118 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



WOMEN'S CONGEESS. 



Wednesday Afternoon. 



The first section of the women's congress, with Miss Maude Gilchrist 

 as conductor, met in the lecture room of the Women's Building. As 

 Mrs. Carrie Ives Saunders, of Saginaw, who was to act as chairman of 

 the session, was not present, Miss Jennie Buell, of Ann Arbor, was 

 selected to occupy the chair. In addition to music and recitations, the 

 following papers were presented : 



PHYSICAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS. 



BY Miss SARAH A. B. AVERY^ DIRECTOR OF WOMEN's GYMNASIUM^ AGRICUL- 

 TURAL COLLEGE, MICHIGAN. 



''Life without health is a burden, with health it is joy and gladness." 

 Through the body only is the mind able to express itself — how import- 

 ant then that we bring this medium of soul expression up to the highest 

 point of efficiency possible. To make the body thoroughly responsive 

 to the will, demands good health and careful training. The body is 

 the servant of the mind only as it serves, and its measure of service de- 

 pends upon the intelligent guidance and direction of the will, while 

 mental endowment shows itself in physical expression. Our modern edu- 

 cational system rests on the recognition of this interdependence of body, 

 mind and soul. The ancient Greeks embodied in their religion the culti- 

 vation of physical beauty and strength, and taught that whoever edu- 

 cated the mind and morals without training the body, is a cripple, and 

 their girls and women took part in the games and sports. 



For centuries physical skill, endurance and daring have counted 

 much in the advancement of peoples and nations for, generall}' speak- 

 ing, the ''race is to the swift and the battle to the strong." Through 

 th^ ages, human interest in varying degrees has concerned itself with 

 the physical welfare, but in all this time it has been "the body for the 

 body's sake," and men, more than women, were active in seeking physical 

 benefits, and only comparatively recently has the subject been considered 

 from its true standpoint and given its real place as a part of the gen- 

 eral plan for the training of individual men and women. "Education," 

 it has been said, "has to do with the enUre man in whom mind and 

 body are inseparably consolidated one with the other." 



We must look at the matter of physical training from a broader 

 point of view than the mere cultivation of muscular strength, for trained 

 physical life is the basis of efficient brain service; a strong body under 

 discipline is said to add 50 per cent, to mental strength. Surely in this 

 day of rush and hurry and crushing competition the need of both a 



