Saving Strength. 



641 



physically extravagant way of taking hold of a chair to lift it; Fig. 4 

 (c), the economical, easy, becoming way. In carrying a weight the body 

 should be easily balanced instead of being tipped backward from the hips 

 and then making the lower back muscles overwork as in Fig. 4 (a). 



The body's servants. — You remember the wise old saying, "Make your 

 head save your heels?" Let me give you another: "Make your arms 

 and legs save your back." Every woman facing a big day's work should 

 remember that she has four sturdy servants to do her bidding. She must 

 direct them to render their rightful service, namely, to lift, to carry, to 

 scrub, to wash, to walk, to stoop, to mount stairs, to sweep, to reach, to 

 write, to sew. We should command them to save in every way possible 

 the smaller, more essential 

 and delicate muscles of the 

 trunk from labor unfitted for 

 them. 



Make the legs do the work 

 in walking and running. — 

 Women who have formed the 

 habit of standing in a bent, 

 back-burdened attitude exag- 

 gerate this bad position of the 

 body when they walk, espe- 

 cially if there is a sense of 

 "hurry" in the brain. Recall 

 the mental picture of some 

 neighbor hurr^'ing, in a sort 



of dog-trot gait, aboutherwork, with body bent forward nearly one-third 

 from the upright, the head and shoulders being quite in advance of 

 the rest of the body, as if the legs could not, or would not, go fast 

 enough for the impatient brain and body. This is the "haste 

 that makes waste." Such a position means straining and enfeebling 

 the poor back, and it means interference with breathing, cir- 

 culation and digestion. It is courting heaviness of movement, 

 heaviness of spirit and oldness of body. It announces that the 

 woman is not master of her work; rather her work masters and drives her. 

 All must acknowledge that this is wrong. A woman with much depending 

 upon her should be able wisely to direct her body in her work, and not 

 allow her work to own her. When one is well-poised, free and buoyant in 

 bodily movement, one can walk rapidly, or even run, while doing one's 

 work and suffer none of the exhaustive effects that always attend the spirit 

 of hurry. An Arab proverb well puts it that "Hurry is the devil." Shall 

 we not keep ourselves serene and free from his malign influence? 

 21 i 



Fig. 13. 



Fig. 14. 



