Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    762/896 (page 74)
    stitution, is it equally necessary for girls as well as boys to have abundance of physical exercise, especially when they are young and growing? but so far as there are points of difference, the hinds of exercise must not be the same. The more violent games, such as football and hockey, and probably, for most, cricket, are neither suited to the tastes nor to the physical constitutions of girls, since their more sensitive natures seem to shrink from the roughness of hand-to-hand struggles, just as their more delicate frames are unsuited for the violence of them. Therefore we may at once leave out of consideration for girls those forms of rough and violent exercise which have been so strongly recommended for boys. Any attempts which have hitherto been made to introduce them among girls seem all to have failed, and it is only natural that they should. But it would be just as great a mistake on the other side to suppose, as many seem to do, that because girls do not care for violent exercise, they should have little or none at all. A great deal of harm is being done daily to the health of hundreds of girls from neglect of proper exercise, and it is high time that the attention of parents and teachers be seriously turned to this ques- tion. To indicate in a general way the forms of exercise that may be selected, we may take such (so called romping) games as hide and seek, I spy, &c. ; also skipping ropes, and dancing for younger girls, and for older ones besides dancing (under healthy conditions), all the above, as long as their dignity will permit, which is, or should be, much longer than most think. Lawn tennis and similar games should be encouraged, as well as skating and plenty of sharp walking and climbing, with an object in view. There should also be a certain amount of calisthenic exercise, gymnastics, fencing, and work with light Indian clubs and dumb bells. Scarcely anything more inadequate could be conceived than the montonous two and two promenade of the typical girls' school; the evils of this are so manifest that I need surely not enlarge upon them. Again, just as certain kinds of manual labour may be recommended with advantage for boys, so certain other kinds may be strongly urged for girls, e.g., the milder forms of gardening, such as hoeing and raking, and a certain amount of domestic work, such as cooking, making beds, and dusting rooms,