THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1894. 

 ATHLETICS FOR CITY GIRLS. 



By MARY TAYLOK BISSELL, M. D. 



IF any of my readers sliould chance to belong to a hardy boat 

 crew or to a college ball team, or if in days past they have 

 ever been numbered in such a muscular community, they will 

 doubtless feel that the title of my paper is its own execu- 

 tioner. For so long as baseball and football and the boat race 

 stand for the national expression of athletics, the experiences 

 of girls in any similar department will seem like comparing 

 moonlight unto sunlight, and water unto wine. In speaking of 

 athletics for city girls, however, we shall use the phrase in a 

 liberal sense, including not only out-of-door sports but also the 

 general feats and training of the gymnasium. The spirit for 

 physical recreation has invaded the atmosphere of the girl's life 

 as well as that of the boy, and demands consideration from her 

 standpoint. 



Before we consider the influence of athletics, we may well 

 inquire into the physical status of the girl. What is the type of 

 the city girl, and is there any reason to believe that she is in need 

 of any new influence to further her development ? In age she is 

 presumably under twenty ; at all events, she has not yet reached 

 that period of stable womanly development which physiology 

 places at about the age of twenty-five. She is presumably well 

 housed, well fed, and more or less well clothed, according to the 

 intelligence of her guardians. She spends at least half of her 

 young life in the schoolroom, most of that time at a desk in more 

 or less cramped and unfavorable positions. The average city 

 schoolgirl spends from two to four hours daily in study, accord- 

 ing to her ambition, takes a music, drawing, or dancing lesson in 



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