80 GAEDENING FOE WOMEN 



ment. Physical activity was supposed to unfit 

 young girls for society. Things are changed since 

 then, and although many of us see with regret some 

 loss of feminine softness and charm m occasional 

 specimens of the new woman, we cannot put all 

 the evils to the profession of gardening. There 

 must always, I suppose, be eccentric individuals 

 who exaggerate their peculiarities, but these exist 

 in all professions, and classes 



Much attention is now paid to the physical 

 development of girls and young women in our 

 schools, and we cannot fail to see the immense 

 advantage gained by comparison through this over 

 the results of early Victorian education. We have 

 all, it is to be hoped, learnt that open air life is 

 no longer a privileged form of existence suited 

 only to men. We know that it is, when carried out 

 on sensible lines of moderation, immensely help- 

 ful to women. The medical world has lately been 

 awakened to the importance of improving the 

 physique of our young people. Both Sir Lauder 

 Brunton and Sir John Cockburn (chairman of the 

 Swanley Horticultural College for Women) have 

 impressed this fact openly upon the world. We 

 see daily before us leisured women who from lack 

 of pleasant, wholesome interests and bodily exer- 

 cise, without scope for reasonable aspirations, have 

 become anaemic parodies of the sex. The insidious 



