112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



stronger if she nses them in the right way, as does the athlete 

 or the student of physical training, keeping her weight upon 

 the balls of her feet, keeping her chest high and head high. If 

 she is obliged to bend at her work, let her not get over it in this 

 position (illustrating), which she has gotten in the habit of 

 doing, but bend at the hips ; that keeps the chest up. And if 

 she is obliged to work at a table too low^ for her, or at a stove 

 (and a stove is nearly always too low), or a sink too low, let 

 her bend at the hips and keep her chest up. Working in this 

 way there is no strain whatever upon the abdomen. Let the 

 limbs perform the burden of the work ; they contain no vital 

 organs, therefore they cannot be injured. See that the weight 

 is kept over the center of gravity, which will be over the balls 

 of the feet. They become the base. In this way she will 

 accomplish more, and she will find that she is gaining strength 

 rather than losing it. 



She wants to reach, she finds she is obliged to. The shelves 

 are high. Some women reach in this way, bringing the body 

 away from the reach instead of with it. It is possible to keep 

 the weight upon the balls of the feet, let the body go with it ; 

 that motion does not injure the person, does not bring a strain 

 where this does. This brings a strain upon the back, upon the 

 organs of the body which are not well suited for the strain, but 

 bring the arm this way, let the body sway toward the place 

 where one has to reach, and there are no bad effects. We 

 often watch men at work and cannot help but notice that they 

 use their bodies to rather better advantage than do women. 

 If a man is sawing wood — we don't see them sawing wood so 

 very often nowadays, I don't know but it has become a lost art 

 — I have been looking for a man sawing wood for a long time 

 to see how he did it, but I suspect he uses his arms. If a 

 woman washes clothes she uses her back. She gets over her 

 tub, her chest gets a little depressed, and she uses ker back 

 upon her work, bringing the strain upon the back, and says 

 work is drudgery. It is hard work, indeed it is, but it is pos- 

 sible W'ith the weight forward upon the balls of the feet — I 

 don't mean she shall rise upon her toes in doing it, but keep 

 the weight there, keep the chest up, use the arms as a man does 

 when he saws wood, as a man does very often when he rows a 

 boat. The great difficulty in a woman's work is that she uses 

 her back while a man uses his limbs. Is it not a fact that a 



