142 HITCHCOCK'S ANATOMY 



lectual culture in the least, cr to dictate how those, who are 

 possessed of an abundance of wealth shall dispose of it, but 

 simply to say that a thorough physical education is essential 

 for a proper enjoyment and improvement of our whole nature, 

 body, mind, and soul. The evils of a neglect of this branch 

 of education exhibit themselves, not only in puny clergymen 

 and lawyers, but in the meager and attenuated physiques of 

 our mothers and sisters. 



Boys, especially when boys, will run, jump, shout,' and 

 be in the open air in spite of any thing but the closest 

 watch ; in fact it is thought proper that boys should be ruddy 

 in countenance and healthy, but with girls it is not so. 

 By grossly perverted usages of society, it is considered im- 

 'proper for girls to run and jump and shout, and especially so 

 out of doors ; but while mere children even, they must act as 

 young ladies , and never move except in a precise and meas- 

 ured manner, often as unnatural as it is injurious ; and any 

 thing that requires muscular effort, is regarded as vulgar, 

 and of course not to be undertaken. Now, physiology tells 

 us that just the thing which our girls and ladies stand 

 in need of at the present day is active, vigorous muscular 

 effort, such as walking, rowing, riding on horse-back, and 

 calisthenic and gymnastic exercises. And let the question 

 be suggested to parents, guardians, and in fact all inter- 

 ested in the prosperity or even the existence of the Anglo- 

 Saxon race on this continent, whether the physical develop- 

 ment of ladies shall be neglected through the idle whim of 

 its impropriety (which often only generates a false mod- 

 esty or prudishness), and thus tend to a deterioration of 

 the race which is now in fearful progress in the United 

 States. 



Without a proper exercise of the muscles in man Or 

 woman, all the other portions of the body must suffer, and 

 if so, why, through an over sensitive, prudish caution, must 

 woman be the unfortunate victim? The old Greeks — 

 heathen though they were — did not neglect the development 



