140 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



exquisitely designed of all our organs except our hands, to the same ex- 

 tent as do the short and pointed shoes so commonly worn. 



So far as walking for any distance is concerned, no American ex- 

 pects to do that. It is because the feet are so undeveloped and their 

 ligaments and muscles are so weak, that so many people suffer with flat 

 feet or with weak arches. So that now, all the shoemakers are putting 

 steel arch supporters in the shoes. This is about as sensible as it would 

 be to support a weak arm by binding it up in splints and making it im- 

 movable, hoping that if it could not be raised, it would gradually grow 

 strong and robust. Even a shoemaker would laugh at such a method 

 of making a child's arm strong, and yet he boasts that he makes a weak 

 arch strong by preventing it from taking its natural exercise. The 

 arch of the foot must go down whenever one bears his weight upon it, 

 and the foot must spread out. For long tramps nothing could be more 

 painful than shoes with metal arch supporters in them. Like all these 

 attempts to interfere with nature's methods, of which man, not to say 

 woman, has ever been guilty, wearing arch supporters may be a cause of 

 terrible suffering, if one has to walk any distance with them in his shoes 

 or boots. 



Of course if people walk very little, they can endure the arch sup- 

 porters, just as the women endure the high heels. It would seem that 

 ordinary boots and shoes are not made to walk in, but to look at, or 

 perhaps to ride in. 



I knew a Hebrew gentleman on the frontier who sold a man a pair 

 of riding boots. In a few days, the purchaser of the boots came back 

 ■complaining that the seams of his new boots had burst out, whereupon 

 my Semitic friend, with a look of mingled horror and surprise, broke 

 •out with, "Why my frent, you didn'd valk in dose boots, did you? 

 Dose was not valking boots, dey was riding boots." I often think of 

 this occurrence when I see women trying to walk with Cuban heels 

 and shoes far too short and too narrow for them. That their gait is 

 singularly stilted and ungraceful every one knows, yet how they man- 

 age to walk as well as they do is surprising. I can nearly always tell 

 by a woman's gait whether she is wearing shoes that really fit her or 

 not. A woman properly shod may and often does show the queenly dig- 

 nity and lissome grace which should characterize the most graceful of 

 God's creatures. However, as an old walker myself I have to say that 

 for good walking the human foot and ankle need a more thorough de- 

 velopment than they are now allowed to attain. Every one of the ten 

 toes should be allowed to grow to its proper size and should exert its 

 due pressure on the ground when we walk, jump or run. The natural 

 foot is a perfect arch, and its two columns the ball of the foot and the 

 heel should be on an exact level, which means that the heel of the 

 shoe should not be over a half inch in height. The heel of the shoe 



