
+The girl, perhaps, would have been flattered by the kiss and indignant
+at further liberties, yet would have felt no compunctions had her
+victim been inflamed by a passion that he lacked the power to control,
+prompting him to seek some other girl to be his prey.
+
+You think men should have self-control. So they should. We will not
+lessen the blame of the young man, but the girl who puts the
+temptation in his way, even if she did not herself yield to it, is not
+guiltless.
+
+The conduct of a pure woman should be the safeguard and not the
+destruction of a man, and she can be his protector, even as he is
+hers. I heard an eminent woman say that woman was man's moral
+protector, and man woman's physical protector, and I said that is only
+half true. Man is also woman's moral protector, and woman is also
+man's physical protector. She is acknowledged to be his physical
+tempter. If she knows her power she can, by her wise, modest, womanly
+demeanor, make it impossible for him to feel an impure impulse in her
+presence. Ruskin says:
+
+"You cannot think that the buckling on of the knight's armor by his
+lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of
+an eternal truth--that the soul's armor is never well set to the heart
+unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it
+loosely that the honor of manhood fails. Know you not those lovely
+lines--I would they were learned by all youthful ladies of England--
+
+ "'Ah wasteful woman! she who may
+ On her sweet self set her own price,
+ Knowing he cannot choose but pay--
+ How has she cheapen'd Paradise!
+ How given for nought her priceless gift,
+ How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,
+ Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
+ Had made brutes men, and men divine!'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS.
+
+
+You might like to know, dear reader, if I do not believe in some
+intermediate relation between that of the comrade and the lover--a
+more intimate relation than the one and less intimate than the other.
+You ask, Cannot a young man and a young woman be real, true friends?
+
+Let us talk a little about friendship and what it implies. I should
+define a friend as one who believes in me, who expects much of me, who
+encourages me to do the best that is in me, who will tell me of my
+faults, who recognizes my virtues, who trusts in my honor.
+
+You are willing to accept that definition, and you think it possible
+to be all that to each other without being lovers. I believe it, too,
+but I would like to make some further statements before we have the
+discussion of this question.
+
+I believe that a girl's first and best friends are her parents; her
+wisest _confidante_, her mother. To these she may speak unreservedly
+of herself. With these she may freely talk over family matters. In a
+friendship with some outside the family it would be unwise to discuss
+family matters. It might be an unkindness to other members of the
+family, and in case of a break in the friendship the family secrets
+might be betrayed, and to the detriment of the trusting friend. I once
+read of such an affair, where one girl had confided to another certain
+matters that reflected on the honor of her family, and when the
+friendship was broken the secret was betrayed, to the public shame of
+the girl who had been unwise in her confidences.
+
+True honor would forbid the betrayal of a confidence even after the
+rupture of a friendship; but all persons have not the highest ideal of
+honor. If the girl is not discreet in her revelation of herself, and
+her mother is her only _confidante_, it will not be so serious a
+matter, for the mother will never be tempted to reveal to others
+anything that would bring scorn or criticism upon her child. Nowhere,
+in her girlish ignorance, can the girl find as sincere sympathy as in
+the loving mother.
+
+"But all mothers are not sympathetic," you say. "They are often
+nagging, and use the confidences of the daughter to make her
+uncomfortable." Well, if this be so, you, at least, can learn the
+lesson, and by your habits of thought fit yourself to be the wise,
+loving, companionable, sympathetic _confidante_ of your daughter, for
+you will be anxious that she should have no friend so close as
+yourself.
+
+However, I believe that mothers should recognize the individuality of
+their daughters, and win, rather than command, confidence. It is
+difficult for us, as mothers, to realize that our daughter is just as
+much a separate individual as is our neighbor's daughter, and that we
+have no right to thrust ourselves upon her, no right to demand that
+she shall love us. We have the right to sympathize, to counsel, to
+direct her conduct so long as she remains in our personal care, but we
+should remember that she must be responsible, that she is a soul and
+must live her own life, learn her own lessons, suffer her own
+experiences. Our deepest love can only enable us to help her to choose
+wisely, to think truly, to act judiciously. So I would have the
+friendship of mother and daughter something very deep and
+true--something more than a petting and caressing, an indulging or
+humoring.
+
+I would be inclined to have less outward demonstration and more inner
+tenderness. I believe that very often outward impression comes largely
+to take the place of true affection. I see girls who kiss and fondle
+their mothers, who never open to them their heart's deepest secrets.
+Fewer kisses and more confidence would satisfy more thoroughly the
+mother's heart. I believe that, even in the family, a kiss should not
+become a conventionality. It should have a meaning. I would rather
+that my daughter should kiss me once a week, with a spontaneous desire
+thus to express her love, than that, from custom, she should kiss me
+morning, noon, and night.
+
+There are sanitary reasons against kissing, such as transmission of
+germs of disease; but aside from this, there are affectional reasons
+why kisses should be few, and these few spontaneous rather than
+required.
+
+We ought never to force our kisses upon children; but, recognizing
+their individuality, leave them free to proffer or to refuse.
+
+Next to the friendship of parents should come that of brother and
+sister. We almost think it a wonder when members of the same family
+seem really to love each other, and yet family ties should be the
+strongest in the world. Why should there not be the sweetest intimacy
+between two sisters, whose lives and interests are so closely united?
+Why should not the bond between mother and sister be indissoluble?
+
+A young man and woman, children of the same parents, brought up in the
+same home, ought to be the best of friends. Their friendship is
+without the danger of misunderstanding. It can be free from the slight
+feeling of envy or jealousy that might arise between sisters. It would
+seem that it could be the truest comradeship possible to two young
+people.
+
+A sister should be to a brother not merely some one at hand to mend
+his gloves or make his neckties, not simply some one to fondle and
+indulge, but she should be one whom he would never scold or browbeat.
+A brother should not be simply some one to run errands, to call on for
+help in emergencies, not some one to tease when the spirit of mischief
+prompts, or to scold when things have gone wrong.
+
+I would have the love of these two manifest itself in all true
+helpfulness, but in a way that would draw out the noblest
+self-reliance in each. It should manifest itself in courteous words,
+in helpful deeds, in glances of the eye, in tones of the voice, in
+heartfelt sympathies that stimulate to nobler deeds, in every way that
+strengthens and uplifts; and if caresses are few, they will not be
+missed in the wealth of that truer manifestation which makes the
+recipient feel his nobility and worth.
+
+A young lady once asked me if I believed in young people who were not
+related treating each other as brother and sister, and I replied that
+would depend on how the brother and sister treated each other. I have
+seen girls treat brothers in ways that other young men would not
+enjoy--finding fault, nagging, and snubbing generally. I have seen
+young men browbeat their sisters, tease them, and be continually
+unkind. I presume, if such a young man should propose to be a brother
+to a girl, he would not purpose to treat her in this way. Young people
+sometimes like to try to deceive themselves, and they fancy that the
+subterfuge of calling each other brother and sister will be a warrant
+for the parting kiss or the tender endearment that they enjoy, but
+which they feel proprieties will not allow. The subterfuge is too
+transparent. It deceives no one, and it does not make right that
+which, without it, would be improper.
+
+Platonic friendships--that is, friendships between men and women
+without the element of physical love--are rare; rarer, indeed, than
+they should be. They are difficult to maintain because of the
+temptation to begin in the indulgences of personal familiarities,
+which tend to lead the friendship over into debatable ground. Men and
+women ought to be grand, true friends, inciting each other to the
+noblest achievements, but it never can be through sentimentality.
+
+A girl may think she is sisterly when she listens to the young man's
+cry for sympathy in some trouble, and she holds his hand and smoothes
+his hair and comforts him after this tender fashion, and he may go
+away feeling comforted, even as a baby might be quieted by petting;
+but his moral fiber has not been strengthened; he has not been made to
+feel stronger to do and dare.
+
+Supposing she had listened with interest to his story, and then,
+without laying her hands upon him, she had said, "You are a man, a
+prince, the son of a King. You are strong to bear, brave to do.
+Obstacles surmounted give broader outlooks. Burdens bravely borne
+bring strength. I believe in you;" and then, with a strong, firm--I
+had almost said manly--grasp of the hand, she had sent him away, he
+would go feeling stronger, braver, more self-reliant, stimulated,
+encouraged, not merely soothed and quieted. In this fashion a girl may
+treat a young man as a brother. She may tell him his faults in all
+kindness. She may listen to his dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and
+encourage with approval, incite by gentle sarcasm, or enliven by
+kindly sportiveness; but her person is her own, and he should be made
+to feel that beyond these bounds he may not pass. Such friendship may
+endure vicissitude, or separation, and be through life a source of
+truest inspiration. To be such a friend to a noble man is a worthy
+ambition. It would prove the possession of more qualities of
+womanliness than merely to win his passionate love.
+
+When the world comes to accept the highest ideals of life and believes
+that all relations of men and women are not of necessity founded on
+physical attraction, then will such friendships be more possible, and
+the earth can offer no more desirable future than that in which men
+and women, knowing each other as immortal intelligences, shall leave
+the vale of unsafe sentimentality and sensuous poison to dwell on
+heights of noble companionship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN GIRLS.
+
+
+You think, perhaps, that I can find no fault with the friendship of
+girls with each other, that that certainly is safe and pleasant. I
+have said enough for you to understand that I believe in reserve even
+in girl friendships. Girls are apt at certain periods of their lives
+to be rather gushing creatures. They form most sentimental attachments
+for each other. They go about with their arms around each other, they
+loll against each other, and sit with clasped hands by the hour. They
+fondle and kiss until beholders are fairly nauseated, and in a few
+weeks, perhaps, they do not speak as they pass each other, and their
+caresses are lavished on others. Such friendships are not only silly,
+they are even dangerous. They are a weakening of moral fiber, a waste
+of mawkish sentimentality. They may be even worse. Such friendship may
+degenerate even into a species of self-abuse that is most deplorable.
+
+When girls are so sentimentally fond of each other that they are like
+silly lovers when together, and weep over each other's absence in
+uncontrollable agony, the conditions are serious enough for the
+consultation of a physician. It is an abnormal state of affairs, and
+if probed thoroughly might be found to be a sort of perversion, a sex
+mania, needing immediate and perhaps severe measures.
+
+I wish the friendships of girls were less sentimental, were more
+manly. Two young men who are friends do not lop on each other, and
+kiss and gush. They trust each other, they talk freely together, they
+would stand by each other in any trouble or emergency, but their
+expressions of endearment are not more than the cordial handgrasp and
+the unsentimental appellation, "Dear old chap."
+
+I admire these friendships in young men. They seem to mean so much,
+and yet to exact so little. They believe in each other's love, but do
+not demand to be told of it every minute.
+
+It is the highest type of friendship that can believe in the friend
+under all circumstances. I have a friend from whom I may not hear once
+a year, yet I know just where she stands in her relation to me, and I
+would have no fear of finding her cold or unresponsive should I at any
+time call on her for a friendly service. I may never see her, or even
+hear from her again in life, and we may live long years yet on the
+earth, but I would as soon think of doubting the return of to-morrow's
+sun as to doubt her love. There is no need of words, of caresses, even
+of deeds. We are both busy women. Our daily cares absorb us, yet we
+know that we are friends, and in the great hereafter we hope to find a
+place where we may pause and look into each other's faces and enjoy an
+interchange of thought. But now other interests than self-seeking
+claim us. We work on, cheered by the thought that time cannot alienate
+us, for true love is eternal.
+
+The charm of a true friendship is that it does not make demands. I had
+a school friend who thought that because she was my friend I must tell
+her all my affairs. She was offended if I received a letter that I did
+not read to her, or if I went out to spend the evening without first
+informing her. Her friendship became a tax because it demanded so
+much. And, after all, was it true friendship? Was it not love of self,
+rather than of me? People sometimes imagine that, because they crave
+love, they are affectionate and unselfish. Is it true? It is rather
+natural to want to be loved, but it is selfish, and the feeling
+indulged in to any extent is weakening. To want to be loved means
+usually to want some one to be a protector, a giver of pleasure, a
+supplier of wants. To desire to love is nobler, for to love is to
+give. God so loved the world that he gave. Christ loved us and
+gave--gave Himself for us. To love truly, grandly, nobly, is to grow
+strong through giving. Not giving that which we should not give, not
+unwisely giving of time that belongs to our own best good, not giving
+of strength that should be dedicated to some better purpose, not a
+yielding of principle, nor purity, nor honor, but the true giving of
+that which enriches both giver and recipient, which ennobles, uplifts,
+encourages and strengthens, and leaves no sorrow in its wake. The
+truest giving is sometimes a refusal to yield to demands that are
+unworthy. Love wisely, my daughter, and you will give wisely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+EXERCISES.
+
+
+As many girls are affected by spinal curvature, round shoulders, weak
+back or ankles, prolapsed stomach, bowels, or pelvic organs,
+constipation and poor general circulation, it seems well to give a few
+exercises that shall be corrective of these defects, premising that
+each exercise should be begun gradually and easily, increasing
+frequency and force, as strength is gained, say five times a day the
+first week, eight times a day the second week, and so on.
+
+_Never exercise in tight clothing or in a corset_, and do not
+_exercise to exhaustion_.
+
+
+_To Overcome Slight Lateral Curvature._
+
+1. If it is the right shoulder that is depressed, place the hands on
+hips or behind neck, and bend slowly to the left.
+
+Reverse this movement if the left is the lower shoulder.
+
+2. With arms raised above the head, bend the body slowly forward and
+try to touch the floor without bending the knees, then rise slowly to
+an erect position.
+
+
+_To Overcome Round Shoulders._
+
+Do not fold the arms in front.
+
+Any motion that brings hands together behind the back is good.
+
+Draw the elbows quickly backward.
+
+Carry a weight in each hand, holding the weight behind you and out
+from the body.
+
+Hold the body in the correct attitude (see page 132), head balanced on
+spine, chest elevated, posterior part of body thrown out, weight on
+balls of feet, not on heels.
+
+Exercises that strengthen the waist muscles will help to maintain the
+erect position, and so tend to overcome round shoulders.
+
+
+_To Strengthen Weak Back._
+
+1. Hold a light weight in each hand. Place the weights on the floor in
+front of you. Stand with feet eight inches apart, and take three slow,
+deep breaths. Stoop over and take the weights in the hands and
+gradually straighten up till the hands hang easily at the sides. Bend
+slowly forward, and again place the weights on the floor. Repeat five
+times.
+
+2. Clasp the hands back of the neck and bend slowly forward until the
+head is on a level with the waist. Count ten, then straighten up to
+erect position. Repeat.
+
+3. Bend the body backward, forward and sidewise at the waist.
+
+4. Put your right arm over your head till it touches your left ear.
+Hold the chin high. Breathe slowly and deeply while you walk around
+the room. Repeat with other arm. Increase the length of your walk
+gradually.
+
+5. Playing tennis is good exercise for the sides of the waist.
+
+6. Carry a weight first on one shoulder, then on the other.
+
+7. Run on the toes.
+
+8. Hop on one foot.
+
+
+_To Strengthen and Develop the Chest._
+
+1. Maintain an erect attitude.
+
+2. Raise and lower the arm, forward, upward, backward, without bending
+the elbows.
+
+3. Lie on the floor, stretch the arms over the head till the hands
+touch the floor. Take a deep breath and hold it; now bring the arms
+over the head as high as you can reach, and do not bend the elbows.
+Rest and repeat three times.
+
+4. Hold chin as high as possible. Raise the arms at the side as high
+as you can. Breathe deeply and hold the air in the lungs. Now, without
+letting any air out and without bending the elbows, bring your hands
+down steadily to your sides. Repeat. Keep chin well up.
+
+
+_To Strengthen Abdominal Muscles._
+
+1. Stand with chin high.
+
+2. Breathe slowly and deeply.
+
+3. Raise the right knee till the right foot is about twelve inches
+from the floor.
+
+4. Give a little spring with the left foot, raise it swiftly from the
+floor, and at the same time put the right toe and sole (not heel) to
+the floor.
+
+5. Spring on right foot and put left down. Repeat five times.
+
+6. Fold arms behind. Hold chin up. Breathe slowly and very deeply. Do
+not bend the knees. Hold your left foot far out in front of you while
+you count five.
+
+7. Lower it and raise right foot in same way. Repeat four times. Keep
+the shoulders well back and down while doing this exercise. Point the
+toes down and out.
+
+8. Lie on your back. Keep feet down and rise to a sitting position.
+Drop slowly back, and repeat three times.
+
+9. Run, lifting your feet high, like a spirited horse.
+
+10. Stand with chin high, arms akimbo. Breathe slowly and deeply.
+Advance left foot eight inches in front of right. Lean head slowly as
+far back as possible. Hold it while you count five. Straighten, and
+repeat five times.
+
+11. Place the hands on the wall in front of you as high as you can
+reach and about two feet apart, with the elbows straight. Have chin up
+till you face the ceiling, and keep it so. Take a very deep breath and
+hold it. Now bend your elbows and let the body go slowly forward till
+the chest touches the wall, keeping the body and legs stiff all the
+time. Push back till straight again. Do not take heels off the floor,
+nor hands off the wall, nor eyes off the ceiling right overhead.
+Repeat five times.
+
+12. Lie on the floor, stretch the arms over the head till the hands
+touch the floor. Clinch the fists. Take a deep breath and hold it. Now
+raise the arms slowly, keeping the fists clinched, and bring them down
+at the sides, raising the head from the floor at same time. Raise the
+arms and stretch them on the floor over the head at same time, letting
+the head sink back to the floor, and breathe out slowly.
+
+
+_To Facilitate the Return of Displaced Organs to Their Normal
+Position._
+
+1. Lie on your back upon a smooth, hard surface. Draw the feet up as
+close to the body as possible. Now lift the lower part of the body
+until it is wholly supported by the feet and shoulders. Hold it in
+this position as long as possible without fatigue. Lower slowly to
+original position. Rest a few minutes. Repeat. Continue for twenty or
+thirty minutes, according to strength.
+
+2. Lie with face downward. Raise the hips as high as possible,
+supporting the body on the toes and elbows.
+
+3. Slip from the bed head first and face downwards until the head
+rests on the floor and the legs and feet remain upon the bed. Let the
+arms to the elbows rest on the floor. When weary of this attitude slip
+to the floor, turn on the back, and apply the bandage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+RECREATIONS.
+
+
+_Walking._
+
+It is well to bear constantly in mind that all exercise, even walking
+on level ground, is objectionable in clothing that compresses the
+body; and as exercise is the law of the development of muscle, the
+only safe thing to do is so to dress that every muscle has free and
+unrestrained motion. Walking to be beneficial should be out of doors,
+with some pleasant motive, and taken with some degree of energy. The
+length of the walk should be proportional to the strength of the
+girl--short at first, and increasing as strength increases. The erect
+attitude should be maintained, and the walking not prolonged to
+exhaustion.
+
+Walking slowly home from school, laden with books and intent on
+conversation with others, will not fulfill the demands of walking for
+exercise. It makes no demand on breathing power, does not develop
+depth of chest or strength of limb.
+
+
+_Running._
+
+This is an admirable exercise if the dress be suitable. Long skirts
+are an impediment. Running on the toes develops the calf of the leg.
+
+The swift motion causes deep breathing, which expands the chest. If
+violent or long-continued, it may make too urgent a demand on the
+heart and lungs, and so be detrimental. The counsel of a physician is
+safest for those whose heart and lungs are weak.
+
+
+_Riding._
+
+Horseback riding is a vigorous exercise, which would be especially
+beneficial were it not for the cramped position women are forced by
+custom to assume. It cannot be recommended to those who have a
+tendency to lateral curvature of the spine or weak back, or prolapsed
+internal organs. Such girls should by proper care be put into a better
+physical condition before attempting to ride. Harvey advises learning
+to ride on either side of the horse, so as to bring opposite sets of
+muscles into play, and counteract the curvature which physicians who
+have the opportunity to observe say is produced by riding. That being
+true, why not adopt the sensible fashion of riding on both sides of
+the horse at once, as men do? I saw a young lady so mounted the other
+day, and the sight was far more agreeable than the twisted attitude
+compelled by the side-saddle. Medical men also assert that riding
+tends to produce round shoulders, and as the greatest muscular strain
+comes on the back, it is not helpful to weak backs.
+
+
+_Skating._
+
+Skating is a fine exercise. It quickens the circulation and the
+respiration, aids digestion, exercises a great number of muscles, both
+of limbs and trunk of body, strengthens the ankles, and incidentally
+the nerves. Evils are to be found in wrong habits of dressing, the
+tendency to overdo through the fascination of the sport, the danger of
+taking cold by carelessly sitting down to rest when heated, or driving
+home after being warmed up by the severe exertion. A girl of good
+judgment, properly clothed, ought to be benefited by this charming
+out-door sport.
+
+It should be begun very gradually at the opening of the skating
+season, and not undertaken if the internal organs are prolapsed.
+
+
+_Rowing._
+
+Rowing is an exercise that develops the upper back and back of
+shoulders, and therefore needs to be counteracted by exercise that
+calls into play the muscles of the front of the chest.
+
+
+_Cycling._
+
+The dangers of cycling arise principally from lack of judgment. The
+temptation to overdo is very great, and injury is done in attempts to
+ride longer, farther and faster than the strength will safely allow.
+The whole dress should be so arranged as to give perfect freedom of
+movement, the skirt short enough to clear the dangerous part of the
+mechanism, the saddle adjusted to the individual both in its make and
+height, and the girl be taught to sit properly and to adjust her
+weight so that the pressure will not be undue upon the perineum.
+Rectal and other local irritations are produced by the pressure of the
+whole weight resting on the saddle.
+
+The position should not be absolutely erect, but leaning _slightly_
+forward, so as to allow the weight to be distributed between the
+handle-bars, the pedal, and the saddle. This slightly inclined
+attitude also maintains the proper and harmonious relation of the
+internal organs, so that the bowels do not crowd down on the pelvic
+organs.
+
+If the girl is taught to sit on the machine properly, to distribute
+her weight, to sit on the large gluteal muscles, and not on the
+perineum, to use judgment in the amount of exercise taken at a time,
+there is no reason why a girl in a normal condition of health should
+not be benefited.
+
+There may be particular reasons why some girls should not undertake to
+ride, and these can be determined by the physician.
+
+
+_Tennis._
+
+This is a game that demands great activity, consequently there is
+especial need of entire freedom of movement. All constrictions of
+clothing are especially injurious.
+
+It is claimed by some that, being essentially a one-sided exercise,
+there is a possibility, if unwisely indulged in, that it may produce
+injurious results, especially to the spine.
+
+
+_Swimming._
+
+Swimming is not only a valuable exercise, but it really conduces to
+the safety of life in these days of constant boat travel, and there
+are no adequate reasons why girls should not learn. The younger they
+begin, the more readily will they become expert. It is not wise to
+indulge in this exercise while menstruating, nor immediately after
+eating.
+
+
+_Skipping._
+
+There is some prejudice against this form of exercise from the fact
+that it can be overdone, and also from the popular idea that it is
+injurious to girls to jump.
+
+If they are properly dressed, and their muscles are gradually
+developed, and they use good common sense as to amount, there are
+practically no dangers in skipping. It is admirably adapted to
+strengthen a great variety of muscles, as those of the legs, back,
+abdomen, and neck. It strengthens the knees and the arches of the
+feet, thereby tending to overcome flat foot. It strengthens weak
+backs, increases circulation and respiration and promotes digestion,
+and, if practised out of doors, is one of the most perfect forms of
+exercise. Of course the judgment dictates that when the pelvic organs
+are heavy with the menstrual congestion it would not be advisable.
+
+
+_Dancing._
+
+Dancing, in itself considered, is a pleasant and beneficial exercise.
+It develops grace and muscular strength, increases circulation and
+respiration, and is cheering because of rhythm. One wishes that it
+could be unqualifiedly commended. But when we take into account the
+late hours, the heated rooms, the promiscuous company, the late
+unwholesome suppers, the improper dress, the dangers of taking cold,
+the immodest freedom of the round dance, and the not infrequent evils
+resulting therefrom, it would seem unwise to commend an exercise so
+surrounded by objectionable concomitants. It is observed that young
+church members who become interested in the dance soon lose all their
+interest in church work.
+
+If dancing could be conducted in the daytime, out of doors, among
+well-known home friends and companions, in proper dress, and with _no
+round dances_, there would be much to commend, and little to condemn.
+
+
+_Card-playing._
+
+I can find little to say in favor of this form of amusement. It
+contains no exercise for the body. It continues the cramped attitudes
+to which most people are condemned during the day.
+
+It certainly contributes nothing to the higher forms of enjoyment. It
+stimulates emulations, which St. Paul enumerates among things to be
+avoided; it is the accompaniment of gambling and low society; and,
+while we must admit that a pack of cards in itself is not evil, yet it
+can be and often is made most detrimental to the best interests of
+morality and righteousness.
+
+The young woman who respects her own intellectual and moral powers
+will see little charm in manipulating cards in a way to gain a
+momentary success over another and perhaps arousing unkind feelings,
+it may be even passions, that may culminate in bloodshed.
+
+
+_Theatre-going._
+
+It is natural that we should enjoy pictorial representation of human
+life with living actors and audible words; and, understanding this,
+many good people have had the hope that the stage might be purified
+and made a teacher of morals. Certainly valuable lessons of life might
+be most strongly presented in this concrete form, and thus appeal with
+wonderful power to the young and inexperienced. But that it might be
+so used does not insure that it will be, and observation shows us that
+it is not.
+
+The modern play concerns itself principally with a delineation of
+those phases of life which we condemn when they become reality, and
+the teaching power of the stage becomes a lesson in wrongdoing which
+to the young and inexperienced is potent in its suggestiveness.
+
+The costumes of actresses are often immodest, and many of these women
+are immoral in character. It would not be just to condemn all actors
+with the sweeping assertion of immorality, but all will admit that the
+temptations are great, and that great moral force is needed to resist
+the influences that lead towards wrong.
+
+That many of our great actors will not permit their children to become
+actors, or, in some cases, even to enter the theatre as a witness of
+its performances, speaks strongly on the matter.
+
+In the consideration of this subject the girl may safely decide that
+she will not be a permanent loser if she is not a frequenter of the
+theatre. It is safer to keep the mind pure and untainted from all
+pictures of sin, more especially if they are made attractive by the
+glamour of jewels and silken attire, of music, dancing, and lifelike
+portrayal.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+LOVE; HEREDITY; ENGAGEMENTS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+LOVE.
+
+
+In our study we have first learned of general and then of special
+physiology, so, in continuing the same study in mental and moral
+fields, we first learn of the general and then of our special relation
+to others. We cultivate body, mind and spirit because it is our duty
+to develop ourselves for our own interests; but it is also our duty to
+cultivate all our powers because of our responsibility in regard to
+others. This responsibility I will include in the one word, "love."
+
+What is love? The idea of love occupies much of the thought of old and
+young, and in different persons it will have very different meanings.
+To one it means merely pleasurable sensations aroused by either the
+thought of a person, or by the actual presence of that person. To
+another it means an opportunity to sacrifice inclination and pleasure
+in order to promote the happiness or welfare of a certain person.
+
+Much that passes in the world as love is principally love of self. The
+man loves the woman because she satisfies his sense of beauty; her
+presence causes thrills and ecstasies; she contributes to his
+happiness and comfort. That is, he loves himself through her. The
+woman loves the man because he protects her, he surrounds her with
+luxury, his presence brings thrills and ecstasies to her. She loves
+herself through him. Is not this but the essence of selfishness? In
+another case the man loves the woman so tenderly that he cannot do
+enough to prove his devotion. If her welfare demands his absence, he
+gladly foregoes the pleasure of her society. If her comfort requires
+his unremitting toil, he gives his days, and even his nights, to the
+task of labor for her. His only anxiety is to know her wants and to
+supply them. He effaces himself and his wishes to serve her. He would
+die to secure her good. He gives, and asks nothing. Or, in the same
+way, the woman loves the man so that her whole thought is not what she
+can obtain from him, but what she can give him. True love desires only
+to give. Self-love strives only to secure.
+
+Emerson says, "All the world loves a lover," and conversely we may say
+a true lover loves all the world. The affection kindled in the heart
+by one worthy individual goes out in a kindlier feeling for all the
+world. A poet once said that the world was brighter and all humanity
+dearer because he loved truly one worthy woman. He was more gentle
+with little children; the very beggar on the street corner seemed to
+be a brother in distress. Because the woman he loved had given him her
+heart, he wanted to give something to every one he met. This is the
+spirit of true love, to go out in blessings towards the beloved
+object, and so on towards every created thing.
+
+I was once asked if I believed in love at first sight. How can love
+spring up in a minute? There may be admiration of beauty, there may be
+appreciation of intellectual qualities, there may be a recognition of
+magnetic personal attraction, but none of these is love. Love, to be
+worthy the name, must be a superstructure built upon a firm foundation
+of acquaintance with each other's true qualities. Love is not a
+balloon, in which two young people may go sailing among the clouds,
+away from all regions of every-day life. Those who try it with that
+idea find the cloud-world cold and uncomfortable, and not at all the
+rosy, gold-tinted region it looked at a distance.
+
+Love is rather like a building with foundations set into the
+earth--foundations solid, firmly laid and durable. How can people love
+when they do not know each other? Acquaintance first, then friendship,
+comradeship; then, if the sentiment grows, love. But how are young
+people to get really acquainted? They meet under unreal conditions.
+They see each other in society, in Sunday dress and with Sunday
+manners. They doubtless do not mean to deceive each other, but there
+is little to draw out the real self. There is nothing to disturb or
+irritate, nothing to prove the honesty, the neatness, the industry,
+the persistence, the business ability; nothing to disclose the true
+ideas in matters of serious import, of health, religion, duties of
+husbands and wives, the government of the home; and too often the
+intimacy of marriage discloses many personal peculiarities of temper,
+habits and manners that, if seen in time, would have prevented
+marriage.
+
+The trouble does not originate with young people themselves, but with
+older people; but as the young people of to-day will be the older
+people of the future, it would be well for them to realize what the
+trouble is. The fact is, that in the present conditions of society the
+association of young people is unnatural. From earliest childhood boys
+and girls are taught to think of each other only in sentimental ways.
+The little boys and girls in school are playing at "lovering," and
+their conversation is often more about beaus and sweethearts than
+about the plays of childhood, which alone should occupy their
+thoughts. You remember that little miss of ten who asked you, when you
+were sixteen, who was your beau. You recall her look of surprise when
+you replied that you had none, and her exclamation, "Have no beau!
+Why, how do you get along without one?" What made such a mere child
+imagine a beau to be an essential agent of a girl's life? Because she
+had been taught by the jests and suggestions of her elders that every
+boy was a possible lover, and, young as she was, that thought was
+woven into her very life. It is pitiable to see how early the mind of
+the child is tainted by sentimentality, by the unwise suggestions of
+older friends. I remember hearing of a child of six who was talking of
+getting married. Some one said, "You are too little to think of
+getting married," and the child replied, "Why, I have thought of it
+since I was two years old." And doubtless she had, because it had been
+continually impressed on her mind by the conversation of parents and
+friends, and the direction they had given her thought in regard to her
+relation to everything masculine.
+
+Parents are often very unwilling to teach their daughters the facts of
+sex, and yet quite willing to emphasize the consciousness of sex by
+intimating the possibility of flirtations, love affairs, etc. And this
+false, pernicious idea of the relation of men and women is too often
+called love. The central idea of romances is this passionate
+attraction of the sexes. The plot gathers in intensity around the
+lovers, and culminates in their marriage, after which life is presumed
+to move on without a jar, and silly girls and impulsive boys imagine
+that the sweet pain that accompanies the touch of hands or the glance
+of the eyes is love, and is a sufficient guarantee for the forming of
+a life partnership.
+
+Let us face this question fairly. What is love? Of what is it made?
+Can you judge with any certainty of its lasting qualities? How can you
+know the true from the false?
+
+Unfortunately we have but the one word, "love," to designate many
+phases of kindly regard. The mother loves her child, the child loves
+the mother, yet love differs much in these two instances. The one is
+protecting, anxious, self-sacrificing, unstinted care, unqualified
+devotion; the other is sweet dependence, unquestioning acceptance,
+asking all and giving little. The love of brother and sister differs
+from that of brother for brother, or sister for sister. The love of
+man for woman differs from all other emotions of love. It contains
+elements not found in other forms. It may have the same quality of
+giving or accepting, of protecting or yielding, but with all this
+there is an added quality that is not found in any other relation of
+life, a quality that rises to the intensity of a passion, and which,
+if thwarted or distorted, may become murderous or lead to insanity.
+
+This overwhelming, domineering sway of feeling inheres in the fact of
+sex. It is the expression of the whole nature, through the physical;
+it is the vital creative force endeavoring to reach a tangible result.
+Holy in its inception, it can be degraded to the vilest uses. Forming
+the distinctive feature of love between the sexes, it is too often
+imagined to be the all, and a strong physical attraction without the
+basic friendship, which can only come through acquaintance, is not
+infrequently supposed to be worthy of the name of love, and found,
+alas! to be the most unsubstantial of chimeras.
+
+Love, to be worthy of the name, must rest, not on the fact of
+admiration for beauty, not on the physical attraction manifested in
+sweet electric thrills. Love should include intellectual congeniality
+and spiritual sympathy, as well as physical attraction. Lacking any
+one of these three ingredients, the interest of two people in each
+other should not be called love.
+
+In order that it may be determined whether there is the true basis of
+love, there should be opportunity for unsentimental acquaintance. If
+we could free the minds of young people from the romantic idea, and
+allow them to associate as intelligent beings, and so form
+acquaintance on the basis of comradeship, we should make things safer
+for them.
+
+But if the older people do not know how to secure this desirable state
+of affairs, the young people themselves might secure it if they
+understood its desirability. You, as a young woman, can have much
+influence in the right directions, supposing that you drop from your
+mind the idea of sentimental relations with young men and meet them
+on the ground of a friendly comradeship.
+
+Don't indulge in _tete-a-tetes_, or in lackadaisical glances of the
+eye. Don't permit personal familiarities, hand pressures, or caresses.
+Don't simper, and put on the airs which mean, though the girl may not
+understand it, an effort to arouse the admiration and the physical
+feeling of love. Refuse to be flattered, to be played with, to be
+treated as a female, but insist on being treated as a woman with
+intelligence, with a capacity to understand reasonable things.
+Manifest an interest in the movements of the world, of politics,
+literature, art, religion, athletics. Talk of the things that interest
+the young man as a citizen of the world, and not merely of those
+things which appeal to him as a male. Be frank, be lively, be witty,
+be wise, but do not be sentimental.
+
+When a young man calls, don't let him get the idea that you have to be
+secluded in a room apart from the rest of the family. You will be
+better able to judge of him if you see him with your brothers, if you
+note his manner towards your mother, if you hear him converse with
+your father, if you mark his conduct towards the younger children. He
+will talk sense, if he can, when he meets your family, while in a
+_tete-a-tete_ conversation with yourself he may be able to hide his
+lack of wisdom under the glamour of sweet nothings and soft nonsense.
+
+Then be yourself when he comes. Let him see you in your home life, at
+your domestic duties, sewing, helping mother, reading to father,
+caring for the little ones. Be an honest, free-hearted, companionable
+girl, and put sentimentality out of mind. You can have many such
+friends, and by and by, out of these you will probably find one whom
+you admire more and more as time goes on. You hear his sentiments
+always expressed in favor of truth and probity. You come to know
+something of his business principles, you see his courtesy to old and
+young, you learn of his home, his family, his social position, and out
+of this intimate knowledge there springs the attachment, blended with
+deep respect, which assures you that he is worthy of your heart and
+hand, and indeed of your whole life.
+
+Little by little the comradeship has grown more intimate. You have not
+been sentimental. You have treated each other with respect, you have
+maintained your self-respect, you have held a tight rein over your
+fancies and emotions, but now you are convinced that you may allow
+them to have sway. You begin to acknowledge to yourself that you love.
+
+And he, too, begins to manifest a deeper interest in you. You see this
+with a certain pride in the fact that he is not self-deceived He
+knows you, has seen you in your daily life, has sounded the depth of
+your intellect, knows of your religious beliefs, and in all he has
+found you coming up to his ideals. His eye meets yours with a new
+tenderness in its glance that touches you, because you know it is not
+an earthly fire of passion that glows therein. It is you, the real,
+immortal you, that he seeks; not merely the pleasures of sense through
+you; and feeling the response in your own heart, your glance kindles
+with the same divine fire, and your true selves have spoken to each
+other. You have gradually grown into the knowledge of love. You have
+not fallen in love. And yet there have been no words, and in maiden
+shyness you await his speech. Your womanly reserve has won his
+respect, and he makes no attempts to win privileges of endearments
+before he confesses his love, but frankly and manfully pleads his suit
+and wins.
+
+Oh, my dear child, this has been no matter for jesting; it has been
+serious, and we who have watched this dawning love have realized that
+the great drama of life, so full of tragic possibilities, is being
+here enacted. We do not laugh, nor jest, but with the tenderest
+prayers we welcome you into the possibilities of God's divinest gift
+of human love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+RESPONSIBILITY IN MARRIAGE.
+
+
+You are beginning to feel a peculiar interest in one young man more
+than in any other. You think of him in his absence; you welcome his
+coming; his eyes seem to caress you; the clasp of his hand thrills
+you; you begin to think that you have passed from the domain of
+friendship into that of love.
+
+Before you really make that admission, let us "reason together." Let
+us take a fair look at matters, and see whether it is wiser to pass
+the border line, or to remain only friends. Who is this young man? You
+tell me his name, but that means nothing. Who is he? What is he in
+himself? What are his talents, capacities, habits, inherited
+tendencies? Who is his father, his mother? What is their worth? I do
+not mean in money, but in themselves? What ancestral diseases or
+defects may he transmit to his posterity, which will be your posterity
+if he becomes your husband? Are the family tendencies such that you
+would be willing to see them repeated in your children?
+
+There is no indelicacy in asking yourself these questions, nor in
+making the investigations which will enable you to answer them
+satisfactorily. The woman who marries, marries not only _into_ her
+husband's family, she also marries his family; she is to become one of
+it, to live with it in closer and closer companionship as her
+children, bearing the family temperament, disposition and tendencies,
+gather one by one around her hearth.
+
+Is the family one of the type that she will desire to associate with
+intimately all the days of her life? You may feel that it does not
+matter if you do not love your husband's mother, or admire his
+sisters; no matter if you do not have respect for his father, you will
+live so far away from them that it will not be oftener than once in
+several years that you will be obliged to meet them. It might even
+happen that you would never see them, and yet it be a very serious
+matter that they were not respectable or lovable people, for they
+constitute one-half of the ancestry of your children. Their most
+undesirable characteristics may, perchance, be the endowment of your
+sons and daughters, and your heart ache, or even break, over the
+habits, or, it may be, criminality, which may disgrace your home
+through the paternal inheritance that you chose for them. Viewed in
+this light, marriage becomes a most serious matter. It is unfortunate
+that girls generally have the idea that it is not modest to think of
+marriage further than the ceremony. Of the responsibilities and duties
+they are not only ignorant, but think it ladylike to remain
+uninformed until experience teaches them, and that teaching is often
+accompanied by heart-breaking sorrow. If you should make inquiry you
+would discover that a large proportion of mothers have buried their
+firstborn children, and should you ask them why, they would in all
+probability say, almost without exception, that it was because they
+did not know how to give them a dower of health, or how to care for
+their physical needs.
+
+Again, investigation would show you that children go astray, become
+wild, dissipated, or even criminal, because parents have not known how
+to train them, how to keep their confidence, how wisely to guide them
+in ways of righteousness.
+
+We all believe it very important that mothers should know how to
+direct and govern their children, and yet we do not train the future
+mothers for this important office. We teach girls how to sew or cook,
+how to embroider and play the piano. We do not expect them to know,
+without instruction, how to mingle the ingredients for a cake or
+pudding, but we imagine that they will know by intuition how to secure
+the best results in the mingling of heterogeneous compounds in the
+formation of the characteristics of a human being.
+
+When we speak of the mother's privilege, we think of the actual
+mother, whose privilege is to care for and guide her real children.
+But the mother's privilege in fact begins in her own childhood, when
+by her habits of life and thought she is deciding her own character,
+and at the same time creating, in great degree, the talents and
+tendencies of her possible children. It is her privilege to secure a
+measure of physical vigor for her descendants by her care of her own
+health in her very girlhood. She can endow them with mental power by
+not frittering away her own powers of mind in foolish reading or
+careless methods of study. By her own self-respecting conduct she
+helps to give them the reverence for self which will insure their
+acting wisely. All this is the mother's privilege; and still one more
+great privilege is hers, and that is to choose one-half the ancestry
+of her descendants. She cannot choose their ancestry that comes to
+them through herself; that is a fixed fact. Her parents must of
+necessity be her children's grandparents. Her family characteristics
+are also their inheritance. The only thing she can do in regard to
+their inheritance through her is to modify the objectionable traits,
+and to cultivate the good traits herself, so that family faults may in
+her be weakened and the probability of transmission lessened, and the
+family virtues be strengthened and their probable transmission
+intensified. But she has the power to decide what shall be the
+paternal ancestry of her household; and if she is duly impressed with
+the responsibility of this power, she will not allow herself to fall
+in love and marry a man of whose family she knows nothing, or knows
+facts that do not promise well for posterity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE LAW OF HEREDITY.
+
+
+I once heard of a man who on his death-bed made a singular will. He
+had no houses or lands to bequeath his children, but he had observed
+that they had inherited much from him, and so he made a formal bequest
+to them of that which they already possessed.
+
+He wrote: "I bequeath to my son John my big bony frame and the
+slouching gait I acquired by carelessness, also my inherited tendency
+to consumption. To my daughter Mary I bequeath my sallow complexion
+and torpid liver, which are the result of my gross living; also my
+melancholy disposition and tendency to look on the dark side of life.
+To my son Samuel I give my love for alcoholic liquors and my irritable
+disposition; to my daughter Jane my coarseness of thought and my
+unwillingness to be restrained in my desires, and also my tendency to
+commit suicide."
+
+"A very strange will," said everybody, and yet it was a will that was
+probated long before the testator's death. That it gave perfect
+satisfaction I will not assert, but it was never contested and paid no
+fees to lawyers.
+
+Just such wills are being made daily by the lives and conduct of
+young people, though they are not put into writing. Some time in the
+future, however, they will be written into "living epistles, known and
+read of all men."
+
+Other wills are being made daily that through sober, virtuous,
+youthful lives will bequeath to posterity dowers of health, strength,
+purity and power.
+
+This being true, it seems only a part of prudent foresight to study in
+youth the law that governs the transmission of personal
+characteristics to the future "denizens of life's great city." This
+law is known as Heredity, and its first written record is in the first
+chapter of Genesis, where it is written that "Every plant and animal
+shall bring forth after its kind." We are so accustomed to seeing the
+results of this law that we give it little or no thought. We see that
+grass springs up each year on our lawns and meadows. We know that if
+we put the seeds of a certain flower in the ground, that kind of
+flower will always spring up, never another kind. The farmer is not
+anxious, after he sows wheat, for fear that the crop will be rye or
+barley. We expect that the young of cats will be kittens, of geese
+will be goslings, of men will be human children, and we are never
+disappointed. The law holds good under all circumstances.
+
+We see, too, that there are certain race characteristics that
+maintain. The Mongolian race has peculiar high cheek-bones, sallow
+complexions and eyes set in bias, and we recognize the Japanese or
+Chinese at once, even though dressed in the garb of our country. So,
+too, we recognize the African or the Caucasian by certain marked
+characteristics. This transmission of racial traits we call race
+heredity.
+
+Then each race has its own traits, physical or mental, which we
+recognize as national, and so speak of them. We always mention thrift
+as an attribute of the Teutonic nations; the Irishman we characterize
+as witty and pugnacious; the Frenchman as polite; the American as
+progressive.
+
+Each individual has not only his human inheritance, his race
+inheritance and his national characteristics, but he has also an
+endowment of family traits.
+
+But we are not made up of odds and ends of ancestral belongings alone.
+We have in ourselves something that is original, that makes us
+different from each other, and from all others. I have sometimes
+thought that we are somewhat like patchwork quilts, the parti-colored
+blocks being set together by some solid-colored material; or, better
+still, we are like "hit and miss" rag carpets, with a warp of our own
+individuality, filled in with a woof made of qualities and capacities
+of all those who have preceded us. You know, in making "hit and miss"
+rag carpets we take little strips and bits of various materials and
+all colors, and sew them together without regard to order or
+arrangement, and these long strips are woven back and forth in the
+warp until the carpet is woven, showing no set pattern, but a mingling
+of tints and shades that is sometimes crude and unsightly, sometimes
+soft and artistic.
+
+I used, in childhood, to find great delight in seeking among the
+blended colors in the carpet for scraps of clothing which I recognized
+as having belonged to father or mother, or perhaps even to
+grandparents. Even now, in my maturer years, I am interested in
+finding in myself the physical, mental or moral characteristics of
+those same ancestors; and you, no doubt, can do the same, while some
+of your traits seem to be yours entirely, constituting individual
+variations upon ancestral inheritances.
+
+Nature has been doing for centuries, unheeded, what the photographer
+of to-day thinks is a modern discovery, that is, making composite
+photographs of us all.
+
+Through this law of inheritance have arisen the intellectual, the
+moral or the criminal types of humanity, and the process is
+continuing; the types are becoming more and more marked, or modifying
+influences are being brought in to change the type.
+
+These influences are also the result of law, even though we may not be
+able to trace them to their cause. Knowing this, however, we begin to
+see that heredity is not fatality; that the power to modify the
+endowments of future generations is ours. To know how to employ it, we
+should study the law as far as we have opportunity.
+
+This subject is a large one, and no doubt you will some day want to
+give it a thorough investigation. Just now, however, you will have to
+accept my statements. I will not make them technical, but strictly
+practical to you as a young woman desiring that knowledge which shall
+best fit you for the responsibilities of future life.
+
+A superficial study is rather discouraging. We see with what certainty
+evil characteristics are transmitted, and we feel that the law is a
+cruel one; but if we have patience we shall find that, like all laws
+of God, its purpose is for the benefit of the race. Before we begin to
+take comfort from the law let us first learn its warnings, one of
+which is that all weakening of the individual, either in bodily
+strength, in intellectual power or moral fiber, tends to produce a
+like weakness in posterity. This is why I say to you that the young
+people of the present have in their hands the welfare of the future.
+Their habits to-day are moulding the possibilities of the race. Young
+women may feel that their individual violation of the laws of health
+is of no importance, but when they realize that the girls of to-day
+are the mothers of the future, and that the physical strength or
+weakness of each individual girl affects the average health of the
+nation, not only now, but it may be through her posterity for
+centuries, we can see that each girl's health is a matter of national
+and of racial importance.
+
+But it is not alone in the physical organization that we can trace the
+law of heredity in the transmission of undesirable qualities. We find
+that evil traits and tendencies of mind or morals are transmissible.
+Galton finds that a bad temper is quite sure to be passed on from one
+generation to the next, and any peculiarity of disposition in either
+parents is quite likely to become an inheritance of the child. This
+fact makes our little faults seem of vastly more importance than
+otherwise. We can endure them in ourselves, but they strike us very
+unpleasantly when we are obliged to see them manifested in our
+children. As the poet says:
+
+ "Little faults unheeded, which I now despise;
+ For my baby took them with her hair and eyes."
+
+It may not strike us very unpleasantly when we speak disrespectfully
+to our parents, but when our own children show us lack of courtesy and
+cheerful obedience it cuts deeply, and all the more deeply if we see
+in their conduct but a repetition of our own.
+
+Of course, if these minor faults are transmissible, we will not be
+surprised that graver moral defects are passed on. The grandson of a
+thief began to steal at three years of age, and at fourteen was an
+expert pickpocket. The police records show the same family names
+recurring year after year.
+
+These cases are so grave as to attract attention, while we overlook
+the fact that the smaller immoralities are as apt to be transmitted,
+and perhaps with increased power. I should be afraid that slight lack
+of strict integrity in the father might appear as actual crime in the
+son.
+
+I would not omit to mention also the law of Atavism, in this
+discussion of heredity. This is that expression of the law in the
+omission of one generation in the transmission of a quality. We
+sometimes see the peculiarities or defects of a man or woman not
+manifested in their children, but reappearing in their grandchildren.
+
+Not long ago I was in a family where both parents and all the children
+had dark hair but one, and she had long, bright auburn ringlets. I
+asked, "Where did you get your hair?"
+
+"From my red-headed grandmother," she answered, with a laugh,
+indicating that the matter had been so often discussed in her hearing
+that she understood it quite fully.
+
+To cover the whole scope of the law of heredity would take more time
+than we have to spare. You can follow out the line of thought, and
+make practical application of the facts and principles here laid
+down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+HEREDITARY EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, ETC.
+
+
+Civilized life in its progress is accompanied by certain customs and
+habits which are detrimental to the individual health, and therefore
+to national health. The dress of women is not merely an unimportant
+matter, to be made the subject of sneers or jests. Fashions often
+create deformities, and are therefore worthy of most philosophic
+consideration, especially when we know that the effects of these
+deformities may be transmitted.
+
+The tightly-compressed waist of the girl displaces her internal
+organs, weakens her digestion, and deprives her children of their
+rightful inheritance. They are born with lessened vitality, with
+diminished nerve power, and are less likely to live, or, living, are
+more liable not only to grow up physically weak, but also lacking in
+mental and moral stamina. This weakness may manifest itself in immoral
+tendencies, or in some form of inebriety. It is now recognized that
+alcoholism will produce nerve degeneration, but it is not so well
+understood that nerve degeneration may be a factor in producing
+inebriates from alcohol or other poisons.
+
+Dr. Crothers says: "Hysteria, convulsions, unreasonable anger,
+excitement, depression, credulity, skepticism, most unusual
+emotionalism and faulty reasoning, are some of the signs of nerve
+degeneration," and adds that this central failure of nerve and brain
+power is often accompanied by a resulting alcohol or drug inebriety.
+That is, the weak and degenerate nerves crave a stimulant, and the
+weak will yield to the demand, and inebriety result. If this
+degeneration of nerve comes from the low vitality given by the mother,
+because of her unhealthful habits of dress and life, is it not wise
+that in her early womanhood she should know of this possibility, and
+guard against it through her care of herself?
+
+She ought also to understand the effect of alcohol and other poisons
+in producing nerve degeneration in the individual, and its probability
+in his posterity.
+
+George McMichaels says: "The hereditary nature of the abnormal
+condition of which inebriety is the outward sign is not understood,
+even by physicians, as it should be. It is still, I regret to say,
+looked upon as a vice acquired by the individual, the outcome of
+voluntary wrongdoing. In some few cases this may be true, but in the
+majority of instances inquiry into the family history will reveal the
+presence of an inherited taint, such families usually showing a
+neurotic condition. No position in the social or intellectual world
+is, or ever has been, entirely free from the tendency towards
+alcoholism, and a study of the family history of the great men who
+have fallen victims to alcohol will show that the cause has been
+identical with the case among the most obscure of mankind, viz.: That
+a degenerated nerve condition has been inherited which renders the
+sufferer specially susceptible to this and allied neuroses, such as
+epilepsy, idiocy and suicide. The inheritance of an unstable nervous
+system makes the individual easily affected by what I must call
+'alcoholic surroundings.' In other words, the provocation to drink
+which would have no influence upon an ordinary, stable nervous
+organization, is sufficient to turn the neurotic into a confirmed
+drunkard."
+
+As a young woman you hold great power over the race in yourself, and
+through your influence over others, especially over young men. Your
+influence, wisely used, may save more than one from a drunkard's fate,
+and to use it wisely you should be instructed as to the real character
+of alcohol and its effects on the system. I have not time to tell you
+in minutiae of the effects of alcohol, but I must take time to speak of
+the law of heredity in this respect.
+
+Idiocy and inebriety are on the increase among civilized peoples. This
+startling fact should make us ask the reason.
+
+T.D. Crothers, M.D., who is making a life study of inebriety, states
+that from 1870 to 1890 inebriety increased in proportion to the
+population over 100 per cent., and that a large proportion is the
+result of inebriety in one or both parents. It is a sad fact that many
+women, even of good social standing, are fond of alcoholic beverages.
+I saw a very bright, pretty young woman not long since, at a
+reception, refuse to take ice-cream or cake, but drink four glasses of
+punch, with many jests as to her fondness for the same, apparently
+without any glimmering of the thought that she was drinking to excess,
+although her flushed face and loudness of manner were proof of this to
+those who were witnesses. Many people have an idea that the finer
+drinks, such as wine and its various disguises, do not intoxicate, but
+in this they are mistaken. All alcoholics are intoxicating in just the
+degree that they contain alcohol. The exhilaration of wine is but the
+first step of intoxication, and that means always an accompanying lack
+of judgment, a lessening of the sense of propriety.
+
+One young woman who, under ordinary circumstances, was most modest in
+deportment, drank at her wedding in response to the toasts to her
+health, and grew very jovial, until at last she danced a jig on the
+platform at the railway station amid the applause of her exhilarated
+friends, who had accompanied the young husband and wife to the train,
+as they started on their wedding-journey. What a sorrowful and
+undignified beginning to the duties of marriage!
+
+There is no absolute safety for either man or woman except in total
+abstinence. The _debauche_ knows the effect of wine, and uses that
+knowledge to lead astray the young girl who, if herself, would find no
+charm in his blandishments, but who, after the wine supper, has no
+will to resist his advances.
+
+A young husband exacted of his bride a promise that she would never
+take a glass of wine except in his company, and when asked the reason,
+replied that he knew that no woman's judgment was to be trusted after
+taking one glass of wine.
+
+Another cause of inebriety in women is found in the patent medicines
+advertised as a panacea for all pain, which chemical analysis shows to
+be largely alcoholic. Many temperance women would be horrified to know
+that they are taking alcohol in varying quantity, from 6 to 47 per
+cent., in the bitters, tonics and restorative medicines they are
+using, many of which are especially advertised as "purely vegetable
+extracts, perfectly harmless, sustaining to the nervous system," etc.
+
+The result of inebriety of parents in inflicting injury upon offspring
+has not been well understood in the past, but is becoming recognized.
+Dr. McMichael says:
+
+"In every form of insanity the disease is more dangerous in the mother
+than in the father, as far as the next generation is concerned. This
+is a good and sufficient reason why the daughter of drunken parents,
+very often attractive to some men by reason of their excitable,
+vivacious, neurotic manner, should be carefully avoided by young men
+in search of wives. The man who marries the daughter of an inebriate
+not only endangers his own happiness, but runs the risk of entailing
+upon his children an inheritance of degradation and misery.
+
+"No woman should marry a man who, even occasionally, drinks to excess.
+Further, the disposition of the sons of drunken parents ought to be
+investigated before any girl becomes engaged to one of them. This is
+one instance in which long engagements are not to be condemned, for,
+if the man has inherited the alcoholic craving, it may become known in
+time, and his _fiancee_ may be saved from the most terrible fate that
+I can think of--becoming the wife of a drunkard.
+
+"One word more before I leave this aspect of the subject. As the
+majority of inebriates are sufferers from a disease which is partly
+the result of hereditary predisposition, it is foolish for any woman
+to marry a drunkard in the belief that she can reform him. If women
+would realize that alcoholism is a disease and not a vice, they would
+understand that, while the spirit which prompts their devotion and
+self-sacrifice is praiseworthy, yet the probability of its success is
+very remote. No doubt there are women who have made this experiment
+and who have managed to 'reform,' as it is called, confirmed
+inebriates; but such cases are by no means numerous. While it might
+not be right to attempt to interfere with any effort to benefit any
+representative of suffering humanity, it must be remembered that the
+fate of the next generation is at stake, and that unborn children
+certainly have rights, although we are very apt to disregard them.
+Admitting, then, that anyone is at liberty to risk everything, even
+life itself, to benefit another, nevertheless it cannot be said that
+anyone has a moral right to jeopardize the future of a family to
+satisfy any instinct or feeling of affection, however noble it may be.
+If what I have written is true, no woman is justified in marrying a
+drunkard."
+
+The unstable nervous organization bequeathed by intemperate parents is
+like a sword of Damocles over the heads of their unfortunate children,
+and even moderate drinkers will not give vigorous bodies and strong
+wills to their descendants. One man boasted that he had used a bottle
+of wine daily for fifty years, and it had not injured him; but of his
+twelve children, six died in infancy, one was imbecile, one was
+insane, the rest were hysterical invalids.
+
+And alcohol is not the only substance that inebriates. Opium,
+morphine, chloral, cocaine, and all drugs of a similar nature, are
+dangerous, and each not only inflicts its injury on the individual,
+but transmits its results to posterity in that nerve degeneration
+which renders the sufferer an easy victim to all forms of
+intoxication, and intoxication is nothing more nor less than
+poisoning. Opium and morphine are often prescribed by physicians, and
+the patient, experiencing the sudden relief from pain, and perhaps not
+knowing the danger of indulgence, resorts next time to the delightful
+pain-quieter on his own responsibility, and almost before he knows it
+the habit is formed, and the weak will that made the easy victim now
+makes the unwilling slave, loathing his chains, yet unable to break
+them; and these evil habits are, in their effects, transmitted.
+
+Dr. Robertson says: "The part that heredity plays in all functional
+diseases or states of the nervous system is not to be misunderstood.
+It is safe to assert that no idiopathic case of insanity, chorea,
+hysteria, megrim, dipsomania, or moral insanity, can occur except by
+reason of inherited predisposition."
+
+The evils of morphinism are even greater than those of alcoholism, and
+their transmission no less sure. Especially is there loss of moral
+power. Dr. Robertson says: "No matter how honorable, upright and
+conscientious a man's past life may have been, let him become
+thoroughly addicted to morphine, and I would not believe any statement
+he might make, either with reference to the use of the drug or on any
+other subject that concerned his habit. This extends further, and
+clouds his moral perceptions in all relations of life."
+
+Dr. Brush says: "Cocaine is the only drug the effects of which are
+more dangerous and more slavish than the inhalation of the fumes of
+opium."
+
+The danger in the fast life of this age is that we try to find
+something that will enable us to do our excessive undertakings with
+less feeling of fatigue. We fail to see in this that we are exhausting
+our reserve force, instead of adding to our store of force.
+
+The _Popular Science News_ says that kola, cocoa, chocolate, coffee,
+tea, and similar substances make nervous work seem lighter, because
+they call out the reserve fund which should be most sacredly
+preserved, and the result is nervous bankruptcy. Understanding that
+nervous bankruptcy of the parent threatens the welfare of future
+generations through the law of heredity, we will surely hesitate to
+bring ourselves under the strain produced by the use of these
+substances.
+
+The most dangerous habit of the present would almost seem to be the
+tobacco habit, because it is considered quite respectable and is
+therefore almost universal. Men who are prominent, not only as
+statesmen and business men, but also as moral leaders, smoke with no
+apparent recognition of the evils, and lads can often sanction their
+beginning of the habit by the fact that a certain pastor or
+Sunday-school superintendent is a smoker.
+
+But science has not been idle in regard to the investigation of the
+effects of tobacco, and the discoveries made have been published, so
+that we are not now ignorant of the tobacco heart, or tobacco throat,
+or tobacco nerves, nor of the transmission of nerve degeneracy to the
+children of smokers.
+
+Girls sometimes think it is a great joke to smoke cigarettes for fun,
+and some grow into the habit of smoking, but the injury is not
+lessened by the fact that the use of the cigarette was begun in jest,
+nor that the user is a woman.
+
+In fact, the _Medical Times_ is quite inclined to assert that much of
+the neurasthenia, including a general disturbance of the digestive
+organs, now so common in that portion of the female sex who have ample
+means and leisure to indulge in any luxury agreeable to their taste,
+or which, for the time being, may contribute to their enjoyment, is
+due to narcotics.
+
+During the Civil War we are told that 13 per cent. of all men
+examined were excluded as unfit for military service. We are now told
+that 31 per cent. are found to be unfit. Nearly one-third of the young
+men found physically incompetent to be soldiers! From what cause?
+Certainly tobacco must bear a large share of the blame.
+
+Some years ago Major Houston, of the Naval School at Annapolis, made
+the statement that one-fifth of the boys who applied for admittance
+were rejected on account of heart disease, and that 90 per cent. of
+these had produced the heart difficulty by the use of tobacco.
+
+Dr. Pidduch asserts that "the hysteria, the hypochondriasis, the
+consumption, the dwarfish deformities, the suffering lives and early
+deaths of the children of inveterate smokers, bear ample testimony to
+the feebleness of constitution which they have inherited."
+
+Girls sometimes have the idea that a little wildness in a young man is
+rather to be admired. On one occasion a young woman left a church
+where she had heard a lecture on the evils of using tobacco, saying,
+as she went out, "I would not marry a young man if he did not smoke. I
+think it looks manly, and I don't want a husband who is not a man
+among men."
+
+Years after, when her three babies died, one after the other, with
+infantile paralysis, because their father was an inveterate smoker,
+the habit did not seem to her altogether so admirable, and when she
+herself became a confirmed invalid, because compelled to breathe night
+and day a nicotine-poisoned atmosphere, she gave loud voice to her
+denunciation of the very habit which in her ignorant girlhood she had
+characterized as manly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+EFFECTS OF IMMORALITY ON THE RACE.
+
+
+There is another influence at work in causing race degeneracy
+concerning which the majority of girls are ignorant, and that is
+immorality. The prevalent idea that young men must "sow their wild
+oats" is accepted by many young women as true, and they think if the
+lover reforms before marriage and remains true to them thereafter,
+that is all they can reasonably demand. They will not make such
+excuses for themselves for lapses from virtue, but they imbibe the
+idea that men are not to be held to an absolute standard of purity,
+and so think it delicate to shut their eyes to the derelictions of
+young men. This chapter of human life is a sorrowful one to read, but
+to heed its warnings would save many a girl from sorrow, many a wife
+from heartache.
+
+The law of God is not a double law, holding woman to the most rigid
+code of a "thou shalt not" and allowing men the liberty of a "thou
+mayest."
+
+The penalty inflicted for the violation of moral law is one of the
+most severe, both in its effects upon the individual transgressor and
+upon his descendants. The most dreadful scourge of physical disease,
+as well as moral degeneracy, follows an impure life. This disease,
+known as syphilis, is practically incurable. It may temporarily
+disappear, only to reappear in some other form later in life; and even
+after all signs have become quiescent in the man, they may reappear in
+his children in some form of transmission. Even one lapse from virtue
+is enough to taint the young man with this dreadful poison, which may
+be in after years communicated to his innocent wife or transmitted to
+his children.
+
+Dr. Guernsey says: "I do not overdraw the picture when I declare that
+millions of human beings die annually from the effects of poison
+contracted in this way, in some form of suffering or other; for, by
+insinuating its effects into and poisoning the whole man, it
+complicates various disorders and renders them incurable. This
+horrible infection sometimes becomes engrafted upon other acute
+diseases, when lingering disorders follow, causing years of misery,
+and only terminating in death. Sometimes the poison attacks the
+throat, causing most destructive alterations therein. Sometimes it
+seizes upon the nasal bones, resulting in their entire destruction and
+an awful disfigurement of the face. Sometimes it ultimates itself in
+the ulceration and destruction of other osseous tissues in different
+portions of the body. Living examples of these facts are too
+frequently witnessed in the streets of any large city. Young men
+marrying with the slightest taint of this poison in the blood will
+surely transmit the disease to their children. Thousands of abortions
+transpire every year from this cause alone, the poison being so
+destructive as to kill the child _in utero_, before it is matured for
+birth; and even if the child be born alive, it is liable to break down
+with most loathsome disorders of some kind and die during dentition;
+the few that survive this period are short-lived, and are unhealthy so
+long as they do live. The first unchaste connection of a man with a
+woman may be attended with a contamination entailing upon him a life
+of suffering, and even death itself. Almost imperceptible in its
+origin, it corrupts the whole body, makes the very air offensive to
+surrounding friends, and lays multitudes literally to rot in the
+grave. It commences in one part of the body, and usually, in more or
+less degree, extends to the whole system, and is said by most eminent
+physicians to be a morbid poison, having the power of extending itself
+to every part of the body into which it is infused, and to other
+persons with whom it in any way comes in contact, so that even its
+moisture, communicated by linen or otherwise, may corrupt those who
+unfortunately touch it."
+
+If girls were aware of all this they would not only be careful how
+they marry immoral men, but they would shrink from personal contact
+with them as from a viper. Not one, but many girls who have held
+somewhat lax ideas concerning the propriety of allowing young men to
+be familiar have reaped the result in a contamination merely through
+the touch of the lips. To-day a young woman in good social standing is
+a sufferer from this cause. She was acquainted with a young man of
+respectable family, but immoral life. His gaiety had a fascination for
+her, and his reputed wildness only added to the charm. On one evening,
+as he escorted her home, and took leave of her on the doorstep, she
+allowed him to kiss her. It chanced that at the time she had a small
+sore on her lip. The poisonous touch of his lips conveyed the
+infection through this slight abrasion, and she became tainted with
+the syphilitic virus, and to-day bears the loathsome disfigurement in
+consequence. I do not need to multiply such cases. You can be warned
+by one as well as by a hundred.[2]
+
+A young woman of pure life married a man whose reputation was bad, but
+whose social position was high. To-day she is suffering from the
+horrible disease which he communicated to her, and her children have
+died or are betraying to the world in their very faces the story of
+their father's wrong deeds. Truly you cannot afford to be ignorant of
+facts so grave as these.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] For an extended presentation of the character and diseases which
+accompany vice, the reader is referred to the chapters which treat of
+this subject in "What a Young Man Ought to Know." Every young woman
+should be intelligent upon these important subjects. There is nothing
+in this book to young men which a young woman approaching maturity may
+not know, both with propriety and benefit, so that she may most
+successfully protect herself from possible companionship with
+well-dressed and polite but impure young men by discreetly placing the
+book in the hands of her father and brothers, that they may become
+intelligent concerning the dangers against which they can most
+successfully protect her. It might not be improper for her, after due
+acquaintance, to see that the book is placed in the hands of the one
+who seeks to become her husband and the father of her children, that
+she may at the proper time, and before it is too late, learn whether he
+has always lived by the standards of social purity which are there set
+up, and whether he is able to bring to the union the same unsullied
+life and character which he expects and requires of her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE GOSPEL OF HEREDITY.
+
+
+I have often heard people say that God was unjust in making this law
+of heredity and compelling innocent children to bear the sins of the
+guilty parents, and at first thought it might so seem; but God is a
+God of justice and also of mercy, and our study of His laws in their
+ultimate outcome leads us to know that they are invariably made for
+our welfare. Let us see, then, if we cannot find something encouraging
+even in this law of heredity. Are the majority of people born straight
+or deformed, sick or well, honest or dishonest? You may ask, Are all
+of these conditions a matter of heredity? Certainly. The fact that we
+are human beings instead of animals, that we have our due proportion
+of organs and faculties, that we are not monstrosities or imbeciles,
+are all hereditary conditions. We see, then, that the law of heredity
+insures to us our full complement of organs and capabilities, as well
+as the more pronounced characteristics which we the more readily
+recognize as inheritances. The fact is that inheritance of good is so
+universal that we fail to think of it.
+
+When the baby is "well-favored" and straight-limbed, no credit is
+given to heredity; but if he is in some way out of the ordinary, we
+blame the law that has fixed on him some result of parental conduct.
+
+If he possesses a good mentality, it scarcely occurs to us that this
+is just as surely heredity as is the transmission of the mental
+weakness of some ancestor.
+
+By the Gospel of Heredity I mean this brighter side, this
+"Good-tidings" of the law. In the first written Biblical record of the
+law, where the statement is made that the sins of the fathers are
+visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation, we have
+also the statement of the "Good-tidings" that the Lord sheweth mercy
+to thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments; and that
+means not thousands of individuals, but thousands of generations.
+Justice is meted to the third and fourth, but mercy to thousands of
+generations.
+
+All through the Scriptures we find this brighter phase of the law
+enunciated. Perhaps you would like to study both the law and the
+Gospel from the Bible. I will give you some texts and you can find
+them for yourself. It would be interesting also for you to read the
+lives of men and women of renown, and observe the transmission of
+talents and capabilities.
+
+Encouraging as this view of the subject may be, it is by no means the
+brightest side of the subject of heredity, for if we have inherited
+no special talents, and if we are handicapped by the transmitted
+results of the sins of our ancestors, we may say "There is no hope for
+us, nor for our children." To us then will come, as special
+"Good-tidings of great joy," the news that heredity is not fatality.
+We are not obliged to sit and quietly bear the fetters our ancestors
+have forged for us. We can break the chains, we can free ourselves. It
+may be difficult, but it can be done, and a great incentive to the
+effort is found in the fact that by success we not only improve
+ourselves, but we can pass on a better inheritance to our posterity.
+
+We may cultivate our health by obedience to its laws so as to overcome
+inherited weaknesses to a very great extent. We are not absolutely
+obliged to die with consumption because one of our parents did. By
+simple living, and especially by deep breathing of pure air, we may so
+strengthen ourselves that we will have the power to resist the
+encroachments of the germ of tuberculosis.
+
+We may be born with weak digestive power, but by plain, wholesome
+fare, by freedom from worry, by a careful attention to all healthful
+habits, we may grow strong and free from dyspeptic symptoms.
+
+We can by cultivation of our minds and morals not only increase our
+own powers, but add to the powers of our posterity.
+
+Then, too, the effects of mental education are transmissible; not the
+education itself, but an increased capacity, a new tendency. Every
+mental activity is accompanied by an actual modifying influence on
+brain structure, so that we are really building our brains by our
+thoughts, and this increase of our own brains is transmissible to
+posterity.
+
+I know that some of our philosophers assert strongly that acquired
+characteristics are not transmitted, and their theories seem quite
+plausible; but I would rather accept facts than theories any time, and
+Professor Elmer Gates has demonstrated that this theory does not
+accord with the facts. He has trained dogs until they could recognize
+seven or eight shades of green or red. The brains of these dogs, so
+trained, show under the microscope a great increase of brain-cells in
+the visual area, proving that the education has created actual brain
+material. The progeny of these dogs, to several generations, shows at
+birth a much larger number of brain-cells in the visual area than is
+the case where the ancestry has not been so strained.
+
+Where the dogs have been brought up in absolute darkness there is a
+great lack of cells in the visual area, both in these dogs and in
+their progeny.
+
+This is the brief statement of a most hopeful and encouraging fact.
+
+We look to the dark side of the law of heredity for our warning. It
+makes us solemnly thoughtful in view of our power over the race in the
+transmitted result from our own wrongdoing; and then, when we feel
+overwhelmed and discouraged, we turn towards the Gospel of Heredity
+and take hope from the fact that good is transmissible; and, more than
+that, we have it in our power so to modify our own characters,
+tendencies and habits that we can, in all probability, give our
+children a better dower than we received, and the earlier in life we
+begin this making over of ourselves the better.
+
+I have heard people excuse themselves for all manner of faults on the
+plea that they were inheritances, and therefore could not be overcome.
+That is to declare that we are slaves, with no chance to acquire
+freedom, and I am not willing to admit that.
+
+"Whereas in Adam all die, in Christ may all be made alive." That is,
+that while under the Law of Heredity we are fettered, under the Gospel
+of Heredity our chains may be broken and we become free.
+
+There is much of encouragement in the poem of Ella Wheeler Wilcox on
+heredity:
+
+ "There is no trait you cannot overcome.
+ Say not thy evil instinct is inherited,
+ Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn,
+ And calls for punishment that is not merited.
+
+ "Back of thy parents and grandparents lies
+ The great Eternal Will, that, too, is thine
+ Inheritance--strong, beautiful, divine;
+ Sure lever of success for one who tries.
+
+ "Pry up thy fault with this great lever--will;
+ However deeply bedded in propensity;
+ However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet
+ Is that great power that comes from truth's immensity.
+
+ "There is no noble height thou canst not climb;
+ All triumphs may be thine in time's futurity,
+ If, whatsoe'er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt,
+ But lean upon the staff of God's security.
+
+ "Earth has no claim the soul cannot contest;
+ Know thyself part of the supernal source,
+ And naught can stand before thy spirit's force;
+ The soul's divine inheritance is best."
+
+
+BIBLE TEXTS BEARING ON THE SUBJECT OF HEREDITY.
+
+
+_Natural Heredity._
+
+_Law._--Gen. 1:12-24; Ex. 20:6; Num. 14:18.
+
+_Sins visited._--Job 21:17-19; Ps. 37:28; Jer. 32:18.
+
+_Blessings._--Gen. 22:17, 18; Deut. 4:40; 5:29; 30:19; Ps. 21:13;
+37:18, 22, 26, 29; 103:17, 18; 112:1, 2; 128:3; Prov. 10:25; 11:19;
+13:22; 17:6; 20:7; Isa. 48:18, 19; Jer. 32:18.
+
+
+_Divine Heredity._
+
+Isa. 43:16; Jer. 3:19; Mal. 2:10; Matt. 5:9, 45, 48; 6:4, 6, 9, 14,
+15, 18, 26; John 20:17; Rom. 8:16, 17; Gal. 4:7; Eph. 4:6; 2 Peter
+1:4; 1 John 3:2; 5:1.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+REQUISITES OF A HUSBAND.
+
+
+Having spent so much time in the study of principles and laws, we will
+now return to the discussion of this concrete case. What can you
+decide in regard to this individual young man to whom you think you
+have given your heart? What is he in his inheritance? What is he in
+himself? I do not ask that he shall have inherited wealth, for that
+often proves a young man's ruin, but does he come of an honest,
+industrious family? Have you just reason to suppose that he will make
+a fair success of life? Is his father shiftless, lazy, improvident? If
+so, it will be harder for him to be provident, business-like. Has he
+true ideas of the dignity of life and his own responsibility? Is he
+looking for an "easy job," or does he purpose to give a fair
+equivalent for all that he receives? Would he rather toil at honest
+manual labor than be supported by a rich father-in-law?
+
+What are his ideas as to his responsibility in the founding of a home?
+How will he look upon his wife? As an equal, a companion, or as a
+plaything, a petted child, or a sort of upper servant? What value does
+he put upon the wife's labor in the conducting of the household? Will
+he consider that the money he hands over to her is a gift from him, or
+only a fair recognition of the value of her work, a rendering to her
+of her share in the family purse?
+
+What is his estimate of woman? Is she an individual with rights, with
+intellect and heart, with a judgment to be consulted, opinions worthy
+of recognition, or only an appendage to man, created for his comfort
+and to be held in her "sphere" by his will?
+
+What are his defects of temper, or his weaknesses of body? Of course,
+to you now he seems perfection, and yet he is a human being, fallible
+and imperfect. If his faults are similar to yours, you double the
+possibility of their inheritance by your children. If you both have a
+tendency to lung trouble, the probabilities are that your children
+will have consumption. If you both are of rheumatic proclivities, you
+may expect a manifestation of the same early in the life of your
+children. If you both are "nervous" or irritable in temper, both
+jealously inclined, or are morbid and melancholy, you need not be
+surprised at an intensifying of these qualities in your little ones.
+
+If there are more serious family traits, such as insanity, epilepsy,
+alcoholism and the like, it might even be your duty never to run the
+risk of their transmission.
+
+I once spoke on heredity when in the audience sat a young man by the
+side of his _fiancee_, who, I was afterwards told, had been in an
+insane asylum three times, and yet he purposed marrying her.
+
+I know a clergyman who has wisely dedicated himself to a celibate life
+because there is marked insanity in his family.
+
+You chafe a little under this reiteration of the duty you owe to
+children yet unborn, and who may possibly never exist, and perhaps you
+say, as I have heard girls say, "Oh, I don't mean to have any
+children;" and perhaps you add, "I don't see why people may not marry
+and be happy just by themselves without having children."
+
+It is not strange that you should not understand all that is involved
+in such a statement. It is true that some married people do not have
+children, and are comparatively happy, and yet perhaps if we could
+read their hearts we should find that the one great longing of their
+lives is for the blessing of a child.
+
+It is natural to desire to know the joys of parenthood. In the home,
+through the cares and love, the anxiety, self-sacrifice, tenderness
+and patience which accompany parenthood, the education of the
+individual is made most complete and perfect.
+
+The girl who marries without a willingness to accept these
+responsibilities is willing to sacrifice that which, rightly borne,
+will bring her the highest development. If she purposes deliberately
+to avoid motherhood she puts herself in a position of moral peril, for
+such immunity is not often secured except at the risk of criminality.
+I say not often, although I believe that if husband and wife are
+actuated by the worthy motive of not inflicting on posterity some
+dower of woe, they are justified in a marriage that does not
+contemplate parenthood, if they are of lofty purpose enough to live
+solely in mental and spiritual companionship. But all attempts to
+secure the pleasure of a physical relation and escape its legitimate
+results are a menace to the health and a degradation to the moral
+nature. This subject, and the questions arising therefrom, will be
+discussed more fully in the next book of this series, "What a Young
+Wife Ought to Know."
+
+But how is a girl to know all these things concerning her lover's
+ideas, thoughts, principles, and purposes? Many of these you think
+cannot be known until after marriage, and then it is too late. That is
+true; therefore be wise and learn all you can of each other's habits,
+peculiarities, opinions, and predilections now, before it is too late.
+Talk over business matters. Find out what your lover's ideas are as to
+the wife's right to a pecuniary recognition of the value of her labor
+in making the home. Does he think that she earns nothing, and that
+what he gives her of his money is a donation for which she gives no
+return? I know a young woman who had been self-supporting before her
+marriage who felt timid about asking her husband for money. So she
+wore her wedding garments until they were shabby, went without money
+when her own funds were exhausted, and kept silent for five years, and
+her husband--a young clergyman--never thought to ask her if she needed
+anything, never observed her growing shabbiness. When at last she
+summoned courage to tell him her needs, he was overwhelmed with regret
+for his own lack of thought and observation, and yet he could not
+understand why she should hesitate to ask for money. "Why, it is all
+yours, dear," he said. "You were only asking for what already belongs
+to you." And many young husbands are just as obtuse, therefore they
+should receive in advance the instruction that is needed to prevent a
+possibility of such neglect. Have it understood that if you are worthy
+to be trusted as a bearer of the name and a sharer of the fortunes of
+a man, you are worthy to share also the burden of the knowledge of his
+business experiences, and to bear the responsibility of economically
+guarding his interests in the expenditure of money which, by your love
+and care and labor, you have helped him to earn.
+
+I think a young woman should know something of the personal habits of
+her future husband. Does he like fresh air, or does he want the
+windows hermetically sealed at night. Is he a believer in the
+godliness of cleanliness? I have just read of two people who married
+after a six week's acquaintance, knowing nothing of each other's
+antecedents, personal habits, caprices or principles. The man proved
+to be a regular hypochondriac, taking medicine constantly, at one time
+with five doctors prescribing for him. He counted his pulse at every
+odd moment, and looked at his tongue instead of at the eyes of his
+wife, as he had done when a lover. He had a dread of pure air, and was
+as averse to bathing as a cat. The woman had lived in the open air,
+taken a daily morning bath, and was disgusted with those who did not
+do likewise. The writer says, "She stormed, took her baths, and opened
+the windows; he cried, took no baths, shut the windows, and called the
+doctors." There is no need to depict the unhappiness of the home, and
+yet no doubt the girl would have been shocked had anyone suggested
+that she inquire into these facts concerning her lover. But if she had
+been less romantic and more practical, if she had remembered that the
+marriage contract would bind her for life to one who would be more
+closely connected with her than anyone else could be, and this union
+for life, by day and by night, constant, continuous, and not to be
+annulled by any such small matters as bad breath or unpleasant
+personal habits, perhaps she would have considered it no small matter
+to discover the possible causes of disgust before they became fixtures
+in her life.
+
+And perhaps, also, she would have given her own personal habits more
+consideration. True love will endure much, but it sometimes dies in
+the presence of untidiness, of carelessness as to dress or room, or
+lack of sweetness of person or of breath. If you demand much of a
+husband, he has a right to demand just as much from you. If there are
+habits concerning which you would rather he as a lover should be
+ignorant, believe me that it is even more important that as a husband
+he should not know them. Therefore employ your available time before
+marriage to rid yourself of them. If a lover would be disenchanted to
+see the room from which his blooming, beauteous adored one had
+departed, bearing the marks of carelessness and disorder, with soiled
+clothing, unmade bed, shoes, hose and dresses all in tumbled heaps on
+chairs and floor, remember that the marriage ceremony does not make
+such a room more attractive to the husband, who must not only see but
+share its discomforts.
+
+In addition to the knowledge of each other's personal peculiarities
+there should be an understanding of each other's ideas as to the
+duties and responsibilities of their proposed relation to each other.
+I lately received a letter from a young woman who asks, "How freely do
+you think two engaged young people may talk concerning their future
+life? Would it not be indelicate for them to discuss their future
+relations, the possibility and responsibilities of parenthood, etc.?"
+
+I answer, that depends on the young people. If they have false ideas,
+if they have little or no scientific knowledge, if their thoughts are
+filled with wrong mental pictures, they will not know how to talk
+wisely and beneficially. But these two young people are intelligent,
+are scientifically educated, are Christians. Their hearts are pure,
+their standards high, their motives praiseworthy. It would seem that
+they might talk as freely as their inclination would prompt. In fact
+there seems to me more indelicacy and more danger from long evenings
+spent in murmuring ardent protestations of love and indulging in
+embraces and endearments than in a frank, serious conversation on the
+realities and responsibilities of marriage, an exchange of earnest
+thoughts, voiced in chaste, well-chosen language--a conversation which
+by its very solemnity is lifted out of the realm of sense-pleasure
+into the dignified domain of science and morality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+ENGAGEMENTS.
+
+
+There now sparkles on your finger a ring that symbolizes the promise
+you have given to become a wife. You are engaged, and there now arises
+in your mind the query as to the conduct of yourselves during this
+period of engagement: How much of privilege shall you grant your
+lover? As you are promised to each other for life, are you not
+warranted in assuming towards each other greater personal familiarity?
+May you not with perfect modesty allow endearments and caresses that
+hitherto have not been permissible?
+
+I take it for granted that you are not one of those unwise young women
+who permit themselves to become engaged for fun; who consider an
+engagement as of so little seriousness that it may be made and broken
+without regret. I have known girls who even enter into engagements
+just in order to feel justified in greater freedom of conduct without
+compunction of conscience. If such engagements do not violate the code
+of conventionalities they certainly infringe upon the moral code.
+
+It is not strange that girls should fail to see all the dangers of
+such conduct--that they should not comprehend that thus they become
+sources of temptation to their lovers, and may even imperil their own
+safety.
+
+But your engagement is an honest one, your love is true, based upon
+thorough acquaintance; you have mutual respect and entire confidence
+in each other. May you not now throw aside much of the restrictions
+that have surrounded your association and manifest your affection in
+reciprocal demonstrations?
+
+We often read the advice to young people not to enter upon long
+engagements, and the reason given is that it exacts too much in the
+way of self-control, is too great a nervous strain, is too full of
+peril. I would like to quote just here a few words by Dr. C.W. Eaton:
+
+"Away with the sexual argument against engagements, and let us all set
+about that cultivation of will and purpose which can make the weakest
+a tower of strength and the arbiter of his own destiny; and let us say
+to our appetites, Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, neither
+shalt thou presume to deny to thy master the best earthly
+companionship which may come into his life. It may be a far harder
+task than the ardent and poetical lover allows himself at first to
+think, but the hardest battles are best worth the fighting; and what
+manner of men should we become if we systematically evaded life's
+conflicts, instead of meeting them squarely and fighting them through
+manfully? Dr. Bourgeois says: 'The ancient custom of betrothals is the
+safeguard for the purity of morals and the happy association of man
+and wife. This institution was known to the Greeks, the Hebrews, the
+Romans, and during the Middle Ages. In Germany it has still preserved
+its poetical and moral character. The young people are sometimes
+affianced many years before their marriage. We see the young man, thus
+betrothed, with heart full of his chaste love, absent himself for a
+time in order to finish his education, to perform his studies of
+science or art, his apprenticeship to a trade, and to prepare himself
+for manly life. He returns to his betrothed with a soul which has
+remained pure, with a reason enlarged and fortified. Then both are
+ripe for the austere duties of marriage.
+
+"'Chaste love, consecrated by betrothals, can be cultivated in the
+midst of work. It lightens toil, it banishes _ennui_, it illumines the
+horizon of life with delightful prospects; it excites in the young man
+the manly courage and the high intelligence to create for himself a
+position in the world; in woman, the noble ambition to perfect herself
+to become a worthy companion and good adviser.
+
+"'During the stormy period of youth it is the only means of preserving
+the virgin purity of the heart and of the body. Does anyone believe
+that young men who in good season have in their hearts a love strong
+and worthy of them would profane themselves, as they so often
+otherwise do, in vile affections, in those relations of a day, giving
+themselves a holocaust to beauty without soul, or even to
+licentiousness without beauty?'"
+
+Emerson says: "If, however, from too much conversing with material
+objects the soul was gross, and misplaced its satisfaction in the
+body, it reaped nothing but sorrow, body being unable to fulfill the
+promise which beauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of these
+visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the soul
+passes through the body and fails to admire strokes of character, and
+the lovers contemplate one another in their discourses and their
+actions, then they pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more
+inflame their love of it, and by this love extinguishing the base
+affection, as the sun puts out fire by shining on the hearth, they
+become pure and hallowed. By conversation with that which is in itself
+excellent, magnanimous, lowly and just, the lover comes to a warmer
+love of these nobilities, and a quicker apprehension of them. Then he
+passes from loving them in one to loving them in all, and so is the
+one beautiful soul only the door through which he enters to the
+society of all true and pure souls. In the particular society of his
+mate he attains a clearer sight of any spot, any taint which her
+beauty has contracted from this world, and is able to point it out,
+and this with mutual joy that they are now able, without offense, to
+indicate blemishes and hindrances in each other, and give to each all
+help and comfort in curing the same. And beholding in many souls the
+traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is
+divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover
+ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the
+Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls."
+
+And this all means that when the thought of the sex-relation
+constitutes in the mind of either the idea of marriage, then the
+wedding ceremony will be supposed to remove all restrictions, and the
+only limit of gratification will be the limit of desire. Under these
+circumstances the close familiarity of a long engagement would be a
+mental and physical tax, because the self-control exercised is felt to
+be only temporary, and will be no longer needed when the wedding
+ceremony has been said.
+
+But if the idea of marriage is nobler, if the sex-relation is
+consecrated to its highest purpose of reproduction, if marriage is
+felt to be only an added opportunity for self-control, which will be
+more difficult then because there will be no restraint except that
+which is self-imposed, then the engagement will be felt to be a time
+of gradual preparation for that closer relationship which needs more
+will-power because opportunity is greater.
+
+Under these conditions the lovers will be aiming towards an ideal
+which recognizes that in wedded life all that is lasting in affection,
+in tender courtesy, in most intimate companionship, in sweetest
+demonstration, is possible without the physical union, which in itself
+is the most transitory of pleasures, but which in unlimited indulgence
+becomes the most domineering of passions, exhaustive of physical power
+and of mental vigor, and absolutely annihilating all true love.
+
+If you ask why there should exist this marvelous drawing of the sexes
+towards each other if their relation is not based upon the exercise of
+sex-functions, I reply that sex is more than its local expression; it
+is inherent in mind as well as body, and therefore sexual power may be
+expressed in masculine courage, energy or daring, or in feminine
+constancy, self-abnegation, or sweet courtesy. Sexual attraction is
+not limited to the local expression, nor creative power to
+reproduction of kind, but may give a stimulus to the intellectual
+companionship of men and women, and result in the creation of nobler
+ideals and grander aspirations.
+
+Having settled in your mind your attitude towards your lover, let us
+consider what it shall be towards your family during these days of
+the engagement. Naturally you will not feel a separation from the home
+circle as keenly as do the other members of your family. You two are
+so absorbed in each other, are so busy exchanging ideas, in becoming
+acquainted, that you are oblivious to the change brought about in your
+family. You think you two ought to be allowed the privilege of
+_tete-a-tetes_, for of course you cannot talk freely together in the
+hearing of others. This is true. You should have times of seclusion,
+when, without a sense of oppression through fear of criticism or
+jesting, you can rhapsodize, or quote poetry and open your hearts'
+treasures to each other. But you still owe a duty to your home.
+Doubtless your mother is not now as necessary to your happiness as you
+are to hers. She is thinking of you with most tender solicitude, she
+misses your presence, she already begins to feel the loneliness of the
+inevitable separation. If you are thoughtful you will see to it that
+the separation does not begin sooner than is necessary. Then, too,
+your parents need to get acquainted with this new member whom you are
+to introduce into the family, and he needs to know them. He will think
+none the less of you if he sees that you do not allow him to
+monopolize you entirely, that you recognize your obligations to the
+family and that you expect him to recognize them also, and, in
+addition, his obligations to show them due courtesy and attention. He
+is not to absorb you entirely, to take you out of the home circle, but
+he is to come in and be a part of it, even as you are to become one in
+the home of which he is a member. You need to remember that he is son
+and brother to women who loved him long before you knew him, and that
+he still owes them attention and thoughtful, affectionate courtesy.
+
+Never allow yourself to feel jealous of his mother or sisters. The
+fact that he is a loving, thoughtful son and brother is in a measure a
+guarantee that he will be a loving, thoughtful husband.
+
+Let me add to this advice a word more. Do not allow yourself to feel
+jealous of him in any way. Jealousy is the quintessence of
+selfishness, and no other passion is so destructive of happiness, so
+full of the contagion of evil. If your lover is not to be trusted, you
+would be wise to end the engagement at once. If he is to be trusted,
+that trust should be absolute. I said you should not allow him to
+monopolize you, neither should you attempt to monopolize him. There
+are other people in the world besides yourself, and other occupations
+than the business of waiting on you. If you make him feel that he dare
+not speak to anyone but you, that he dare not think of anything but
+you, he will begin to chafe under the restraint and feel a desire to
+break the bonds that are becoming fetters. If he were not your
+acknowledged lover, if you were anxious to win his love, but were a
+little uncertain as to your power to do so, you would not meet him
+with tears and upbraidings because he had for one moment seemed to
+forget you, but you would at once use every possible effort to make
+yourself more attractive in his eyes than any other person could
+possibly be. You will be wise to use those same tactics now, even
+though his allegiance is pledged to you. Be so charming that no one
+else can be considered so entertaining; that no one else can be so
+wise, so witty, so sympathetic, so altogether lovely, that everything
+but yourself is forgotten; and then believe in him so absolutely that
+he could not possibly swerve in his fidelity to you. Have you ever
+thought that to accuse one of a certain wrong act may be just the way
+to suggest to him the possibility of committing it? If one trusts you
+implicitly, that very trust is a constant suggestion to be true, and
+doubt is a suggestion to act worthy of being doubted.
+
+You must trust each other or you have no sure foundation for future
+love and happiness. It needs a great deal of good common sense to
+learn how to live happily in marriage. You may have chosen wisely. The
+man may be honest, pure, kindly, intelligent, and Christian, but he is
+human, therefore not perfect. He has faults, peculiarities, moods,
+perhaps tempers, and he will probably not wait until you are married
+to begin to show them. There will come differences of opinions,
+divergences in desires, clashings in judgment. Now is the time to
+display your tact, to learn how to express an opposing opinion without
+arousing antagonism, to yield a desire for the sake of a greater love
+than that of self, to adhere to principle without unpleasant
+discussion; in short, to be dignified and womanly without pettiness or
+littleness of any kind. You remember the words of Ruskin, that the
+woman must be "incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wise, not
+for self-development, but for self-renunciation," and that will be the
+highest development.
+
+No doubt you will think that some of this advice should be given to
+young men as well as to young women, and I think so too, and were I
+talking to your lover I could say many warning words; but just now I
+am telling you things that he does not need to hear, and I do not need
+to tell you what, if I had the chance, I would say to him. You are to
+train yourself and not him, and yet I would not have you ignorant of
+your power over him in developing in him all that is noblest and best.
+You should hold him ever to his highest ideals. He should never feel
+so absolutely sure of your adoration as to imagine that it will endure
+a lowering of his standards. You have been posing a little before each
+other. Doubtless you were not aware of this, but, now that you have
+each gained the heart of the other, you may sometimes feel that you
+can relax; but this is a dangerous error. You should continue to be as
+thoughtful, as courteous, as careful as ever; you should endeavor
+really to be all that you have tried or appeared to be during these
+days of courtship. You will be none too perfect even then.
+
+Once, in talking to a group of women, I asserted that a wife should
+exact of her husband as high a tone of morality as of her lover, that
+she should not allow him to become lax in his conversation with her
+any more than with any other woman. One woman thought me too strict.
+She said men liked to feel that at home they could do as they pleased,
+and would resent a wife's interference with their right to be loose in
+their talk in their own home. I replied that the home is not the man's
+nor the woman's alone; it is theirs jointly; that each has a right to
+demand that the other shall not pollute or poison the air, the food,
+the water or the moral atmosphere; and the wife who allows
+contamination of the thought-atmosphere of the home is as culpable as
+if she were to permit poison to be put into the food.
+
+As a man admires the girl who respects herself too much to permit him
+to tell her questionable stories, so will he reverence the wife who
+refuses to allow him to degrade himself in her presence either by
+speech or conduct. Love would not so often fail if wives knew the
+secret of retaining it, and that is not by sacrifice of principle, nor
+by tearful reproaches and upbraidings, but by being true to the
+highest impulses, and while having the good common sense that can make
+all reasonable allowance for fallibility, still permits no lowering of
+moral standards, no willful falling short of the very best.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE WEDDING.
+
+
+Said my friend:
+
+ There's to be a grand wedding, you know,
+ With no end to the fuss and parade,
+ With sixteen fair bridesmaids to stand in a row,
+ With sixteen young groomsmen to help out the show,
+ One to stand by the side of each maid.
+
+ Then there's a reception to be very fine,
+ With all sorts of magnificent things,
+ With silver to glitter and mirrors to shine,
+ With tropical fruit and famous old wine,
+ With odorous flowers and music divine,
+ Drawn forth from melodious strings.
+
+In the minds of many girls the wedding means only this public show,
+the display of elegant toilets, the reception of costly gifts; and the
+preparation of marriage means too often merely the making of an
+elegant _trousseau_. People generally do not ask concerning the
+fitness of the young people to enter on the solemn duties of life--do
+not ask how well they have been instructed concerning that which is
+before them; but the questions are all about clothes and gifts and
+ceremonials. No wonder, then, that the thought of the young woman
+centers on these things, to the exclusion of nearly all else; indeed,
+it may be to the detriment of health and the lessening of true
+happiness. The prospective husband finds his _fiancee_ so absorbed in
+sewing, shopping and interviews with dressmakers that she has few
+moments to give to him, and these few occupied more with the thought
+of gowns and personal adornments than with ideals of wedded happiness.
+
+Perhaps she even excuses herself for lessening the number of his
+visits on the plea that very soon now she will be all his, and so he
+is left to spend his last days of bachelorhood in loneliness, and made
+to feel that raiment is more than love. Worse still, it may be that on
+the wedding-day he takes to his heart a bride so wearied, so nervously
+exhausted by the preparations of the _trousseau_ that she is at least
+temporarily an invalid. I have known more than one bride so worn out
+by the preparation for her wedding that instead of bringing
+brightness, joy and beauty into the new life, she brought illness,
+anxiety and care, and made demands at once upon the patience and
+service of the husband, who had a right to expect health and vigor and
+a power to enjoy.
+
+I knew a sensible girl who said months before her marriage, "I am not
+going to bring to my new life a remnant of health, a shattered nervous
+system and a tattered temper," and she kept her word. Her sewing was
+done by degrees, and was all out of the way weeks before the wedding.
+Shopping and dressmaking were never allowed to interfere with the
+walks and drives, the chats and moonlight strolls. "We shall not be
+able to repeat this experience," she wisely said, and so her lover
+found her ever ready to give him her society and her thought. Her
+_trousseau_ was not elaborate, her wedding-dress was simple, but in it
+she shone like a flower of the morning, full of brightness and health
+and joy.
+
+She was wise in other respects. Only her intimate friends were invited
+to the wedding ceremony, and to these she said, "I want you to feel
+that it is you I invite, not your gifts. If your love impels you to
+give me some simple memento of yourself it will be cherished, but I'd
+rather have a pincushion made by your own hand, or a little flower
+painted by yourself, than the most costly purchased picture or most
+elegant piece of silver that you bought, because you thought it was
+expected. And if, when you come, you bring no gift but your love and
+blessing, I shall feel that that is the richest treasure."
+
+There was no display of presents to a vulgar curiosity, no collection
+of duplicate butter-knives or berry-spoons to be secretly disposed of
+after the wedding. The gifts were few and not costly, but each told
+its own story of personal affection, and therefore really had a
+meaning.
+
+This sensible young woman introduced another innovation into her
+wedding. She would not listen to the suggestion of a bridal tour. "I
+do not want to be stared at and commented on by strangers," she said.
+"Let us go to some quiet spot in the mountains or by the sea, and let
+us live with each other and with nature." In after years she often
+said, "I would not miss from my memory the picture of those happy days
+for anything that any trip on railway trains and sojourns at hotels
+could give me. We had time and opportunity to learn each other's souls
+as we could not have done amid 'the madding crowd;' and we have loved
+each other more truly, I know, because in those early wedded days we
+sat with Nature and Nature's God in the true companionship which such
+solitude alone can bring."
+
+I never see the parade of a fashionable wedding that I am not reminded
+of her and of a sad contrast to her experience, when two young people
+were married amid a blaze of light, a rain of flowers, and under the
+curious eyes of hundreds of strangers took their wedding tour, while
+the papers glowingly described the dress and beauty of the bride, the
+necktie and the trousers of the groom, and pictures of the two were
+labeled "The Happy Couple." In two years the bride came home to her
+parents wrecked in health and broken in heart.
+
+There is a beauty in a golden wedding that truly celebrates a happy
+union of half a century. But when life is all untried, when perhaps
+the two young people know nothing of what is before them, it may be
+are but little acquainted with each other, and have mistaken the
+thrill of passion for the steady exaltation of love, then it would
+seem wiser to make the occasion one of most solemn import, free from
+glitter and show, and full of that deep meaning which makes the heart
+stand still in reverence for life's deepest mysteries.
+
+ O, gallant young groom, it may seem a slight thing
+ To take this young girl as your bride;
+ To place on her finger the plain golden ring,
+ Around her these bright flower-festoons to fling,
+ But have you e'er thought what the future will bring
+ To you in this life so untried?
+
+ Have you thought how your temper may often be tried?
+ That you may grow gouty and old,
+ That the fair smiling face of your bonnie young bride
+ May grow pale and haggard, and wrinkled, beside,
+ Or she prove a sloven and scold?
+
+ And you, bonnie bride, on this glad wedding day,
+ In the midst of the curious crowd,
+ Do you fancy that life will be always so gay?
+ Can you work, can you wait, do you know how to pray,
+ Can you suffer, and not cry aloud?
+
+ Can you watch out the hours by sad beds of pain?
+ Can you bear and forbear and forgive?
+ Can you cheerfully hope e'en when hoping is vain,
+ And when hope is dead, and to die you would fain,
+ Can you still feel it right you should live?
+
+ O, touchingly solemn and tender the hour,
+ So full of deep meaning the vow
+ You have uttered. And sorely you need Divine power
+ To guide you and guard you in sunshine and shower,
+ For trouble will come and love's delicate flower
+ Be crushed, you can scarcely tell how.
+
+And yet, dear heart, there is nothing that has such unconquerable
+vitality as love; but it must be true love, not self-love, not
+sentimentality, not passion, not any of the spurious emotions that
+masquerade under the name of love, and which wither with the slightest
+adverse wind.
+
+Love is not an exotic, growing only in the conservatories of wealth.
+It is a hardy plant, covering desolate places with verdure, glowing
+amid the snows of mountain peaks, blossoming by night as well as by
+day, hiding defects, clinging to ruins, enduring drouth and heat and
+cold.
+
+I know a woman who says that there should never be marriage where
+there are unpleasant peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, or even
+mannerisms; but should we act on that principle, few would marry. Love
+is sometimes said to be blind in the days of wooing, but wearing
+magnifying glasses after wedlock. True love is never blind, but he is
+capable of judging of true relative values, and will count as naught
+the slight defect when measured by the overwhelming perfection. Who
+has not seen men devoted to wives who were homely or peculiar, but who
+were genuinely pure and true?
+
+"I don't care," said one woman, "if my husband is bald and cross-eyed,
+he has a heart of gold."
+
+True love is not blind, but with a deep, keen insight looks through
+the encasing garment of human imperfections, and sees within the
+divine ego, and because it recognizes the true inner self that is
+worthy, hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things,
+and never faileth.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+Offices _of_ Publication
+
+# IN THE UNITED STATES. The
+Vir Publishing Company, 200-214
+N. Fifteenth St., Philadelphia, Pa.
+
+
+# IN ENGLAND. The Vir Publishing
+Company, 4 Imperial B'l'd'g's,
+Ludgate Circus, London, E.C.
+
+
+# IN CANADA. Ryerson Press,
+Cor. Queen and John Sts. Toronto,
+Ontario.
+
+
+
+
+"What a Young Girl Ought to Know."
+
+BY MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.
+
+Condensed Table of Contents
+
+ PART I
+
+ The origin of life--One plan in all forms of life--How plants
+ grow from the seed--They feed on the soil, grow and
+ mature--How the plant reproduces itself--The flower, the
+ pollen, the pod, the seed--The office of bees and insects in
+ fertilization.
+
+ PART II
+
+ Fishes and their young--The parent fishes and the baby
+ fishes--The seeds of plants and eggs of fishes, birds and
+ animals--How fishes never know their baby offspring--Warm
+ blooded animals--Lessons from birds--Their nests, eggs and
+ little ones.
+
+ PART III
+
+ Animals and their young--The place which God has prepared for
+ their young--Beginning their independent life--Human babies
+ the most helpless and dependent of all creatures--The
+ relations of parent and child--The child a part of each
+ parent--Heredity and its lessons.
+
+ PART IV
+
+ The value of good health--The care of the body--The body a
+ temple to be kept holy--Girls should receive their instruction
+ from their mothers--The body the garment which the soul
+ wears--Effects of thoughts upon life and character--Value of
+ good companions, good books and good influences--What it is to
+ become a woman.
+
+
+
+
+"What a Young Girl Ought to Know"
+
+WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY
+
+ Francis E. Willard, LL.D.
+
+ "I do earnestly hope that this book, founded on a strictly
+ scientific but not forgetting a strong ethical basis, may be
+ well known and widely read by the dear girls in their teens
+ and the young women in their homes."
+
+ Mrs. Elizabeth B. Grannis
+
+ "These facts ought to be judiciously brought to the
+ intelligence of every child whenever it asks questions
+ concerning its own origin."
+
+ Mrs. Harriet Lincoln Coolidge
+
+ "It is a book that mothers and daughters ought to own."
+
+ Mrs. Katharine L. Stevenson
+
+ "The book is strong, direct, pure, as healthy as a breeze from
+ the mountain-top."
+
+ Mrs. Isabelle MacDonald Alden, "Pansy"
+
+ "It is just the book needed to teach what most people do not
+ know how to teach, being scientific, simple and plain-spoken,
+ yet delicate."
+
+ Miss Grace H. Dodge
+
+ "I know of no one who writes or speaks on these great subjects
+ with more womanly touch than Mrs. Wood-Allen, nor with deeper
+ reverence. When I listen to her I feel that she has been
+ inspired by a Higher Power."
+
+ Ira D. Sankey
+
+ "Every mother in the land that has a daughter should secure
+ for her a copy of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know." It will
+ save the world untold sorrow."
+
+
+
+
+"What a Young Wife Ought to Know."
+
+BY MRS. EMMA F.A. DRAKE, M.D.
+
+Condensed Table of Contents
+
+ HUSBAND AND HOME
+
+ The choice of a husband--One worthy of both love and
+ respect--Real characteristics necessary--Purity vs. "wild
+ oats"--What shall a young wife expect to be to her
+ husband?--His equal, but not his counterpart--His helpmeet
+ Wifehood and motherhood--Should keep pace with his mental
+ growth--Trousseau and wedding presents--The foolish and
+ ruinous display at weddings--Wedding presents and
+ unhappiness--Wise choice of furniture--The best adornments for
+ the home.
+
+ THE MARITAL RELATIONS
+
+ The marital state should be the most holy of sanctuaries--Its
+ influence upon character--Modesty--Reproduction the primal
+ purpose--Love's highest plane--The right and wrong of
+ marriage--The wrongdoings of good men.
+
+ PARENTHOOD
+
+ Preparation for motherhood--Motherhood the glory of
+ womanhood--Maternity productive of
+ health--Clothing--Exercise--Baths, etc., etc.--The child the
+ expression of the mother's thoughts--The five stages of
+ prenatal culture.
+
+ PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD
+
+ Questions which test the fitness of young men for
+ marriage--Many young men of startling worth--Effects of bad
+ morals and wayward habits--Tobacco and Alcoholics--Attaining
+ the best--The father reproduced in his children.
+
+ ANTENATAL INFANTICIDE
+
+ The moral responsibility of parents in heredity--The mother's
+ investment of moulding power--Parents workers together with
+ God--Ailments during expectant motherhood--Maternity a normal
+ state--Development of the foetus--Minuteness of the germ of
+ human life--Changes which take place--Life present the moment
+ conception takes place--The sin of tampering with the work of
+ the Infinite.
+
+ THE LITTLE ONE
+
+ Baby's wardrobe--The question that comes with fluttering signs
+ of life--Importance of wise choice of material and style of
+ dress--Choice of physician and nurse of real consequence--The
+ birth chamber--Surroundings and after-care of the mother--The
+ care of the baby--The responsibilities and joys of
+ motherhood--The mother the baby's teacher--Common ailments of
+ children and how to treat them--Guarding against vice--The
+ training of children--Body building--Helps for mothers.
+
+
+
+
+"What a Young Wife Ought to Know"
+
+WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY
+
+ Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster
+
+ "Joyfully I send you my unqualified endorsement of the
+ excellent book, 'What a Young Wife Ought to Know.' I wish
+ every young and perplexed wife might read its pages."
+
+ Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D.
+
+ "It handles delicate matters in a manner as firm as it is
+ delicate, and dignifies even what is common by the purity of
+ the sentiment and nobility of intent with which it is
+ treated."
+
+ Marietta Holly (Josiah Allen's Wife)
+
+ "It is an excellent book; if every young wife of to-day would
+ read it and lay its lessons to heart it would make the
+ to-morrow much easier and happier for all of Eve's daughters."
+
+ W.G. Sperry, M.D.
+
+ "Young wives, for whom this book is intended, wilt receive
+ great benefits from heeding its wise words. It is good for
+ incitement, guidance, restraint."
+
+ Mrs. Joseph Cook
+
+ "It illuminates the Holy of Holies in the most sacred of
+ earthly relationships with the white light of truth and
+ purity."
+
+ Julia Holmes Smith, M.D.
+
+ "Be sure Dr. Drake's book is part of your daughter's outfit. I
+ have never read anything which so thoroughly met the use it
+ was designed for as this volume."
+
+ J.P. Sutherland, M.D.
+
+ "A subject difficult to treat has been handled by Dr. Drake
+ with delicacy, earnestness and straightforwardness. It is a
+ practical book destined to do good."
+
+
+
+
+"What a Woman of Forty-five Ought to Know."
+
+BY MRS. EMMA F.A. DRAKE, M.D.
+
+Condensed Table of Contents
+
+ KNOWLEDGE OF CLIMACTERIC NECESSARY
+
+ Why women are not prepared to meet the climacteric--The fear
+ that unnerves many--Error of views concerning "Change of
+ Life"--Correct teaching stated--Influence of medical
+ literature--Three periods in a woman's life--Relation of early
+ habits to later aches and ills--The menopause--Conditions
+ which influence the period of the climacteric--The age
+ at-which it usually appears--Effects of heredity--Childless
+ women--Mothers of large families--Effects of different
+ occupations--Excesses.
+
+ HERALDS OF CHANGE--DISEASES AND REMEDIES
+
+ Mental states during menopause--Change in blood
+ currents--Flushes, chilliness, dizziness, etc.--Nervous
+ symptoms--Disturbed mental and nervous equilibriums--Nature as
+ woman's helper--Troublesome ailments--Mental troubles
+ considered--Suggested help--Cancer--Benefits
+ named--Apprehensions dispelled--How to banish
+ worry--Simplifying daily duty--An eminent physician's
+ prescription--A word to single women--Reluctance of unmarried
+ women to meet the menopause--How to prolong one's youth--Dress
+ during this period--The mother "At Sea"--Guarding against
+ becoming gloomy--Effects of patent medicine advertising--Drug
+ fiends--Lustful indulgence.
+
+ WHAT BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE SHOULD REMEMBER
+
+ Slights and inattentions keenly felt by her--Need of
+ patience--A word of private counsel--Value of little
+ attentions--Wife's duty to her husband--Holding husband's
+ affections--Making home attractive--Unselfishness.
+
+ AUTO-SUGGESTION AND OTHER SUGGESTIONS
+
+ Influence of mind over body--The mind as a curative agent--How
+ to rise out of depression--Mental philosophy and physical
+ betterment--Relation of health to sight--Care of the
+ teeth--The hair--Constipation--Self cure--Choice of
+ foods--Exercise--Physical development--Exercise of mind and
+ soul.
+
+
+
+
+"What a Woman of Forty-five Ought to Know"
+
+PRAISED BY THE PRESS
+
+ "Will dispel apprehensions aroused by groundless
+ forebodings."--_Reformed Church Messenger._
+
+ "If the hygienic advice in this book is followed it will
+ lengthen the lives of women and make their closing years the
+ happiest and most useful of all,"--_Herald and Presbyter._
+
+ "In no line of literature, perhaps, is such a book so much
+ needed."--_New Haven Leader._
+
+ "Those who peruse the book only from prurient curiosity will
+ be disappointed."--_Cleveland World._
+
+ "Should be read by every woman nearing and passing middle
+ life."--_Pittsburg Gazette._
+
+ "Written in that wholesome sympathetic manner characteristic
+ of all the books in the Self and Sex Series."--_Cleveland
+ Daily World._
+
+ "Full of most admirable practical advice, and it is written in
+ a sympathetic manner which is the outcome of oneness of sex
+ between the author and those whom she addresses."--_Syracuse
+ Herald._
+
+ "There are some things that a woman of forty-five does not
+ know--things which she regards with more or less terror in the
+ expectation--which terror it is the object of Mrs. Drake to
+ dispel."--_Rochester Herald._
+
+ "There is nothing in the book that could not be proclaimed
+ from the house-tops, and there is everything in it that
+ intelligent and thoughtful women should read and keep for
+ their daughters to read when the proper time comes."--_Newark
+ Daily Advertiser._
+
+
+
+
+A New Book by Charles Frederic Goss
+
+More Important than the Simple or the Strenuous Life is the Home Life
+
+"HUSBAND, WIFE AND HOME"
+
+By CHARLES FREDERIC GOSS
+
+Author of "The Redemption of David Corson," etc., etc.
+
+ "This is the kind of book that one desires to read aloud to
+ all the family. Its captivating stories, humorous often,
+ pathetic at times, will brighten one's face into a broad smile
+ or bring the tear unbidden. The stories are the windows that
+ Dr. Goss opens upon the practical themes that brighten every
+ page of this winsome book. It will drive away the "blues" and
+ make a cross and glum person look pleasant and feel pleasant.
+ The divorce courts would be forced to go out of business if
+ its blessed home truths were put into practice."
+
+ ENTHUSIASTICALLY ENDORSED BY THE PRESS
+
+ "There are nearly fifty short chapters. It boxes the compass
+ of its subject, skipping no point. Wide experience and keen
+ observation of real life yield material which is treated with
+ plain, common sense, good wit and no lack of humor. Thus it
+ hits the need of the average man and woman, and all others
+ that reckon themselves above the average. The whole book is
+ pervaded by strong and pure moral feeling, and the chapters
+ are well dotted with pithy anecdotes and amusing
+ stories."--_The Outlook._
+
+ "These talks are practical, pungent and full of the sap of
+ experience."--_Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer._
+
+ "The call of the hour is for such a book as this to be read
+ and heeded. Every chapter is on a subject bound to come up
+ sooner or later, and discussed plainly but from a high
+ Christian standpoint."--_Religious Telescope._
+
+ "This book is a wholesome, exceedingly digestible oatmeal of
+ literature which is better for the mental and moral stomach
+ than many a higher-flavored repast."--_St. Louis Republic._
+
+
+Price, $1.50 net, post free
+
+
+
+
+A NEW DEVOTIONAL BOOK
+
+
+"Faces Toward the Light"
+
+By Sylvanus Stall, D.D.
+
+
+ Every phase of the Christian life--its joys and sorrows, its
+ temptations and triumphs--is treated in a reverent and deeply
+ spiritual manner that is sure to prove helpful and inspiring
+ to every reader.
+
+ SOME CHAPTERS IN THE BOOK
+
+ Glory After Gloom. The Dangerous Hour. The Concealed Future.
+ Gleaning for Christ. Hunger and Health. Direction and Destiny.
+ God of the Valleys. Coins and Christians. Reserved Blessings.
+ Comfort in Sorrow. The Better Service. Not Knowing Whither.
+ Good, but Good for Nothing. No Easy Place. The Dead Prayer
+ Office. How God Reveals Himself. Starting Late. Source of
+ Power. Toiling at a Heavy Tow. What He Gave and What He Got.
+ Vacation Lessons. Wheat or Weeds. The Christian's Power.
+ Disclosures in the Cloud. Healing and Living Waters. The
+ Concealed Future. Suspended Animation. The Source of Power.
+ Lessons from the Leaves. Etc.
+
+
+
+
+Just Published. New Revised Edition.
+
+
+FIVE-MINUTE
+OBJECT SERMONS
+TO CHILDREN
+
+Through Eye-Gate and Ear-Gate Into
+the City of Child-Soul
+
+By SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.
+
+
+ A book for preachers, teachers, parents and all interested in
+ the training and culture of children.
+
+ ENTHUSIASTICALLY COMMENDED
+
+ "These little delightful sermons are models at point and
+ brevity, and reach the little hearts through the eye and
+ ear."--_Christian Observer._
+
+ "Boys and girls will devour every one of them with relish,
+ whilst we children of a larger growth will be children
+ again."--_Lutheran Observer._
+
+ "These sermons cannot help being suggestive to every preacher
+ who would interest children, and they also have a much wider
+ scope than for the pulpit. The book should be eagerly sought
+ by all Sunday-School Teachers, leaders of children's meetings
+ and the clergymen of all churches."--_Wesleyan Methodist._
+
+ "Dr. Stall has the happy faculty of presenting to children,
+ sober truths in a manner interesting to them. The author's
+ object is to implant in the child's mind seeds of truth and
+ love, nobleness and justice, and all the virtues that go to
+ make a manly boy and womanly girl, as well as a God-loving
+ child."--_Boston Times._
+
+
+
+
+Talks to the
+King's Children
+
+_Second Series of "Five-Minute
+Object Sermons"_
+
+By SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.
+
+Invaluable in THE HOME, THE SUNDAY
+SCHOOL, THE PASTOR'S LIBRARY,
+THE MISSION FIELD
+
+
+ A CHILDREN'S PREACHER
+
+ "Dr. Stall has few equals in this particular line of writing.
+ He shows a fine reserve in not allowing the object used to
+ overshadow the truth taught."--_Nashville Christian Advocate._
+
+ "The Rev. Dr. Sylvanus Stall is one of the best preachers for
+ young people in the American pulpit. His 'Five-minute Object
+ Sermons' to children was an ideal book in its class. The
+ present volume is a second series of the same kind, and will
+ be found to have no less point and charm than the volume
+ published two years ago."--_New York Independent._
+
+ "The author is well-known in this community, having been a
+ pastor in Baltimore City for several years. He is an adept
+ certainly in furnishing bright, interesting talks to children.
+ He writes with a vigorous, irresistible pen."--_Baltimore
+ Methodist._
+
+ THE CHILDREN GOOD JUDGES
+
+ "Those who have had the genuine pleasure and profit of Dr.
+ Stall's first series of children's sermons will welcome this
+ second volume. We have read them with the children and commend
+ them very highly. The children know a good sermon when they
+ hear it."--_Reformed Church Messenger._
+
+ "Irresistibly interesting, especially to the young
+ mind."--_Christian Work._
+
+
+
+
+JUST PUBLISHED
+
+
+ Two Important Booklets
+
+ By Mrs. Adolphe Hoffmann, who is widely known in France,
+ Germany and Switzerland as a talented writer, lecturer and
+ educator. She is also prominent in the great reform and
+ educational movements in Europe.
+
+ The Social Duty of Our Daughters
+
+ _A mother's talk with mothers and their grown daughters._
+
+ BY MRS. ADOLPHE HOFFMANN
+
+ An affectionate and confidential talk to mothers and their
+ daughters on the responsibility, power and maternal duties of
+ woman. These counsels should do much to dignify and elevate
+ parenthood to the place intended by the Creator.
+
+
+ Before Marriage
+
+ _A mother's parting counsel to her son on the eve of his
+ marriage._
+
+ BY MRS. ADOLPHE HOFFMANN
+
+ This booklet embodies the counsel of an earnest mother who
+ imparts to her son the information essential to the happiness
+ both of her son and his bride.
+
+
+
+
+_Unique Original Uplifting_
+
+God's Minute
+
+
+ A book of 365 daily prayers, 60 seconds long, arranged from
+ January 1st to December 31st, a prayer to each page, _written
+ expressly for this book_ by the most eminent preachers and
+ laymen in the English-speaking world. At the top of each page
+ is a selection of Scripture on encouragement to prayer.
+
+ Prayers by Drs. Wilfred T. Grenfell, W.W. Keen; Reverend
+ Doctors, F.B. Meyer, John Clifford, James M. Gray, Timothy
+ Stone, David James Burrell, Washington Gladden, Hugh Black;
+ Rev. W. Griffith Thomas; Bishops W.A. Quayle, Charles E.
+ Woodcock; President E.Y. Mullins, Mrs. Alice Hegan Rice,
+ author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch." Clinton Scollard
+ contributes an original poem.
+
+ _Full cloth bound, printed on thin Rag Feather-weight paper,
+ 384 pages. Specially priced at 60 cents a copy, cloth; in
+ leatherette, $1.00; in art leather, $1.50._
+
+
+THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+PHILADELPHIA, PA., U.S.A.: 200 N. FIFTEENTH ST.
+LONDON: 7, IMPERIAL ARCADE, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C.
+CANADA: RYERSON PRESS, QUEEN AND JOHN STREETS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"_Touchstones of Success_"
+
+
+WRITTEN BY
+
+_160 Present Day Men of Achievement Especially for This Book_
+
+
+ Opinions of Great Business Men
+
+ _From a California National Bank_: "Please find enclosed order
+ for five copies of 'Touchstones of Success,' which we will
+ keep in the bank for the present and future young men to read
+ at their leisure time at the expense of the bank."
+
+ _From a Widely Known California Engineer_: "I enclose check
+ for $10.00 for eight copies of Touchstones of Success'."
+
+ _From a Big Business Man, Boston, Mass_: "This is a splendid
+ book for young men and it ought to be of great value to them."
+
+ _From a Prominent Manufacturer in Detroit_: "Please send six
+ copies of the book. I want to distribute them among some of
+ the employees in our office."
+
+ _From a Great Manufacturing Concern of St. Louis_: "I am
+ passing copies of the book among the boys in our office
+ because it contains some wonderful messages."
+
+ _From a Widely Known New York Jurist_: "I am enclosing my
+ check for $25.00, which makes $50.00 that I have invested in
+ extra copies of this book, so you know what I think of it."
+
+_Price, full cloth Bound, $1.25 net per copy_
+
+THE PUBLISHERS:
+_The_ VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+200-214: NORTH 15TH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
+
+
+
+
+_A Book About Our Wonderful Bodies_
+
+Marvels of Our Bodily
+Dwelling
+
+_By_ MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.
+
+_Author of_ "What a Young Girl Ought
+to Know," etc.
+
+Introduction by SYLVANUS STALL. D.D.
+
+
+ In the form of an allegory--comparing each part of the human
+ body to its counterpart in a dwelling, the author has
+ succeeded in making this human study as interesting as a
+ Sherlock Holmes detective story. She has laid under
+ contribution the best scientific authorities and this book
+ will be found abreast of the Science of today.
+
+ _Cloth with cover in four colors, stamped in gold. 328 pages
+ with fine half-tone pictures and 72 line drawings._
+
+_A Marvelous Book Upon a Marvelous Subject_
+
+THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+PHILADELPHIA. PA., U.S.A.: 200 N. 15th Street
+LONDON: 7, Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus, E.C.
+TORONTO: Ryerson Press, 29 Richmond Street. W.
+
+
+
+
+Bible Selections for Daily Devotion
+
+Selected and Arranged by
+
+SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.
+
+ This book brings to family worship 365 passages best suited in
+ character and length to such service.
+
+ It is intended to relieve the father or mother of perplexity
+ and apprehension concerning the passages to be read, and to
+ enable them to bring to the service that frame of mind
+ indispensable to the conduct of real worship.
+
+ The Gospel narrative is chronologically arranged.
+
+ The text is from the Authorized version, while the verses are
+ merged into paragraphs as in the Revised edition.
+
+ Difficult words are pronounced.
+
+ The selections are suited not only for use in family worship,
+ but for the chapel service of colleges, universities, and by
+ teachers in the opening services of public schools.
+
+ Readings are from three to five minutes in length.
+
+ _Cloth. 686 pages. Price, $1.50 net._
+
+
+THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY
+PHILADELPHIA, PA., U.S.A.: 200 N. 15th Street
+LONDON: 7, Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus, E.C.
+TORONTO: Ryerson Press, Queen and John Streets
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What a Young Woman Ought to Know, by
+Mary Wood-Allen
+
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