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Title: What a Young Woman Ought to Know
Author: Wood-Allen, Mary, 1841-1908
Language: English
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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 anæmic
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 anæmic 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 _tête-à-têtes_, 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
_tête-à-tête_ 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 minutiæ 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 _débauché_ 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 _fiancée_ 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 _fiancée_, 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
_tête-à-têtes_, 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 _fiancée_ 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
* * * * *
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