bJ * lb/1 | .K47 ^HBHI §® .'.'.:..''.,,';", . \ Blip - "'-■•' - r . LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Chap. __A^_ Copyright No... UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. COMFORT AND EXERCISE COMFORT AND EXERCISE An Essay Toward Normal Conduct By MARY PERRY KING V£? Boston Small, Maynard & Company 1900 Copyright, iqoo Small, Maynard & Company (incorporated) *i r "• o. - Entered at Stationers* Hall HR 1 " . *• ^ % Library of Concrress Two Copi NOV 14 1900 Copyright entry SECOND COPY Dcilvofod to ORDER DIVISION NOV 19 190U UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS Page I. Ox Comfort 3 II. Comfort in Daily Life 17 III. Comfort in Education 37 IV. Comfort in Dress 55 V. Educational Exercise 77 VI. The Ideal Gymnasium 103 ON COMFORT ON COMFORT THE world is never left long without some definite prompting from the informing spirit of beauty and truth which moulds it, without some fresh stir towards goodness and the libera- tion of the soul. We are reminded once more of the supreme importance of the spiritual life by the writing of that young Mystic, M. Maurice Maeterlinck, in his volume of essays, " The Treasure of the Humble/' Without trenching at all on the vexed questions of definite religious tenets, he is yet distinctly religious in tendency, since the whole gist of his philosophy is the constant importance of the human soul. He is a son of the transcendent- alists, of the children of wonder, and one of that younger school of artists who are drawing our thoughts once more towards the consideration of the deeper problems of life. 3 COMFORT AND EXERCISE We are ever set thinking anew on the oldest and most obstinate difficulty man has had to en- counter, — how most easily and effectually to realize the finest spiritual life, how to give freest play to ideals and make them of telling impor- tance in our world progress. In that hard task man early found himself the centre of opposing forces ; he had been en- dowed with dire and imperious bodily needs and with equally strong and uncompromising spiritual aspirations. He felt the tension between the beautiful un- moral world of Nature from which he springs, on which he rests, in which alone he has any being at all, and the perfectly moral world of finest spirit, towards which he strives and into which, he believes, his being is merged at death. He was confronted by the fundamental riddle of existence which Emerson has expressed in the saying, " God gives to every man the choice 4 ON COMFORT between truth and repose; take which you please, you can never have both." In this dilemma, as he came dimly to recognize it, man cast about for a path of escape. Hampered by the unrelenting demands of the tangle of daily existence, thwarted and restricted in the pursuit of a free spiritual development, his most obvious exit from embarrassment has often seemed to lie in flight from worldly liabilities. He might disown all those instincts and im- pulses which make for conquest and which are satisfied only in overcoming opposition. He might entirely renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh; and so perhaps win for his spirit that freedom of action it desired, by shirking all worldly and bodily obligations. Such a course was evidently a begging of the question; it necessitated the forsaking of self-evi- dent duties, and could only be justified through 5 COMFORT AND EXERCISE vilifying those duties. It was a concession to spiritual nature, indeed, but it was made at the expense of stultifying both the mental and physi- cal natures, with which, after all, spirit must share existence at least in this vale of tears. In the last analysis such a process could only mean annihilation. We are here, after all, in the coil of a mundane environment, with pressing needs, desires, and ob- ligations ; and maltreat them as we may, this pa- tient servant, the flesh, is not to be discharged, nor duty to the world escaped, until the appointed time. Threefold as we are in make-up, with a spir- itual, mental, and physical nature, each more or less clearly defined, each equally dependent on the other two, and with all three blended for the present in the individual, it would seem almost self-evident that the deterioration of any one nature must weaken the others, and disorder the economy and harmony of the whole. 6 ON COMFORT The very fact that we are thus triply endowed for this present existence should be a sufficient guarantee of the equal excellence and importance of each endowment. The old Roman phrase " Mens sana in corpore sano " embodied a wise ideal ; and Browning has expressed the same fundamental truth in the soliloquy of Rabbi Ben Ezra, particularly in the stanza, " Let us not always Bay, 4 Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole ! J As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry, ' All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now, than flesh helps soul.'" That is the just reproof to an exaggerated asceti- cism. It was an arrogance of soul which an- ciently led to the vilification of the world and the flesh, and it needed rebuke. COMFORT AND EXERCISE The successful issue of any life is just as de- pendent upon bodily force and world-wisdom, as upon spiritual quality; and the best scheme of culture will neglect no one of these essential con- stituents of human nature ; it will appreciate and educate the physical powers, the faculties of mind, and the subtle working of spirit, with equal pains, equal reverence, and equal zeal. The aim of perfection which such a culture sets itself can never be the cherishing of one phase of our nature and the desertion of the other two; it can never be an over development in one direc- tion at the cost of an under development in an- other ; it must always be rather the balanced maintenance and development of all three com- ponent forces, each in best condition and all at perfect poise. But we are to-day in less danger from the fallacy of extreme asceticism than from the opposite ex- treme of extravagance. 8 ON COMFORT The maintenance of any extravagance demands excessive strain which is not compensated by the result. The gratification derivable from extravagant ac- quisition, possession, or expenditure is over-alloyed with weariness, boredom, and disappointment. True luxury is attainable by moderate means, and vanishes with excess. Happiness is so delicate and evanescent a thing, that we are apt to miss it even at the moment of attainment, if it comes to us hampered by any unforeseen restrictions; for freedom constitutes a large part of our happiness; and few things so inevitably hamper freedom as the fever of exces- sive acquisition. . If it is plain that our enjoyment of freedom is complicated and restricted by over acquisitive zeal, it is no less evident that superfluous possessions are but debris of pleasure, and lavish expenditure, the debauchery of power. Power, pleasure, freedom, 9 COMFORT AND EXERCISE — these largely make up the sum of our happi- ness j which on all sides may find itself limited and defeated by a superabundance of the things on which we fancied it might depend. How then shall we adjust ourselves in order not to miss the finest flavor of life ? By determining for ourselves the exact point at which acquisition ceases to help our freedom ; by taking care that our possessions are not more than we can enjoy to the full ; and by guarding against an expenditure beyond helpfulness. Such an ideal recognizes no general standard of wealth, but a separate, relative standard for each member of society, according to his capacity for utilizing it to its utmost. The measure of that standard, too, need not be fixed, but shifting in every case with the development of new capacity for usefulness. And there need be no danger to the man nor to society from glut of power, when increase of wealth implies the development of com- 10 ON COMFORT mensurate helpfulness and happiness in its possessor; his increasing capacity for usefulness keeping pace with his acquisition of power ; and as he gains new and higher standards of happiness, he will have less and less tolerance of greedy acquisition or sel- fish accumulation. Such an ideal of living is nothing more nor less than legitimate comfort. If ascetic renunciation is a mal-adjustment of the individual to his environment, extravagance is quite as truly a mal-adjustment of environment to the individual. -» The right adjustment between self and circum- stance is the only real comfort ; the perfection of this adjustment is the only true luxury and sure happiness. This simple, normal scheme of conduct is perhaps the true democratic ideal, in that its standard of success, the measure of personal adjustment, is universally applicable. To render such a course of conduct deduci- ll COMFORT AND EXERCISE ble from existing social conditions, now so elabo- rately burdensome, would necessitate, of course, their radical simplification. And the immediate compensation would be a life enriched rather than encumbered by living, relieved of external oppres- sion, and freely and fully developing its inherent powers. Nothing short of a personal poise, in which the three elemental forces of human nature have free and equal play, no one being hindered by any un- just development, can hopefully face this ideal of normal comfort: an ideal whose business it is to encourage impulse, to educate instinct, to inspire action, — to develop our humanity. The natural development of any organism de- mands the adequate exercise of all its powers and functions, and a natural product is the only one that preserves the best qualities of its type. Human culture naturally demands equal re- spect for life's physical root, mental branch, and 12 ON COMFORT spiritual blossom, that the fruit may be not only unimpaired, but improved. This modest ideal of comfort in culture and conduct brings us face to face immediately with the most practical concerns. Its consistent appli- cation demands standards of comfort in education, comfort in occupation, comfort in home life, com- fort in social life, comfort in dress; its develop- ment promises universally attainable, legitimate human happiness. 13 II COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE II COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE THE problem of comfort in daily life resolves itself into consideration of comfort in home life, comfort in occupation, and comfort in social life. In all these considerations the utmost comfort is again but a matter of normal adjustment. It consists in so adapting means to ends as to derive maximum result from minimum effort. True comfort, true luxury, true happiness de- pend not at all on the number of possessions, or the elaboration of conveniences, but rather on the ease with which we derive the greatest per- sonal gratification from the simplest extraneous conditions, and on the skill with which we adapt conditions to our personal needs and preferences, with the least expenditure of energy and waste in friction. 2 17 COMFORT AND EXERCISE First of all, in home life we need constantly to remind ourselves that the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment. It is because we forget this that we allow our real life to be spoiled and spent in the wear and tear of the mere machinery of living. We have elaborated and complicated our material require- ments and our conventional obligations beyond endurance, until our only hope of regaining a sound basis for sane living lies in simplifying and readjusting our social standards. And these begin and end in the home, however far beyond it their influence may extend. The first wrong that confronts us in search for the shell of a home, the four walls within which the home is to be created, is the silly snobbery which forbids persons of moderate means, yet of the best social standing, to live in any but expen- sive localities. The less uneasy and better bred societies of the 18 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE Old World rarely mistake where one lives, for what one is. While we seem socially to care infinitely less for personal character and attainments than for fashionable residence. That accident fre- quently settles social status. No standard could be less worthy a twentieth century democracy. But it is part of youth's unfortunate faith in show, to be deluded by the glitter of material prosperity. A vicious system of land tenure has much to do with the difficulty of suitable housing in all of our large cities, and imposes a tyrannous strain on the home seeker. But as this essay makes no pretension to touch on economic questions, we must leave that hardship out of consideration. The tyranny of a mistaken sentiment remains, — to be obeyed by the hopelessly conventional and overcome by the wisely independent. It may be noted here that the increasing cus- tom of summering in the country affords opportu- 19 COMFORT AND EXERCISE nity for the carrying out of practicable methods of communistic living'; it enables people of con- genial tastes, with social rather than fashionable ambitions, yet with small means, to combine on a rational basis of homekeeping, which far surpasses complicated extravagance in the luxury of real comfort, with immunity from care. But, given the house, given the local habitation and the name, how best secure that airy nothing- ness which constitutes the essence and atmosphere of the home ? Mainly by carefully avoiding two opposite extremes. In the first place, the house should never be so elaborate as to overtax personal effort and hamper the personal freedom and growth of any of its inmates. In the second place, it should always be sufficiently comfortable and beautiful to furnish its occupants daily recuperation and encouragement. It should be so simple, so economically adapted to its inmates' means, that its maintenance shall 20 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE always seem their lightest care ; it must be so in- teresting, so bountifully adapted to its inmates' needs, that enjoyment of it shall always foster and further their higher life, inviting their return to it daily for solace and inspiration, as well as for rest and food. Happiness derivable from a home depends upon the comfortable ease with which it is maintained, more than upon the luxury in which it is sup- ported. And this comfort is always relative and comparative, never an absolute standard. It im- plies that a person with most modest means may have a more comfortable home than his more ex- travagant neighbor, whose house is relatively a greater strain on his resources, or otherwise less well adapted to the tastes and idiosyncrasies of its occupants. Within a home so arranged and managed as to yield the greatest comfort and inspiration with the least worry, the characters of its inmates may 21 COMFORT AND EXERCISE best learn to enjoy fair freedom of relationship and growth. One of the prime requisites of happy living is comfort in occupation, something like a harmo- nious adjustment between capability and work ; and a great part of the complication of the vexed social problem, though by no means the funda- mental wrong, lies in the difficulty of adapting capacity to task, of getting the right worker in the right place. All the slovenly, grudging work of the world is due not so much to the shiftless- ness of unregenerate nature, as to a rebellious sense of outraged and baffled efficiency. It is true the pressure of struggle is so great, that few individuals have much choice of labor ; they are fortunate if they can find elbow room for any kind of usefulness, and chance to spend a pre- cious lifetime for the price of bread alone. Yet all our aspiration is not to escape toil, how- ever much we may delude ourselves that this is 22 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE the goal of happiness, but only to find the field of activity where some native energy of ours may attain freedom in the accomplishment of its purpose. Activity, not inaction, is our native air ; achieve- ment, and not detachment, is our rest-house on the journey. Once given fit opportunity, the door of lawful ambition, and how naturally every power springs into energy! We reach efficiency almost at a bound, and growing exercise of congenial work calls forth and educates still other unguessed ap- titudes. We rejoice and grow apace, to the limit of life, undaunted and efficient to the last, nor ever know the tedium, the dejection, the dread of futility and sense of despair which attend the hapless, misplaced toiler at every step of the way. All this we know instinctively, and tacitly rec- ognize in every effort to adjust ourselves most 23 COMFORT AND EXERCISE comfortably to occupation ; yet it should be made the object of more deliberate care. The immedi- ate advantage, the conventional honor attaching to one calling above another, deserves but small consideration from untried youthful energy. The real question is not, as we are prone to think, which trade, which profession, is most ad- vantageous for advancement and profit? It is rather, to what calling will one's talents most truly answer, what sphere will they most completely fill? For in efficiency, in right adjustment be- tween work and worker, and nowhere else, is real good fortune to be found. But the old false standards obtain, and one call- ing is held more honorable than another ; whereas the most honorable calling for any being is the one he is fitted to serve most efficiently. Our wrong standard of wealth and our imperfect standard of education are emphasized and ag- gravated by a false pride in occupation. 24 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE In enforcing many laudable ambitions of democ- racy, we have misconstrued some of the inevitable laws of nature, which is so calmly democratic in seeming, so ruthlessly aristocratic in fact. While emphasizing the essential equality of individuals, we have forgotten the essential equality of service. It is true that one man's service to the commu- nity may be relatively of much greater importance than another's ; and in that sense one man may be of vastly more importance than another. But in the finer ideal sense in which all men are equal, all service is of equal value, so it be the best of its kind. " All service ranks the same with God," as Browning has it. And we might with infinite gain revise our misleading notions of compara- tive dignity of occupations, and make efficiency, rather than worldly prominence, the test of success. We are hagridden by this false ideal of u suc- cess " in life, and to it alone most of our failures 25 COMFORT AND EXERCISE are to be attributed. We wear ourselves out in a fatuous attempt to reach some field of activity for which perhaps we have not the least fitness, but which stands high in fickle popular regard; and in that unreasoning, fashionable regard, the more enviable still are those who have no occupation at all. Before just respect for occupation can become universal, the disgrace of idleness must be gener- ally realized. Unfortunately we are growing away from such a sentiment rather than toward it. Not only should our popular code be revised so as to include the socialistic tenet of universal em- ployment, a task for every man and every man at his task ; it should encourage occupation for every woman as well. And this need neither enlarge nor restrict her sphere. She may or may not be married, she may or may not seek occupation outside of the home, but a satisfying occupation she should have. 26 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE Half of the well-appointed, well-cared-for women in the world are perishing physically, mentally, and morally for want of something interesting to do, and do well ; while the majority of successful busi- ness-men whose undertaking it is to provide them with the raw materials of living are taxed far be- yond their strength. Congenially occupied women would need no foolish outlet for their energies, — in fruitless social competition, vain display, and idle and mischievous wastefulness. However exempt a woman may be from the necessity of occupation, she cannot be exempt from the duty of labor. Her true dignity can never be impaired by rendering service, it can only be endangered by rendering service inadequately. It is impossible for the house servant to have any respect for service that her mistress disdains. The sphere of the proper rearing of a child within four walls of a tenement is a sphere large enough for the greatest woman, if that be her 27 COMFORT AND EXERCISE genius. It is not the width of a sphere that counts, it is its height and depth. On the other hand, no region of activity need be denied to women which they can occupy in common with men, to the advantage of society. The point, however, which now needs to be em- phasized above all others, in the consideration of occupation for woman, is the equal dignity of all work. A practical application of this truth would save an embarrassing situation for many women who are forced to seek employment, and are pre- vented, by a foolish conventional estimate of differ- ent callings, from placing their service where it is most needed and would be most effectual. Whatever may fall within the domain of woman to accomplish in the future, there is one thing to be recognized in her immediate and hereditary capability ; namely, that hers is pre-eminently the genius of adaptation. In the art of arts, the art of adjustment, she is supreme. While in the region 28 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE of creative impulse and in the region of executive manipulation she has always held, and will proba- bly long continue to hold, a place second to man's, in the region of adaptation she is unrivalled. Al- though she neither greatly originates nor controls forces, she most skilfully modifies and utilizes them. The fine arts themselves, in which women are ever outranked by men, are of little value until they have been utilized and adapted to daily life ; the practical affairs of the world, the production and aggregation of wealth, in which men are so much more efficient than most women, are of little value until they have been adjusted to daily use ; and in this dominion of spiritual utility, in this power of deriving actual life and helpfulness from the mere physical and mental elements of life pro- vided for her, woman is in her region of natural greatness. Failing to recognize this truth, much of her force 29 COMFORT AND EXERCISE is spent in vain ; too much of her energy is wasted in attempts against natural economy. If woman would unflinchingly claim the equal dignity of all work and the full value of her peculiar powers, her difficult problem would be half solved. She need not aspire to mediocre china-painting and music- teaching, if she were once assured that right dress- making and right cooking are more honorable and much more needed ; she would not waste her vital- ity in effort to become a second-rate lawyer, when she might easily become a first-rate housekeeper. She would hesitate to spend herself in a wasteful competition with man for the grosser elements of life, whenever it was possible for her so to supple- ment his endeavors as to utilize what he can better produce. It is only in utilization of man's work that women are indispensable; their attempts to par- ticipate in its production must always be strained and unsatisfying, while without their final adapta- 30 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE tion of the product of his energy, man's work must always prove incomplete and unsatisfactory. There will doubtless always be some women constitutionally better fitted to do man's work than to do their own, just as there are always a few men with the instincts and tastes of woman and the capacity to do her work. These are excep- tions to their kind, however ; and the freest oppor- tunity should, undoubtedly, be afforded them for placing their individual energies to their most advantageous use. The recognition of woman's need for occupation, of the equal dignity of all occupations, and of the inevitable differentiation of function between men and women, would be radically helpful to all legiti- mate members of society, to all workers. As home life touches the field of occupation on one side, its interests spread out into social life on the other; and in that realm, too, comfort will depend upon adjustment. 31 COMFORT AND EXERCISE The amount of social life we can really enjoy must be regulated by our strength ; it should not be so great as to lessen our personal efficiency, nor so limited as to impoverish our growth and restrict our influence. Certainly we should do with as few artificial social obligations as possible, in order that intercourse may gain in the sincerity and simplicity of true courtesy. Our unwritten law of visiting, for instance, might well be revised, for the ordinary duty call is but a travesty of sociability and costs much friction and waste. And random entertaining, too, is quite as pernicious, in that it wastes our energy and dissipates our enthusiasm. Like the duty call, it is no real cour- tesy, and rarely deludes the recipient. The legitimate privilege of social life is to enhance personality, while the pernicious tendency of social fashion is to dissipate it. But the wise soul will seek adjustment to life by the gentlest means, maintaining a fair composure 32 COMFORT IN DAILY LIFE even in the face of exasperating circumstance, dull conventionality, and censorious cant, feeling sure that reform is too dearly purchased at the expense of personal poise. 33 Ill COMFORT IN EDUCATION Ill COMFORT IN EDUCATION IF we may say that comfortable living depends upon the right adjustment between ourselves and our circumstances, if such harmonious relation is the fundamental condition in which happiness largely resides, then certainly our training for life may very well have for its ideal a normal growth, so balanced as to result in the most perfect per- sonal poise, so directed as to result in the most perfect efficiency. The true end of culture is not reached when it has given us merely a healthy body well nurtured and developed, or a sound mind broadened and enriched with various learning, or a glad, well- intentioned spirit. Its object is only attained when it has so correlated all these forces as to produce in them the habit of perfect and prompt co-ordination. 37 COMFORT AND EXERCISE Nothing short of this balance of development can secure for us poise of character and a happy adjustment to life, or result in anything but dis- comfort, mal-development, and limited efficiency. Perfection of culture can never be reached through intellectual acquirement alone, through spiritual achievement alone, any more than it can through physical training alone. It cannot be reached by any two of these ways, nor even by a haphazard pursuit in all three directions. It must be attained through harmonious adjustment of all three forces ; allowing them to interplay and react naturally, freely, and fully according to their nor- mal interdependence ; each one cultivated with regard to the others, and the culture of each rounded and refined in turn by the culture of the rest. Furthermore, this difficult task can never be achieved by the acquisition of knowledge, the acquisition of insight, the acquisition of strength 38 COMFORT IN EDUCATION alone, but only when the character which has acquired them is happily occupied in making use of its increase of power. The highest, completest culture, in other words, can never bring happiness to its possessor until it is confronted with real life and given the opportu- nity of action, until it is put to the test in actual concerns of cause and effect ; not otherwise will it reveal to one the pleasure of a lawful and effectual power, unthwarted of its purpose and accomplish- ing its proper destiny. This is a reason why many college men, having attained a degree of intricate culture, and then be- ing forced by chance necessity into some very gross or humdrum occupation, where their special train- ing has no play, fall into discontent, dejection, and defeat. Their culture was well enough in itself, but it lacked the adjustability to circumstance, so needful for happiness. On the other hand, with what relish and zest 39 COMFORT AND EXERCISE the man who is engaged to the top of his bent will go about his business ; his every faculty is occu- pied and stimulated ; he can touch the sphere of his own life at every point; his culture was nei- ther too great nor too small ; he is in happy ad- justment with his surroundings. Just here one must note that the plea for uni- versal education rests on the fact that increased power or augmented capacity will inevitably seek enlarged spheres of usefulness or create them for themselves. But how, in the laborious process of education, can we justify to the spirit such unre- mitting toil? Happiness, we know, is the touchstone of cul- ture. And only in activity does the fully cul- tivated character find happiness. Indeed, so necessary a thing is activity, so welcome a part of our human birthright, that the moment we find a congenial occupation, some calling in which our powers may reach their utmost effect, that 40 COMFORT IN EDUCATION moment for us laziness vanishes and idleness is unknown. But what essential quality is there in active life which affords such satisfaction ? How is it that the spirit seems to find there its natural element ? Is it not that all activity is expressive; that in the varied activity of life the human character is given room and opportunity for self-expression ? If this be so, then expression is the missing link between culture and life, between the dead letter and the living spirit; whereupon it follows that education in expression is a most essential element of the most useful culture. We make constant boast of the liberal education offered our children. But what is a liberal educa- tion ? Is it not an education which liberates the spirit, setting the soul free from the awkwardness of insufficiency and the embarrassment of depen- dence, which gives it freedom of itself and freedom toward others ? And how, pray, is the soul to be 41 COMFORT AND EXERCISE freed from the awkward insufficiency of self, un- less through the avenue between the domain of self and others which expression provides? Or how, again, is the soul to be free from embarrass- ing dependence upon others, unless through expres- sion's power over others ? This fundamental need of freedom is at the root of universal hunger for expression. And the rudi- ments of a liberal education have not been vouch- safed to us until we have been helped to the freedom and power of adequate self-expression in some direction, or in as many directions as may be. Only a scheme of education which provides for this necessity can rightly be called liberal. This principle is recognized in the best kinder- garten education, but in our primary, secondary, and collegiate courses it is almost entirely disre- garded. It would seem self-evident that the arts of reading, writing, and talking are the rudiments of common education, and yet as arts they are rarely 42 COMFORT IN EDUCATION taught at all. Many a college graduate is per- fectly incapable of writing a lucid, forceful, grace- ful letter, of reading aloud effectively the simplest newspaper article, or of talking easily, convinc- ingly, and pleasingly on the most familiar topic. We neglect the power of culture to be derived from good talking, good writing, and good read- ing ; although the practice of them as arts is a liberal education in itself. How often we see a mind stored with abstruse learning, yet absolutely helpless, awkward, and ineffectual through lack of any power of expression whereby to fitly relate itself to the actual world ! How often we find persons who have given their best years to the laborious acquisition of knowledge, and yet after all are graceless, cantankerous, and unpleasant personalities to meet. Their culture is imperfect, wide and accurate though it may be, in that it has never been normally related to conduct, action, 43 COMFORT AND EXERCISE expression, to humanity; it has never been tem- pered and attuned by living use. We confer on students degrees as Masters and Bachelors of Arts, when in reality there is not a single art of which they have mastered the rudi- ments. The so-called arts courses in our colleges are in fact science courses ; the study of languages, of literature, of philosophy, even of the Fine Arts themselves, is always a scientific study of those subjects. The utmost erudition in art is still only scientific knowledge. It is only in the practice of any art that we can realize its power or partake of its influence for culture. This matter of education in expression is vitally important. It is the one thing needed to sanction culture, to justify its importance in human affairs. Yet we scoff at the teaching of expression, and idolize knowledge for its own sake in spite of the evident fact that the accumulation of unutilized knowledge is as dead a weight to the world and to 44 COMFORT IN EDUCATION the individual as the accumulation of unutilized wealth. A load of scholarship is but an encum- brance to the unexpressive, inactive spirit ; it is a mal-adjustment more uncomfortable than igno- rance ; it cannot even afford happiness to its pos- sessor, since it is not utilized to increase his power nor his freedom. It is often contended, and rightly contended, that special industrial training is not an essential part of a liberal education; that a university's business is to form character, rather than to fit for any particular calling. But ideal character- building should include power of adaptability as one of the chief factors in equipment for life, and such adaptability is best developed by edu- cating expression. It is true that a knowledge of modern literature will exert a more liberating and humanizing influ- ence on the mind than a knowledge of agriculture ; it is true that the study of the natural sciences is 45 COMFORT AND EXERCISE a more valuable means of culture than the study of engineering. But the study of engineering or of agriculture will have this great advantage over its rivals, that it not only enriches the mind by its own presence, but also liberates and humanizes the character by affording it a more immediate out- let in affairs, in utility. The real value of practical studies, as they are called, does not rest (where popular judgment would place it) in their more immediate commer- cial advantage : it rests in the more ready outlet they afford the character for making its energy effective through action. While industrial and professional schools have the application of their learning constantly in view, a general university course has in view no immediate application of its knowledge whatever. Such application and point it might furnish through the teaching of expression. The zest and savor of effort are relished only 46 COMFORT IN EDUCATION when we taste the fruit of achievement. This is the law of toil, the sanction under which the work of the world is performed. Why not, then, make it the law of education as well ? Why not couple with every educational task its natural incen- tive ? Should not every new acquisition of power, whether of knowledge, of instinct, or of skill, be quickly tempered by its use? Should not the student be granted the rightful stimulus of elation in his growth, which would come to him from day to day in realizing through expression the power of his acquirements? Our education should give us as keen pleasure at every step as our after life can possibly afford, in order that, having found continual enjoyment in the daily development of body, mind, and spirit, and their effective adjustment to affairs, we should insensibly come to identify happiness with work and growth ; we should cease to fancy that happi- ness is to be found in indolence and inactivity. 47 COMFORT AND EXERCISE Once imbued with an ideal of culture which seeks perfection, not in distant attainment, but in present personal poise and progress, we should no longer think of life as a toilsome journey; we should find ourselves every morning at the gates of Paradise, already in the very air of eternity. Culture of expression does not consist in a smattering of elocution, perfunctory imitation of gesture, or desultory dramatic training, nor in any merely physical gymnastic system, nor in foolish excesses of relaxation and abandon at the expense of vigor and reserve. It is the affectation of these things by the charlatan and the ignorant that brings the study of expression into disrepute. Real culture of expression must be based on serious philosophy. It includes a knowledge of the fundamental science of expression common to all the arts of which expression is the source, — a subject of investigation whose very existence is scarcely recognized. It begins by providing con- 48 COMFORT IN EDUCATION sistent training in the elementary arts of motion, reading, writing, and talking ; and from these as a foundation it should proceed, as required, to special training in one or more of the arts, accord- ing to a student's natural bent and capability. Its good will be at least twofold. It will be in itself a liberalizing, humanizing education, and it will at every step naturalize, facilitate, and glad- den the too tedious acquisition of other knowledge by giving it some immediate hold on actuality, some positive relation and concern with the econ- omy and joy of living. With such a stimulant, knowledge may be as easily and completely assimilated by the character as laborious exercise is utilized by the physical organism. A genuine arts course may become as pleasant and popular as racing or football. Ex- pression, moreover, is a self revelation. We only begin to know ourselves, our needs and powers, as we begin to call these into play through cultivating 4 49 COMFORT AND EXERCISE their expression. In expression the character's poverty or strength stands revealed. Brought into truer contact with others by means of perfected expression, personality will be the more readily inspired to endeavor, to excellence, and to the fullest enjoyment of its faculties. Education in expression, from the most practical point of view, would make this great advance upon our present system, that whereas we now tend to severe uni- formity of training, we should thereby provide greater differentiation of equipment. We should not send forth hundreds of differing students cast in a single mould, to find their places in a complex civilization, where scarcely two positions of useful- ness have the same requirements. By recognizing the multifarious differences in students and by cultivating a habit of adaptability, we should be fitting men and women to adjust themselves more readily and comfortably to the complexity of life awaiting them. Instead of de- §0 COMFORT IN EDUCATION pressing genius to the level of talent, and neutral- izing talent to the rank of average intelligence, we should be stimulating average ability to the rank of talent, and raising talent to the level of genius. One of the most elemental and undeniable de- mands of each solitary soul is the desire for ex- pression. Our arts, our cities, our dress, our speech, our motion, our life from minute to minute, our civilization from age to age, are all varied forms in which human spirit is expressing itself. Our sole satisfaction in living is to find vent and scope for our aspirations and to embody them in expression. It is often said that the keenest pleasure in the world is that of the artist who freely expresses himself, and almost perfectly realizes his ideal, in his own creations. But the satisfaction of the blacksmith or the farmer, the seamstress or the cook, be they worthy of their hire, is of the same sort, and may be just as keen. It is the lawful complete enjoyment of a being in the natural ex- 51 COMFORT AND EXERCISE ercise of its functions. Its imperative craving for activity has been satisfied ; it has been given op- portunity for fit and adequate expression. None of us can ask for more, and no truly liberal educa- tion can give less. 52 IV COMFORT IN DRESS IV COMFORT IN DRESS WHEN we consider the intimate dependence of personal comfort, pleasure, and beauty upon clothing, and realize the hindrance that cloth- ing has become, its obstruction to bodily grace, and the excessive care it necessitates, we must agree that it is at best only a greater or less personal handicap. But since the conditions demanding clothing are unavoidable, it becomes wisdom to adjust our- selves to its necessities by minimizing, so far as practicable, our modern clothing's many disad- vantages. It is but reasonable to permit to the person and the personality their greatest freedom and efficiency by discomforting them as little as may be with the shackles of dress. Such emancipation is best accomplished by first minimizing as far as possible the actual amount 55 COMFORT AND EXERCISE and weight and restriction of clothing ; secondly, by choosing such clothing as best harmonizes with its surroundings ; thirdly, by clothing's best ex- pression of harmony between its wearer and environment. The first of these considerations, the regulation of the amount, weight, and restriction of clothing according to the requirements of climate, personal physique, and health, so as to secure the most per- fect hygienic conditions, constitutes the science of dress. The second consideration, the selection of cloth- ing to fit its environment, the suitability of cloth- ing to the occupation, to the occasion, constitutes the philosophy of dress. While the third consideration, the adjustment of clothing to best express the wearer in relation to his or her immediate surroundings, constitutes the art of dress. It must be remembered that these three divisions 56 COMFORT IN DRESS of the subject are not hard and fast, but merely convenient; as in most other classifications, the science, philosophy, and art of the subject are closely interrelated and interdependent. A just consideration of the science of clothing leads one to minimize its weight, amount, and restriction, in order that the comfort, freedom, and activity of the wearer may be augmented to the utmost, — by lessening its complication, by secur- ing necessary warmth and protection from lightest materials, by facilitating cleanliness, by avoiding overheating and overburdening, by imposing the least -artificial obstruction to the free play of the functions. The body may be thus enabled to act readily and most efficiently in every emergency; it may possess its normal health and strength by instinctive, easy exercise, and its greatest beauty of unimpeded motion through unimpaired mobility. Our present modish dress with its inflexible and ill-adapted forms is prohibitive of natural beauty, 57 COMFORT AND EXERCISE in that it makes motional grace well nigh impos- sible; it is a menace to health in its prevention of such natural, timely exercise as the body should secure from our necessary and incidental activity ; it is a serious obstruction to the most competent effort. In all of these respects the dress of men is less criminal than the dress of women, though it leaves a great deal to be desired. A most discouraging fact is, that the more attention we give to dress, the more elaborately uncomfortable it becomes; instead of progressing toward health and freedom and beauty, with in- crease of expense in dress, we chiefly multiply its weight and complexity and unnaturalness. Our dress becomes more and more an artificial, or, if you will, an artistic, creation in itself, with less and less relation to the human being, and little or no special relation to the individual wearer. This is as disastrous to true beauty as to health and utility. For consider in what greatest beauty 58 COMFORT IN DRESS consists; is it not very largely in the charm of grace? "We frequently find a face and figure, faultless in color and mould, yet unattractive from lack of spontaneity, mobility, grace. On the other hand, a much plainer person often has a surprising charm of personality ; and the explanation may be found in the possession of an open mind, a gentle spirit, and a responsive body freely co-ordinating in expression. It is not perfection of form and color alone that constitute the greatest human beauty ; it requires beauty of motion as well. And this element of beauty, this harmony of motion (the quality of grace), which has such power of charm, our present mode of dress entirely disregards. Dress based on sound scientific principles of clothing, on the contrary, would be as careful to secure the possibility of the power of beautiful motion, as to secure the possibility of health and efficiency through unrestricted muscular freedom. 59 COMFORT AND EXERCISE The need of a scientific readjustment of clothing is shown by our unwarranted fatigue from simply wearing our clothing, by our unnatural dislike of exertion, and the inconvenience of necessary exercise. It is largely the tyrannous oppressions of our dress that makes us the angular and awk- ward, flabby and weak, or stiff and wooden per- versions of humanity we have become. At best we are likely to be over-developed in some directions and under-developed in others. Impaired development, imperfect co-ordination, and spiritual deterioration are the grievous penalties we are paying for unnatural crimes in dress. The need of ready adjustment of clothing in point of quantity and complication is shown by the ex- cessive demand it makes upon our resources and our time. Merely to procure and maintain the variety of clothing that conventionality prescribes, entails an unwarranted degree of effort. So cum- brous and unaccommodating have our clothes 60 COMFORT IN DRESS become, that such motional beauty as we retain is obscured. The loveliness of natural vigor and grace in the human form and in human motion is vanish- ing from the world under the impositions of dress ; and the utmost artificial beauty of dress itself can not replace them. We have countenanced the development and inflictions of dress as a creative art entirely apart from human requirement. In- stead of keeping it to its imperative need of adap- tation, instead of artistically relating it to the best uses of the human being, we have vainly fancied that we could be most beautiful through beauty of a costume adapted only to a lay figure or a show- case. We have forgotten that the art of costume has, primarily, obligations of human service — not the freedom of studies in still-life. The modern lady's shoe, for example, with its high heel and pointed toe, considered objectively, merely as a piece of bric-a-brac, is more shapely 61 COMFORT AND EXERCISE and more pleasing, perhaps, than an equally well- made common-sense shoe, broad in the toe, heel- less, and flat of sole. But when we compare them as foot-gear and imagine them in use, — one permitting the beautiful exercise of a natural member, the other cramping and distorting it, — we shall not feel so tolerant of our conventional preference. In judging of beauty we must not be deceived by the superficial approval of the eye. And the danger of this fallacy is evident in much apparel, which may be comely in itself, but is little short of ridiculous in its relation to human or individual requirement. This matter of scientific dress is of fundamental importance, because of its inevitable influence on physical freedom and culture, and the no less inevitable influence of physical conditions on the mental and spiritual life. The warped and un- intelligent characters of many men and women, 62 COMFORT IN DRESS much of the inhumane pettiness, bigotry, and spite, are due quite as much to the incessant and tyran- nous irritation of clothes, as to any inherited depravity. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year we bear the stupid burden of an elaborately un- comfortable and unbeautiful system of dress. We permit ourselves to be hampered at every turn, limited in every natural expression, handicapped, galled, and jaded. Is it any wonder that spirits are distempered, minds befogged, and sense of fair play radically perverted ? We can no more have a free and wholesome character in a shackled, devitalized body, than we can gather figs of thistles. If every woman could stand flat on her feet, with her toes apart and her diaphragm free, there would be more gratitude and fewer murders in the world. Having thought of dress in a more or less scien- 63 COMFORT AND EXERCISE tific way, as it should be regulated by climatic and hygienic requirements, we may consider it from another point of view, — the relation it bears to the demands of environment. This is the phi- losophy of dress, if one may say so ; and, presup- posing an adequate regard of climatic hygienic requirements, it further considers the demands of the occupation in which we are to engage, the occasion in which we are to participate, the atmosphere in which we are to mingle. The comfortable adjustment of dress to the demands of occupation would ensure the more easy and efficient execution of work. Women engaged in office, in shop, or in any personal stress or strain cannot follow the stand- ards of the fashion plates, without endangering their health and belittling their capacity. Such modification of their clothing, on the other hand, as would permit them the maximum comfort and freedom at their work, would prove a double 64 COMFORT IN DRESS economy, — lessening their expenditure and in- creasing their capability. A proper adjustment of dress to the spirit of an occasion may have a like economic advantage, and may afford generous democratic standards. The vogue of bicycling is having a good influ- ence on our ideas of clothing ; not that we have evolved the most suitable costume for that exer- cise, but because it has compelled us to recognize the wisdom of adapting dress to occasion. In a gathering of bicyclists, the best-dressed rider would wear the most comfortable and suitable costume, not the most elaborate and expensive garments. And so, for every other occasional requirement, we should heed the conditions of time, and place, and function, more than the conventional stand- ards of capricious fashion. Not dress for the sake of dress, but for the sake of beauty, is the axiom of good dressing ; and per- fect beauty never disregards fitness. If we dressed 5 65 COMFORT AND EXERCISE with more regard to occasion, and less to fashion, we should not only be better dressed : we should be richer in time, and peace, and money, as well as in beauty. Unsuitable extravagance in standards of cloth- ing causes more unhappiness and defeat than any other social excess. The remedy here is not to neglect dress, not to cheapen nor sacrifice its importance, but to ensure its beauty through com- fort and convenience. Its happiest artistic success can be furthered in no other way, for beauty is the perfect economy of adaptation. Mood knows no more potent influence control- lable by ourselves than dress. And recognition of this power is a hint sufficient for the remedy of many an unhappy hour. ^Esthetic sensibilities deserve to be aided and encouraged, and the sense of harmony procurable from well-adapted clothing is a powerful reagent toward personal poise. Let us now suppose that dress has been arranged 66 COMFORT IN DRESS with every needful attention to hygienic and cli- matic requirements, for our utmost personal com- fort and bodily freedom and grace; that it has also been selected with due regard for the use to which it is to be put, the purpose it is to serve, the occasion it is to grace, and the company it is to keep ; there still remains its infinite variety of texture, design, color, form, and ornament to be adjusted. There remains the whole aspect of the problem which has to do with individual preference as modified by good taste, — the consideration of clothing as personal, human expression. This is the art of dress. The first law of the art of dress enjoins a har- mony between wearer and environment; it re- strains the vagaries of selfish caprice, not by the rule of a meaningless fashion, but by the generous law of beauty which requires the unit to be subser- vient to the whole. Good dress shuns the vulgar rivalries of personal 67 COMFORT AND EXERCISE display; it permits the wearer every liberty of taste consistent with that gentility which is never forgetful of others. It is fundamentally expressive of the individual ; but it is no less fundamentally careful of the objective requirements it is designed to fulfil. And yet in the present lamentable divorce of the practice of fashion from the principles of art, good dressing demands some courage. Conventional costumes of fashion being so bad and so popular, the simplest dress that can be created on sound scientific and artistic principles must be more or less conspicuous. And being con- spicuous is no desirable part of dressing well. So that the would-be devotee of good dress is in a dilemma between conformity to false standards, on the one hand, and oddity for the sake of truth, on the other. But this is no greater hardship than confronts other artists ; for in art it is impossible to be right and to be slavishly conventional at the same time. 68 COMFORT IN DRESS Yet there is always an escape in compromise for the timid who are yet not hopelessly lost. If they cannot brave the criticism of heelless sjxoes, perhaps they may have strength of mind for clean skirts ; if they are not equal to this heroism, per- haps they may have the courage to refrain from ridiculing those who are. When the meaningless uniformity and variety of fashion give place to a significant uniformity and variety, controlled by climate, occupation, and social utility, the art of dress will be as free to reach perfection of charm and helpfulness as the arts of music, painting, and sculpture ; and thus it may become quite as dignified and honorable. It will no longer be left to the ignorant control of uncultivated manufacturers and operatives; it will not follow blindly the mode of any alien city ; it will cease to be merely a trade, as it now is, and will become one of the fine arts, native, character- istic, and genuine. 69 COMFORT AND EXERCISE Under such conditions the demand for better dress by people of consistent culture would war- rant and necessitate a supply by people of equal intelligence and education. This would open a new and fertile field of dignified industrial art to thousands of cultivated workers. There is no lack of specialized clothing in the market, no lack of clothes, beautiful in themselves, well suited to many conditions, occupations, and occasions ; but the idea of so adapting dress as to make it expressive of personality, to make it a truly interpretative art, finds few exponents. Decora- tive art in clothing has run so far to artificiality as to have lost all trace of its original purpose ; and it has been allowed to so far artificialize humanity itself, that normal, natural form and motion, with their instincts and influences for beauty, are almost obsolete. No decoration of the human figure can compen- sate for its loss of the most interesting beauty of 70 COMFORT IN DRESS motion. No substitution of stiffly conventional, artificial shape can compensate for the loss of mobile beauty. A complex, successive motion of the freely act- ing human body is more beautiful than any restricted, specialized motion which unnatural clothing compels. Motion is living beauty, and perfection of form is potential grace. The beautiful woman must keep her beauty alive ; she must give it reinforcement of life in graceful motion, if she would transmit it to her descendants. If she allows it to fossilize, if she guards it with too much inactivity, it is already deteriorating. The woman who has beauty of motion, with much less beauty of form, lives nearer to the springs of life ; she is closer to the fountain head of all beauty, and her children may inherit the beauty of form toward which all her beautiful motion was ever tending. It is evident, then, that dress, which so closely 71 COMFORT AND EXERCISE influences our every movement, is of more serious and vital interest than is casually supposed. It deserves our best care from far higher motives than vanity. Whether we will or not, every color we adopt, every garment we don, reveals ourselves and influences our neighbor. As the clothing covers the person, so the person veils the personality, and the personality in turn guards the inmost character. From character, per- sonality, and body, through clothing, expression is inevitably transmitted. And if we are responsible for the good conduct, influence, and effect of the spirit's veil of flesh, which is only partly within our control, how much more are w r e responsible for a truly comely and pleasing influence through dress ! There is no business of daily life so trifling as to be undeserving of care ; no act so small that it is insignificant ; nothing that may not be made more beautiful in the doing. And the tine arts of living, 72 COMFORT IN DRESS of which dress is one of the most important, are just as eloquent, just as honorable, as any of their sister arts we have revered so long. Though they are taught in no school, written in no book; though we seem for the most part never to have appreciated their existence; yet on the arts of living depend our comfort, our greatest luxury, and our highest happiness. 73 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE MANIFESTATION of the need of exercise begins with the first squirmings and push- ings of earliest life; it keeps up its insistent requirement pace for pace with all the adoles- cent and maturer stages of growth and develop- ment; and it continues to urge its claims in the stretchings and gapings of the centenarian. Love of exercise exists wherever the exercise essayed is really fitted to its need. This is shown in the crowing kicks of infancy, the glowing stress of youthful sports, the smiling constitu- tional of middle life, and the satisfying yawns of old age. Our civilization, grown so over-mentalized, so feverishly strenuous, so exhaustingly nervous, takes very little care for "motion without motive" (as COMFORT AND EXERCISE gymnastics have been defined); indeed it does not even encourage any just proportion of motion with motive in its fashions for work. Most work necessitating any fair proportion of personal motion is become unfashionable and unpopular. The natu- ral dignity and grace of active motional work are rusting under damps of nervous prostration, induced by false standards of elegance and false ambitions for success. Mind and spirit are being so unnaturally over- worked, to the detriment of physical energy, that the human type is threatened, and grows fantasti- cally abnormal. Specimens of well-balanced cul- ture are more and more rare, while hysteria, madness, debauchery, fruits of abnormal develop- ment, grow more and more common. The remedy for these things is not repression, for repression is never a reliable remedy. It may divert the course of action, but tendency can only be converted by a counter-force stronger than it- 78 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE self. There is natural danger in "Don't," and natural hope in " Do something better." In this connection it is very needful to remem- ber that the human type is made up of three dis- tinguishable natures : a nature that feels sensations, or physical nature ; a nature that feels emotions, or spiritual or emotional nature ; and a nature that thinks, or mental nature. While these natures are distinguishable, they are, until death, inseparable, and are infinitely inter-relative and always interde- pendent. So that the utmost health, growth, and usefulness of any one nature depends upon their par- ticipation in the equal health, growth, and useful- ness of the other two. And the perfection of this inter-relation is gained by the constant instinctive, harmonious coactivity of all three natures. The coactivity of our natures has been undevel- oped by education because of our failure or tardi- ness in appreciating the inevitable importance of their correlation. It has been vainly supposed 79 COMFORT AND EXERCISE that strong thinking prevented sensation and emo- tion, that one who chose an intellectual ca- reer might safely sacrifice physical development and emotional experience. Mentality thus over- wrought, without physical refreshment or spiritual reinforcement, is bloodless and soulless and un- magnetic, and tends constantly to inanition and insanity. Or it has been fancied that spiritual development might best monopolize educational care ; that emotion, as the finest power, was the only one worth considering ; that thought and sensation were too hard and coarse to be allied with it. But such unfair emotional indulgence leads to hysterical distortion, inhumane bigotry, and a hundred sentimental follies. Nor is the unjust yielding to physical tryanny any more advantageous. Without kind and wise control, excessive physicality tends to the ultimate dissipation of force. A combination of any two of our natures is hardly more succesful than the usur- 80 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE pation of one ; for here, as elsewhere, one third and two thirds are equally inadequate to make one whole. A three-legged stool is no better with two legs than with one, however one or both may be elaborated. Just so our strength and symmetry and usefulness are sadly crippled, if we cannot rely on three well-related bases of our complex na- ture. And as no amount of criticism can improve the stool's one-leggedness or two-leggedness, so no amount of fault-finding alone can benefit us if we are excessively developed in any one direction, whether we are excessively mentalized, or exces- sively physicalized, or excessively spiritualized. Only by supplying the lacking element in strong and just relations to its fellows can we re-establish the perfect soundness and power and beauty of the whole. For the unbalanced maturity of men and women, and the unbalanced developing of childhood and youth, the only remedy is such coactive education 6 81 COMFORT AND EXERCISE of body, mind, and spirit as yields at every point a happy, normal, personal balance of health and use- fulness and charm. Such is the ideal standard of educational exercise. A first requirement of educational exercise is to develop and supply force that is lacking, at the least expense to force that exists. As our present life overtaxes thought and feelings to the depletion of physical force, the first use to be made of exercise is to furnish abundant stimulant in the form of motion, to body, bone, and tissue, at the least pos- sible cost to mind and spirit, for the utmost general and well-balanced recuperation and growth of the whole being. This defines the best gymnasium exercise. To escape the inconveniences and hamperings of our usual environment, and to secure inducement and facility for ample, free, profitable gymnastic exercise, the gymnasium is necessary, — a gymna- sium from whose atmosphere and appointments 82 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE shall have been eliminated all influences that re- press, restrict, or pervert full freedom and dignity of bodily activity ; all false ideas of immodesty or the vulgarity of motion ; all pedantic snobbery ; every social fad, personal vanity, or prejudice ; all stiff collars, tight clothing, artificial heels, and binding shoes, — a gymnasium whose inspiration is to be " sweet as only vigor can be sweet, and strong as only loveliness is strong." Unnatural living is the enemy that destroys the happy balance of our faculties. And our utmost effort to regain that power is only the instinctive attempt to turn from wrong-doing and its penalties, and go back to the mother nature for renewal of our rightful comfort and power and joy in living, which only just obedience to her laws can yield. To her wisdom we must go for each step of living progress. From nature we get the best first gymnastic standard in the yawn and stretch. It is her uni- 83 COMFORT AND EXERCISE versally applicable recuperative exercise, whose ef- ficiency and catholicity attest its good origin and its value. The source of this exercise is in natural impulse; its action is so spontaneously instinctive as to be automatic, and so perfectly ordered that its refreshing and reinforcing effect is easy and unfailing. Laws of time, force, rhythm, direction, and har- mony (immutable laws of matter and of growth) are traceable in this most successful and unpervert- ible natural gymnastic ; and upon these laws are based the various educational processes of bodily culture. From the yawn and stretch may be clearly shown the economic value of slow time, even un jerking action, and perfect vibratory suc- cession in motion. They show, too, the natural succession of bodily motion, which begins with the eye and head, extends through chest and upper arms, forearms and hands, to finger tips, through lower trunk, legs, and feet, to tips of toes. 84 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE If it be safe to believe that nature reinforces growth along the same lines and processes as those through which growth was instituted, then we have evidence in this most natural recuperative gymnastic of the laws and processes of human growth. And it is in full and perfect accordance with these laws and processes that true educa- tional gymnastic work must proceed. The value of slow time in motion as indicated in the stretch was appreciated and inculcated as the strongest merit in the Ling gymnastic svsteni. This was a great advance over other systems, with their hurried time and artificial rhythni, quick count or ill-adapted music. The even, self -controlled, unjerking action of the yawn and stretch is not sufficiently preserved in gymnastic practice, yet it belongs properly in ail motion culture. The perfect rhythm of movement controlled by the length and weight of bone and muscle in each individual — head, back, arm, So COMFORT AND EXERCISE hand, finger, leg, foot, and toe — is a sadly neg- lected law of economic motion. Nothing but military discipline can profit by the wholesale sacrifice of personal rhythm which mili- tary gymnastics exact. For any other than mili- tary uses the jerky automaton-like obedience to sudden orders would not compensate for the ner- vous shock and waste of energy, for the wreck of harmony and grace, which every startled jerk necessitates. Even the cherished heel-thumping violence of military marching is of little use when put to the test of trying service, and a greater freedom of step has always to be permitted upon any long march. The shortcoming of the whole military idea of motional training was demonstrated in the Boer War, where a handful of self-reliant men, accustomed to individual action, were always found a match for many times their number of regular troops trained in a rigid averaging system. The British colonial troops were found invaluable 86 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE for precisely the same reason : they used their heads as well as their bodies. And this must always be so. An automaton can never equal a man. That is the gist of the whole matter. The aim of the old mili- tary idea is to reduce a body of men to the pre- cision and regularity of machines ; the aim of education is to elevate men above the level of mechanical routine, to set them on their feet with wisdom of head and heart, to make them free, spirited, and thinking individuals. Between the two ideals there can be no comparison and no compromise. If we are to participate in military or prison life, we may have to learn to march ; but that unbeau- tiful accomplishment can readily be acquired at need. So there seems to be nothing to justify the destruction of individual rhythm in walking, by forcing upon it wrong adjustment of weight and step, and arbitrary average of time and rhythm. Marching is the embodied violation of every 87 COMFORT AND EXERCISE true principle of mental, moral, and physical education. The laws of vibration and rhythm are essential and indispensable to the perfect economy of any and all motion. The full, free, natural order of human motion is not an arbitrary arrangement. It is but another instance of that natural law which transmits motion from the motive power, first through the nearest related matter, and on from that in orderly suc- cession through the farther and farthest related points that the initial force of vibration is sufficient to reach. An interrupted or restricted motion is a waste- ful, disordering repression of instinctive rhythm. Motive power that signals from the eye along the neck and shoulder to lift an arm, wants the upper arm's share of lift first, then the forearm's, and then the share of hand and fingers. In such a progression of motion the initial power is fully util- 88 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE ized in orderly natural succession, to the satisfaction of the impulse and the perfection of the action's expression of that impulse. To overact the upper arm and cut short the motion of forearm and hand is to stultify the impulse and blight the action. To underact the upper arm and overact forearm or hand is to impoverish the action and destroy the magnetism of the impulse. No in- terference with the lawful perfection of motion, from impulse to its farthest vibration, is good motional training. And yet how little motional training or motional practice we get without such disorganizing interruption ! The unfailing recup- erative success of orderly procedure in motion, as exemplified in the yawn and stretch, is an intimation of the value of such order in all exer- cise for physical growth. By careful observation and experiment Delsarte discovered that the same orderly procedure of motion in physical exer- cise promoted mental and spiritual recuperation 89 COMFORT AND EXERCISE as well j that it undoubtedly exemplified laws and processes of mental and spiritual growth ; and that, therefore, these laws and processes of exercise were safe rules of exercise for the threefold edu- cation and correlation necessary to the develop- ment of personal balance and personal expression. There is a reactive, reflex stimulation toward growth of thought, feeling, and impulse from any proper quantity and quality of motion and speech (which is itself, of course, a form of exercise). And this stimulation completes the recuperative circuit from instinctive need, through fitting exertion and relief, back with accumulated reinforcement to body, mind, and spirit. I am weary ; I stretch ; I am refreshed. Such education of instinct as will lead body to educate being must needs be more than a fad or a fashion; it must be the science, philosophy, and art of exercise, — the culture of motion. It must be the safeguard whereby being may be protected from ugly and unlawful motion, 90 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE with its inevitably harmful influence upon charac- ter and conduct, and may be given the aid of natu- ral lawful grace to further its development. For all motion has an inevitable creative or de- veloping influence for good or ill, in its reaction, upon the mental and moral natures, as well as a direct effect, helpful or harmful, upon physical growth and the forming of habits of physical conduct. Every motion, therefore, must be dis- cordantly destructive or harmoniously construc- tive to the health and power and beauty of human living ; and motion culture becomes a fundamental common-sense precaution against ill health and an obviously practical educational measure. Athletic training too often aims at excessive and uneven muscle building, for the mere purpose of violent spasmodic exertion or endurance, or for unnatural increase or reduction of bulk, at a reckless cost to vital energy, to legitimate usefulness, and to har- mony of vigor. Such ruthless destruction of per- 91 COMFORT AND EXERCISE sonal economy and normal development has no lawful relation to any educational process. Such methods of physical training, moreover, often miss their mark simply by being entirely uncorrelated to the mental and spiritual forces. The hardest hitter is often beaten by the lighter hitter with the stronger judgment. The skilled athlete often yields most quickly when his vital energy is taxed by disease. A well-balanced har- mony of strength with judgment and courage is a greater power than any mere violent physical force or turbulent haste ; and will safely gain, hold, and promote the best normal perfection of form and vitality, if it be allowed due time and fair play. And yet exercises that overtrain for mere strength, at the sacrifice of time and grace, are only more dangerous, but no more inharmonious, than those that overtrain for time alone, such as marching, thrusting, striding, and dancing to arbi- trary note, vocal or instrumental ; nor are they any 92 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE worse than others that overtrain for grace alone, — the foolish posturing and aimless attitudinizing which too often take the name of Delsarte in vain. Grace is a quality as complex as it is fine and strong. It means such delicate, accurate power of balance as gives sure, free strength in equilibrium ; it means such true adjustment of the intricate re- lations of our three natures as secures a perfect rhythm in their operation ; it means such beautiful shaping and directing of motion as harmonizes force and rhythm with beauty to their fullest use. Such grace is the touchstone of all sound, beauti- ful gymnastic training. The shortcomings of all bad systems of exer- cise may be summed up in one word : they are inartistic. Now nature, on the other hand, is never inar- tistic in this way; her methods of growth have always the inevitable ease, power, and complete adequacy of perfect art. So, too, the only teaching 93 COMFORT AND EXERCISE worthy of consideration must be artistic. Time and energy spent on disordered inartistic exercise are as disastrously wasted as when they are spent in practising music incorrectly, or in painting by palpably incorrect methods. Not only is good work being thereby prevented, but wrong habits of work are being formed. And the longer we persist in our bad habits the worse we become, of course. But if repetition establishes bad habits, it also establishes good ones; and habits suffi- ciently well established become automatic, — not only mechanically automatic, but by their reflex action instinctively automatic as well; they be- come " second nature," as we say. And second nature need never be inferior to first nature ; while it always possesses the advantage of greater adapt- ability. Thus by creating habits we can change our conduct, our character, our nature. Herein lies the responsibility and range of opportunity of gymnastic training. 94 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE Fortunately a good habit on natural structural lines of growth is more easily formed than a bad one. Surely, then, no preventable forming of bad habits should be permitted, either under cloak of ig- norance or indolence, or false gymnastic standards. The opportunity for pleasantly educating one's own natural impulse towards normal living and harmonious personal growth is too great a boon to be forfeited lightly. Mrs. Richard Hovey, writr ing upon this point, asserts that " a rigid, motional prison discipline would reform the criminals." Bad habits of being and of doing are contracted through ill health, ill temper, and bad judgment, — through imitation and inheritance. It is the busi- ness of educational gymnastic training to eliminate these bad traits from the character, and conduct, by the method of substitution, — by replacing them with right motional habits and their right tempera- mental reactions. Inasmuch as the physical nature is fundamental to the mental and moral natures, 95 COMFORT AND EXERCISE and the laws of the body inclusive of the laws of mind and spirit, it follows that the development of mind and spirit cannot but be controlled by the capacity and development of the body; and the symmetry and consistency of mental and moral at- tainment must be proportionate to the developed power of their physical foundation. There can be no sacrifice of balance in development without a corresponding sacrifice of power ; there can be no sacrifice of power without its blight upon charac- ter, instinct, and personality. Educational gymnastic training, while promot- ing growth and use of physical powers, should select only such means to this end as harmoniously educate lawful habits of motion and ennobling reaction upon the mental and spiritual natures. Such a standard transforms gymnastic work from mere physical exercise and amusement into an art, — an art whose processes not only utilize habits of doing well all the ordinary acts of daily 96 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE life, but also induce habits of strongest and sub- tlest expressive power, and foster growth of mind and spirit as well as of body. The best body training is that which induces mind and spirit to keep even pace with bodily culture. Such exercise must be progressive, co- herent, and harmonious throughout all of its adjustment, so that no step need be wasted, but that all gain shall be valuable enrichment of gen- eral balanced growth. The yawn and stretch are the safest and surest initial studies in motion harmony. They con- stitute a model of perfectly harmless and perfectly helpful physical gymnastic, starting from physical impulse, never rising higher than its physical source, and therefore by no means fulfilling the requisite range of requirement for educational gymnastic ; but the principles and processes of the yawn and stretch extend through an infinite vari- ety of exercise progressing consistently from this 7 97 COMFORT AND EXERCISE beginning to exercise whose action, expression, and reaction grow more and more complex and inter- esting, — more and more beautiful and ennobling as well as strengthening. Instinctive, rational, or artistic progression in training does not lead to unusual stamping and striding, nor to useless jerking and shouting, but to the necessary activities of living, — to right standing, sitting, rising, reaching, lifting, walk- ing, breathing, talking, bending, bowing, running, jumping, dancing, climbing, swimming, — each in perfect individual rhythm, in orderly succession, and true harmony of motion. The development of this exercise is incredibly hastened and aided by its constant practice in daily use ; and all necessary activity of conduct is rapidly made appreciably more easy, more serviceable and pleasurable, by the recuperative, inspiring reaction of its harmonious execution. The next step in motion culture, beside and beyond this very practi- 98 EDUCATIONAL EXERCISE cal training, is the practice of motion whose reac- tion is so harmoniously and helpfully stimulating of thought and emotion, that the truest, highest, fullest use of instinct and character are being educated. In this way the sphere of instinctive action may be so enlarged as to safely and efficiently relieve the overworked brain. And the great natural force of impulse may be automatically and wisely converted into action of highest efficiency, without waste of will, and with normal increase of power to body, mind, and spirit. Such natural, symmetrical development of body, instinct, conduct, and character, through culture of bodily motion and speech, is the surest foundation for all artistic expression and the legitimate work of educational gymnastics. 99 Lift VI THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM VI THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM THE standard is not too high, nor the require- ment exaggerated, that demands that " ca- pable teachers in an ideal gymnasium must be well versed in physiology, psychology, and pedagogy ; must know something of human kind, its powers and means of growth, and of the world and what kind of men and women it needs ; they must be able to develop mental, moral, and physical alike, till each nature acts as stimulant and counterbalance for the others; they must know the laws of motion and expression and their methods, whereby even the exceptional and inexplicable which we call genius may be educated." With such a standard the gymnasium stands high and strong and attractive among the educa- tional institutions of the world ; with any lowering 103 COMFORT AND EXERCISE of its standard it drops to the ranks of sensation- alism and charlatanry. The first problem that confronts a teacher of gymnastics is the adjustment of environment to the work, — the selection and arrangement of a gymnasium whose cleanly convenience and attrac- tiveness shall be of a kind that is inspiring and educating to sense and thought and feeling. The importance of immaculate cleanliness should not need to be emphasized in these days when sanitary safety is very generally appreciated ; now, too, the convenience of gymnasium appointment is luxuri- ously provided with abundant, interesting, well- arranged apparatus and alluring baths. The aesthetic equipment, however, of an educational gymnasium is as important as any other element of the problem. An unlovely environment is a discouraging field for the culture of an instinct for beauty ; while aesthetic stimulation from har- monious environment is an immeasurable help to 104 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM teachers and students alike. A harmonious ap- pointment of the gymnasium cannot include exces- sive ornamentation, cumbersome decoration, nor extravagant furnishing; but it should include good color, sweet sound, and beautiful shapes in its equipment and arrangement, perfectly con- sistent with serviceability. No unmusical sound, no discordant speech, no unfair conduct nor unloving spirit has any legiti- mate place in the ideal gymnasium. The har- mony of the ideal gymnasium demands of its work- ers that they be free, unabashed, and aspiring in comfortable, unrestricting clothing as beautiful and convenient as may be. In such an atmosphere there is nothing to repel, and everything to induce, the fullest development of everybody's best quantity and quality of being. Primary educational gymnastic training begins its normalizing process by starting its collarless, sleeve- less, beltless, garterless, barefoot workers at yawn- 105 COMFORT AND EXERCISE ing and stretching in normal time and order of motion, — slowly rolling eyeballs, stretching lids, dropping jaw, stretching neck, raising chest and shoulders, with stretching arms and hands to finger tips, lifting ribs with stretching intercostal, abdominal, and back muscles, for deep breathing, and the stretching of legs and feet to ends of toes. All motion of the highest order begins with a spiritual, mental, physical impulse, expressed first in the spiritual-mental organ nearest consciousness, the eye, and thence transmitted to head, chest, arms, and lower body. All motion contrary to or disarranged from this order is inferior expression, however intricate or mobile its mechanism may be. Wherefore all educational motion practice should respect this highest natural order of motional succession. The yawn and stretch may be practised prone, sitting, and standing, stopping at the full relaxa- tion point for practice in resting in perfect relaxa- 106 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM tion, and with gradual orderly recovery to full normal alertness. Thence normal standing and sitting poise are readily evolved with the same easy economic processes of moving from prone to sitting, from sitting to standing, from standing to sitting and lying down; and as these processes become approved and acquired by muscles and by instinct, their use is everywhere and always sub- stituted for the old disorderly habits of doing such things. In such primary processes the muscles of the en- tire body have been successively and rhythmically stretched in perfect individual harmony ; oxygena- tion has been increased and utilized, through the accelerated circulation, for the recuperative stimu- lation of muscles, nerves, and brain. The habit of getting and holding instinctive relaxation as it is needed is one of nature's most valuable safe- guards. It is often our only defence against over- powering circumstance. Its help, moreover, is not 107 COMFORT AND EXERCISE only a negative one of evasion ; it also brings a very prompt and efficient reinforcement, through such subtle automatic forces that we can only know its magic by experience and through abso- lute effacement of self-will. Then the great powers of being work on unhindered by indi- vidual interruptions, pushing safely and surely back from whatever excess of excitement or ex- haustion to normal poise and power. Accompanying these fundamental beginnings are special breathing exercises, giving the use of the muscularly lifted chest, extended ribs, and abdom- inal and diaphragm action; exercises of relaxing and tonic influence upon the throat ; exercises in tone production, from its diaphragm impulse, through a resonant chest cavity and unobstruct- ing, unirritating throat and mouth, to its resonance and shaping in the front of the mouth and nose, for an ultimate musical purity and beauty of quality. 108 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM Gymnastic education which does not include speech training neglects one of the most important motional elements of bodily culture and personal expression. The physical wear and tear of throats by their misuse in speech ; the rarity of pleasant speaking voices, and prevalence of high-pitched nervous tone with rough, thin, jagged tone qual- ity ; the average irregularity, slovenliness, and crudity of enuciation and articulation ; and the total ignorance of the subtle values of emphasis and inflection, — are glaring reproaches to Ameri- can education, and undeniable blemishes upon any standard of personal culture. The use of tone is one of the most potent ele- ments in personal harmony, and its misuse always an element of discord, which is consciously or unconsciously irritating and demoralizing to the nervous poise of all who come within its range. The wearying annoyance and spiritual discourage- ment of bad tone can best be appreciated by re- 109 COMFORT AND EXERCISE calling the grateful sense of nervous relief derived from clean, clear, melodious diction. The most successful tone production is achieved, not by the French or clavicular breathing method, but by a combination of the German or abdominal method, and the Italian or lateral method. The most suggestive illustration for best breath- ing is that which likens the breathing cavity to a rubber carafe. By pressure upon the neck or throat emission is checked ; by pressure upon the top wall of the carafe (on the chest, that is) the contents is forced out in a small jet whose contin- uance is dependent upon the depressibility of the top wall only ; by pressure upon the side walls of the carafe (or intercostal muscles) only so much is forced out as the side pressure alone can compel ; while by exclusive pressure upon the bottom wall (or diaphragm) the contents is overforced in gulps from the mouth of the carafe. But by an even successive pressure, beginning with the diaphragm 110 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM (or bottom wall of the carafe) , and continued by the intercostal muscles (or side walls of the carafe), a thorough circulation of the breath, with its full- est potentiality, is secured. This method of breathing not only results in completely chang- ing the air in the lungs, refreshing to the lowest depths of the breathing capacity : it gives control of the force of the entire supply of breath for tone production throughout the well-expanded resonant cavity of the chest, and the firmly distended throat and nose, and its final placing and shaping by the mouth for speech or song. The most accurate help toward the best shaping of tone into clear vowel and consonant sounds by the vocal organs has been furnished by Dr. Mel- ville Bell, whose analysis of mouth positions for visible speech offer invaluable suggestions for gymnastics of breathing, throat relaxing, and proper positions of the tongue, lips, and jaw for clear enunciation. The most scientific classifica- lll COMFORT AND EXERCISE tion of natural laws of emphasis and inflection has been given by Delsarte. The importance of proper breathing (and good diction is a constant gymnastic in proper breath- ing) cannot be over-estimated. Control of the breath is the secret of magnetic speech. Habits of ample oxygenation are absolutely essential to healthful exercise. An abundant supply of oxygen is required to reinforce energy, to invigorate circulation, and stimulate excretion of the waste matter which becomes devitalized and should be promptly replaced by abundant new material. Exercise without adequate oxygenation may readily work serious injury from the poison- ous accumulation of waste that is not safely dis- posed of. Fresh air and water are the natural preventives of such stagnation and corruption, — enough water internally to flush and refresh the excretory organs, and enough externally to dilate, cleanse, and sweeten the pores and surface of the 112 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM skin and to stimulate its proper action. In a body thus wholesomely eliminating its waste and re-creating itself, the germs of disease find little room to lodge. Only that body whose harmoni- ous use is scientifically and artistically ordered throughout all of its functions and relations can realize the ideal of a normally cultured human being. The work of the ideal gymnasium, for conveni- ence and for the sake of clearness, may be divided into three parts : (1) The exercise of energy against resistance, or apparatus work; (2) the exercise of energy from impulse alone for cultivating the power of control, or free gymnastic work ; and (3) the exercise of energy in expression, exemplified and trained by practice in diction and expressive motion. And all of these elements of training must be equally considered and adequately re- lated; no one fostered at the expense of the others. All apparatus work must be done with 8 113 COMFORT AND EXERCISE the ease and grace and rhythm that free gymnas- tics inculcate ; all free gymnastic work must be performed with the thorough breathing that good diction demands ; and all reading and speaking must be carried on in those positions, sitting or standing, which the ordered use of the body in free gymnastics cannot fail to teach. In apparatus work, the " intercostal machine " may be employed to exercise the pulling strength of the entire muscular system, from the soles of the feet to the head and hands, evenly developing muscular tissue, with its general tonic reaction. The " chest weights " may serve to exercise or- derly rhythmical well-related arm-pulling, mobil- izing and controlling shoulder and arm joints, stretching and developing chest, shoulder, neck, back, abdominal, and leg muscles ; they may also be used for muscularly lifting the chest, and for the inspiring reaction upon body, mind, and spirit which the uplifted chest produces, 114 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM The "leg weights" may be made to exercise the pulling strength of the leg in rhythmical or- derly succession and full relation of motion, for increase of physical balance with its tonic effect of stability upon the nervous system. The " head weights " may be used to develop muscular beauty of the throat, through exercising the strength and rhythmical control of neck motion, by means of very slow pulls, forward, backward, and sidewise, with their successive body relations, for strength and ease and dignity of head carriage, with its consequent control of muscular and nervous activity. The Swedish " stall bars " and " bom " may be very interestingly and pleasantly used for both simple and complex hanging stretches and lifting, with their exhilarating and tonic effect. Throughout apparatus work deeper and better controlled breathing should be developed; all standing and sitting positions should be in perfect 115 COMFORT AND EXERCISE poise; all motion should be conducted in natural order of succession and time, and in full harmony of bodily relation to various resistance. Thus mus- cular development is not merely being secured : it is being secured in ways that are forming habits of economically relating power to resistance, that is to say, in ways that are teaching natural, happy economy in work. Along with exercise of energy against resistance, for the development of compelling power, belongs the instinctive exercise of energy from impulse, for the development of power of control. This may be given through "free gymnastic" exercise, always consistent with the law and order of the yawn and stretch, however far they may progress in com- plexity of origin or import. No violence, no jerky gyrations tending to wasteful meaning- less or undesirable habits of motion, belong in any code of educational gymnastics. No pallia- tive of sharp counting or over-emphasized musi- 116 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM cal accompaniment can excuse injuries of wrong rhythm, wrong relation, wrong meaning, and per- sonal discord. Free gymnastics to be of educational value must proceed from impulse, simple or com- plex, in natural order, in rhythm and shape nat- urally determined for each individual by the length and weight of bone and muscle, and the quantity and quality of impulse power. Such exercise should progress from gymnastics of simple origin, mechanism, and reaction, to gymnastics that gain interest and beauty as they grow more complex in their mechanism, origin, and influence. Primary among these free gymnastic exercises are: Swaying, balancing, and turning, with the weight well poised over the balls of the feet, with toes spread and heels raised ; successive undulation of the body from head to foot, in varying degrees of force and time ; successive lift, fall, and sway of arms and hands from eye to finger-tip, in vary- ing force, time, and shape of motion ; swing, lift, 117 COMFORT AND EXERCISE and fall of the leg in orderly succession from eye to toe-tips ; then mobilizing rollings and shakings of head, trunk, arms, hands, legs, and feet ; slow, orderly, rhythmical bendings, twistings, and deep breathing, with their perfect stretching of muscles, re-enforcing of circulation, strengthening of bal- ance, and steadying of nerves, — relieving the brain of congestion and discord. For a general tonic influence on personal energy, personal accuracy, and economy of power, there are successive slow stretchings and strong fling- ings of the arms in all directions (with deep in- halation, steady retention and control of the breath, and even economical exhalation), and the orderly elastic, unjarring jump, with its stirring refresh- ment and culture of prompt poise. The next step in advance leads to exercises more complicated in impulse, in the elements employed, in directions and relations of motion, and in reflex influence, as, for instance, successive upstretching 118 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM of eyes, head, chest, arms, intercostal muscles, legs, and feet, with deep, slow inhalation continued throughout the upstretch, followed by even, slow successive relaxation from the stretch, accompanied by a controlled exhalation. By this means the muscular, respiratory, and circulatory systems are exercised, while uplifting and sustaining power of impulse and control are being stimulated, and a habit of orderly economic relaxation of tension is being developed. Complications of standing firmly in poise, with the weight over the balls of the feet, with orderly parallel or opposite trunk and head twisting, with arm stretchings in various direc- tions, serve harmoniously for strengthening mus- cles, control of balance, and economy of energy. Body bending (either slowly under control or re- laxed and less slowly), with successive arm stretch- ings and kneeling, may be used for developing control of instinctive surety of relation and bal- ance. All these, in short, are exercises which tend 119 COMFORT AND EXERCISE to perfect co-ordination, and the harmonious re- action of perfect co-ordination upon growth. Relating all gymnastic work to necessary activi- ties, there should be perfectly ordered exercises in walking, running, bowing, jumping, climbing, lift- ing, swimming, rowing, dancing, and talking. The evolution and cultivation of normal walking in- volves much valuable education. The elements necessary to a fine walk and good carriage are not carelessly acquired, and they can only become instinctive and habitual through wise exercise in many directions. A shifting, swerving eye must learn an accurate firm regard before it can lead fine bodily carriage ; and its education will have taught considerable nervous control, mental exactness, and emotional composure before steady, intelligent, initiative use of the eyes becomes an instinctive habit. The sensitive free guiding of a well-poised head, moving in well-ordered time, does not become ha- 120 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM bitual without exerting its reactive influence for dignity and truth and moderation, in thought and feeling as well as in action. The uplifted well- poised chest, with its command over relaxed arms and hands, and its inducement to full, deep breath- ing, never fails to reinforce courage, charity, and the ease that is elegance. Rightly used hips, that subordinate the prominence of abdominal physical- ity and hold the upper emotional and mental realms of the body in leading poise, teach further subor- dination, substitution, and adaptation of values and relations of mental and spiritual activities. The mobile undulating back, the free, strong leg, and the straight, firm springing tread, do not impart their power of elasticity and balance to the body without developing elasticity and balance in all its super-physical relations as well. Perhaps nothing more often debases personal charm than bad habits in the use of the feet, — defiant stamping, vulgar striding, slovenly shuffling, 121 COMFORT AND EXERCISE silly wriggling, cowardly slinking, or other degen- erate forms of bad carriage. No essential of edu- cation is so generally unperfected, thwarted, and degraded as fundamental education in normal walking. Universal injustice to feet and walk begins by overheating and confining the feet in infancy. As a child grows, its feet are more and more restricted, in development and in use, by shoes that are too stiff of sole, too narrow of tread, to allow the nor- mal spread of the toes and ball of the foot under the weight of the body, and too confining of instep and ankle to permit their adequate development and use ; and all this perversion to no better purpose than conforming the foot to a popular, wholly arti- ficial, standard of shape, at the expense of natural growth, natural right, and natural consequences. Add to this the false shame of bare feet, the mis- taken pride of small feet, the inartistic tolerance of misshapen feet, the enervating, irritating fear of 122 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM cool feet, the undignified endurance of uncomfort- able, weakened, and diseased feet, and the expense of wearing light, soft, well-adapted shoes; and upon this cruelly wrong foundation walking must be begim. If the child rebels, or totters and falls, it is punished and kept at it ; if it cringes and halts, it is ridiculed and reproved; perhaps it is taught to stamp its defiance in marching, or to mince and prance in unnatural dancing capers ; and from this laborious corruption of natural beginnings the prevalence of ugly, weak, foolish, inharmonious carriage is not strange. The won- der of it all is our toleration of the barbarity, with its radical, far-reaching, inevitable ill effects upon the health, the ability, and the grace of women and the children they bear. A gymnasium shoe, to serve in processes of normal development, where the use of bare feet is impractical, should be a " bare-foot shoe," a shoe very light and soft throughout, with the least upper 123 COMFORT AND EXERCISE necessary to hold the sole in place and to hold firmly through the heel and waist of the foot, across the instep ; and permitting thorough ven- tilation and perfect freedom of play to the muscles of the ankle, instep, ball of foot, and toes. The light, flexible sole should conform accurately to the size and shape of the sole of the bare foot when sustaining the body's full weight upon its well- spread ball and toes ; its width and shape should encourage the normal, straight lying great toe, the spread and free separation of small toes with plenty of room at the side for the normal development and use of the almost obsolete little toe ; all back of the ball of the foot, through the centre sole, instep, and heel, the shoe should fit as snugly as is comfortable when fastened and held close to the foot. There should be no artificial heel of any kind, no slightest deviation in thickness of sole. The straight lying of the great toe and the 124 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM straight tread necessary to save time and energy usually lost in turning out the toes, are best se- cured not by excessively incurved shoes, but by rational use of the foot in walking. A process in which one foot treads to the right and one to the left to carry the body straight forward is obviously wasteful and disordering. The false precept, " heels together, feet at right angles," and heel emphasis in marching, walking, and standing, are directly productive of " knock knees," of waddling, of insta- bility, and of other indirect ills plainly traceable to this source. The naturally expeditious, economic tread is obviously straight in the direction to be travelled, and yet its corruption has been elabo- rately taught and practised for years. The body's contact with floor or earth through an unyielding artificial heel, made over-prominent in position, and given still more prominence by the maladjust- ment of the body's weight upon it, produces a dis- orderly concussion that scatters irritating discord 125 COMFORT AND EXERCISE through the entire being. The wrong carrying of the weight and balance upon the heels induces the disordered throwing back of the knee joints, the straining of the pedal arch known as flat-foot ; it necessitates throwing the whole body out of nor- mal poise, and is an insurmountable obstacle to good walking and fine carriage. Hardly have feet been thoroughly conformed to the unnatural shapes and uses of artificially con- trived shoes, before the bodily disorder begins to spread. Upon a conventionalized base of support, with all of its dependent motion impaired and perverted, the standard of natural beauty and comfort for the superstructure of the body begins to deteriorate. If beauty of motion is spoiled at the foot for the caprice of an idle fashion, the only compensation is to satisfy the utmost demand of that standard throughout the body ; so the evil spreads toward general artificiality, degradation of type, and personal defeat. To restrict or weaken 126 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM the motion of the intercostal muscular region by tight or stiff clothing breaks the continuity of strength and order and beauty of motion waves that should flow unbrokenly from head to feet, and back from feet to head and hands. When this natural harmony is interrupted, the normal strength and grace of the body are destroyed ; and no mincing or posturing, wriggling of hips, gro- tesque tilt or vulgar swagger, can ever replace that greatest power of charm. The spell of normal bodily freedom thus broken, the trussing of ribs, chest, shoulders, head, and arms, gives sad finish- ing touches to the work of destruction ; and there is no more possibility for such a human contrivance to walk finely, talk well, or move beautifully, than there is for paper flowers to grow in the sun, bend to the wind, give to the storm, and scatter fragrance. A cultured, well-poised body carried or held by the free, firm, elastic tread on the mobile ball of 127 COMFORT AND EXERCISE a well-directed foot will yield elegance of bearing, dignity of natural grace, and harmony of self- possession well worth developing. Nor is the body the only recipient of gain in this process of evolution. Appreciating the inevitable depend- ence of the strength, the equilibrium and sym- metry of every structure upon the adequacy and efficiency of that structure's relation to its base of support, it is easy to realize how seriously de- formed human feet endanger the strength of human health, the equilibrium of human thought, and the symmetry of human kindliness. A mo- ment's reminiscence of experiences with hurting feet, their prompt and unfailing effects of total dis- couragement, loss of interest, and reckless irrita- bility, should establish personal conviction of the force of relation between the condition and use of feet and the condition and use of the mind and spirit that they support. The practice of right walking and good carriage 128 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM leads to perfecting other habits of ordinary service, such as the habit of running readily and safely, of unhurtful climbing, of easily going up and down stairs, of the unstrained lifting and holding of children, and of such well-ordered sitting and rising as shall always yield reactive refresh- ment. So soon as instinctive habits of poise and order of motion are reliably established, throwing of "medicine balls," weighing from one to five pounds, is one of the most beautiful gymnastics for exercising balance and control of motion. In throwing from different starting points and in different ways, all the muscles of the body may be stretched and strengthened. The body should never rest nor move out of poise, nor out of com- prehensive successive order. No gymnastic better correlates accuracy of aim with forceful, orderly ? economic co-ordination of action from eye to feet and from feet to finger-tips. For quickening 9 129 COMFORT AND EXERCISE co-ordination, hand-ball is a gymnastic of most in- teresting value. But any ball-playing becomes wasteful demoralization when used in disregard or violation of highest motional law. Habit of instinctive recuperative relaxation from any point of exertion is an important element in every step of exercise. It is a practical insurance against over-strain, confusion, and defeat. Then there are habits of social grace to be con- sidered ; habits of so extending a hand to proffer or receive a courtesy, that it carries with it clear and full expression of appreciation, sincerity, and kindliness; habits of bowing, — to friends, to authority, to ceremony, or to greatness, — with definite and easy command of appropriate meas, ure and degree, whether of courteous recognition, courteous acknowledgment, courteous conformity, or courteous reverence. There are habits of dance, too, that express real beauty with true ease and genuine joyousness. 130 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM Closely related to this degree of motion culture belongs its parallel education of speech. The training progresses from breathing exercises, enunciation and articulation exercise in accurately shaping well-produced, well-placed, well-modulated tones into clear musical consonant and vowel sounds, and smoothly blending them into words and phrases, to the orderly practice of emphasis and inflection as they relate to the expression of word, phrase, and stanza ; using such literature as shall instil habits of interesting, pictorial, atmos- pheric, and inspiring conversation. The entire work of development thus far, throughout all its deviations, has had a perfectly coherent trend of inducing and establishing habits of harmonious blending of normal vigor, normal intelligence, and normal grace, in the fullest use of instinct and expression of motion and speech throughout the normal conduct of life. By such habits of natural economy, body, mind, 131 COMFORT AND EXERCISE and spirit may be kept normally attuned in their coactive relations to life. Their naturalness, bril- liancy, and charm that are looked for only in youth may be conserved, and age may yield so much richer and finer harmonies of personality, that growing old becomes joyful instead of dole- ful. Such premature decay as is now the sorry rule, marks ravages of wastefully discordant liv- ing, not of time, — time never worked so ruth- lessly, so cruelly, nor so unbeautifully. In the legitimate accord of human growth, human education, and human expression, life gains clearer meaning, firmer trend, and sweeter melody ; social intercourse becomes magnetic, and being expands,— not into uniform power nor average ability, but into individual genius, normal character, and general harmony. From the plane of practical affairs the work leads naturally and easily to mastering the oppor- tunities, requirements, and graces of expression in 132 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM the arts. There should be no jar, no loss nor discord, in the transition from educated normal speech and conduct to variously adapted artistic expression, — to public reading and speaking, to acting, singing, painting, modelling, as well as to leading in society and in affairs, or to teaching. Motion culture seems to charm children from rudeness to gentleness, from weakness to health. Habits of unhappy awkwardness and violence, with their accompaniments of shrill, rough speech, are so soon forgotten that the marvel is that they ever existed. Children come quickly into their right- ful heritage of free, facile beauty of motion and growth, so soon as they are liberated from habits of harmful imitation and self-consciousness. Older people form new habits somewhat less quickly, but no less surely and efficiently. Any self-consciousness that may exist in the habitual motion of a child or an adult, after reasonable 133 COMFORT AND EXERCISE effort toward body culture, is proof that the work has not been well done. Through faulty direction or faulty execution, good motion has not become instinctive automatic second nature, and until it does, it has not realized its possibilities of culture. The inevitable influence of example upon chil- dren's habits makes it most important that parents and all teachers, of whatever subject, should know enough of body culture to be themselves well- possessed examples of personal harmony, well re- lated to life and to the subject they teach, with intelligent power for. wisely influencing the growth of the children committed to their care. Beyond the educated body's help to teachers and parents in meeting their great duties and responsibilities, motion culture means fundamental gain of pleas- ant profitable self-adjustment to individual work and to life in general, whatever the work or the surroundings may be. It leads safely and surely 134 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM to all natural processes of normal expansion, poise, and personal success. The problem of reducing or increasing flesh is a most complicated one. Its solution by unduly sudden and violent measures is apt to cost too great depletion of vital energy and the beauty of well-nourished tissues. Its safest and most satis- factory solution is through a very gradual process of stimulation of energy, elimination of waste, economy of diet, reasonable exercise, and the final substitution of firm, sound muscle for flabby bulk. Any degree of size and weight that is necessary and useful may be carried with ease and elegance, if it be carried in fine poise and with good motion. Some salient points of improvement in advanced gymnastic training are : — 1. Securing and forming the habit of constant oxygenation commensurate with exertion, by radi- cal training in breathing. 135 COMFORT AND EXERCISE 2. Stimulating and aiding prompt and thorough elimination of waste by good breathing, internal and external use of water to stimulate and relieve the action of excretory organs and the skin. 3. Learning to command and control instinctive, co-ordinate relaxation, as a damper upon individ- ual strain and stress. 4. The including of diction, the use of the breath, tone production, culture of the vocal organs and habits of speech, as an essential part of bodily education. 5. Respect for the natural successive order of motion. 6. Respect for the natural time and rhythm of motion. 7. Respect for fitness and beauty in shape, di- rection, or quality of motion. 8. Recognition of the relation of force to the other qualities, time and shape, of motion. 9. The developing of unimpaired harmony of 136 THE IDEAL GYMNASIUM co-ordination throughout all bodily motion and relation. 10. The consideration of motion as a primary and persisting force of expression and education. Gymnastic art, — the art of educating normal instinct and normal habits of being and conduct, — if its training be thoroughly well done, neither gives nor leaves anything to be undone nor cast aside. The ideal gymnasium, in its work of general development towards normal personal balance, through the culture of instinct and expression, produces harmonious growth of strength, facility, and economy in normal living and learning and enjoying, proportinate to the instinctive right and craving of every normal human being. This re- sults in happier power than many years of ill- balanced special training can give, while at the same time it lays the best foundation for any desired specialization. 137 COMFORT AND EXERCISE The education of motion and speech is funda- mental art training, whose principles and methods are correlative to the principles and methods of true growth, with fullest usefulness and beauty, through all art and all life. Moonshine, Twilight Park, N. Y. August, 1900. 138