PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR SCHOLASTIC WOMEN.

ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGIATE ALUMNÆ.

The schools and colleges for women are, as a class, not so well organized on the side of physical training as are those for young men. That the physical education of women is likely to receive more intelligent attention than has been the case hitherto, may be inferred from the appended circular of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ.

Physical education.-The members of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ have had their attention drawn very forcibly to the present need for physical education among the women in our universities and colleges. They fully believe that college education per se is physically beneficial, and that college statistics show an average of health among women students higher than that among women at large; but they also realize that the physical status of American women of the educated class is painfully low, and they believe that the colleges ought to be among the first to take measures against this dangerous deterioration of physique. The following schedule, however, shows how fragmentary has been the work done hitherto in the nine institutions represented in the association:

Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley are conducted on the dormitory system, Smith maintaining separate" cottage" dormitories, and Wellesley giving choice of large or small buildings.

Oberlin, Wisconsin, Cornell, and Wesleyan do not require students to board in college buildings.

Michigan and Boston do not provide boarding places.

One hour of physical exercise daily is required of students by Vassar and Wellesley. A knowledge of elementary physiology is required for admission by Cornell. The attainment of a certain standard of health is required for admission by Wellesley. In view of these facts, the members of this association, as women college graduates, most earnestly and respectfully urge the following suggestions upon those interested in the higher education of women, and especially (1) upon parents, (2) upon the governing bodies of institutions which grant degrees to women, and (3) upon the women studying in these institutions.

I.

The members of the association are convinced that the low standard of health among women in and after college life is largely due to their common lack of physical training and disregard of the laws of health before they enter college. At sixteen it is often too late to undo all the mistakes made during the most important years of a girl's physical life. They therefore wish to call the careful attention of parents everywhere to the following evils among school-girls, which threaten every interest of educated women.

(1) Social dissipation and excitement, which is neither amusement nor recreation. Girls are too often stimulated to shine socially and intellectually at the same time. A mother proves her daughter's perfect health by saying, "She has been able to go to parties or entertainments four or five evenings a week all winter, and she stands at the head of her class!"

(2) Habitual loss of sufficient and healthy sleep.

In a New York Academy, a class of sixty girls, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, chanced to be asked by a recent visitor for the time they retired the night before. The average was found to be twenty minutes before midnight; but no surprise was manifested by teachers nor regret by pupils.

(3) Irregularity and haste in taking food, the use of confectionery in the evening, and the omission of breakfast.

The principal of a large girls' school in Philadelphia lately said that so many habitually came to school without having taken sufficient breakfast, and taking little or no lunch, that he had been compelled, in order to obtain good mental work, to have a warm lunch furnished, and to insist upon the scholars taking it in the middle of the morning.

(4) Tight, heavy, and insufficient clothing, which frightfully increases the tendencies to consumption and spinal diseases.

A physician of wide experience confidently states that this cause alone has incapacitated more women than over-study and over-work of all kinds.

(5) The lack of sufficient out-door exercise. When a proper amount of time is devoted to such exercise, no time will be left for over-study.

(6) The ambition of parents and daughters to accomplish much in little time, which sends students to college either hurriedly and imperfectly prepared, or with a thorough preparation gained at the expense of health.

(7) The usual postponement of instruction in the laws of physiology and hygiene to a college course. Thus, daughters go out from their mother's care wholly ignorant of the common laws by which they may increase and preserve the health upon which every hope and ambition depends.

II.

The members of this association believe that these faults in home and school training, as well as those found in college schemes, can be reached most effectually through the colleges. And, while recognizing the efforts already made in this direction, they respectfully recommend to the consideration of college-governing bodies the following remedies for existing evils:

(1) The introduction of a consistent, thorough, and scientific course of physical education for women.

(2) The appointment of a thoroughly competent woman as an instructor in this department, who shall superintend the gymnasium, give practical courses of lectures, and be, so far as possible, responsible for the general health of the women in her classes.

Where the dormitory system obtains, the appointment of a resident physician is also urged.

(3) The provision of an adequately equipped gymnasium.

(4) The provision of one or more courses of lectures by non-resident specialists on physiology, hygiene, sanitation, heredity, athletics, gymnastics, etc.

(5) The provision of special libraries on subjects pertaining to physical education. (6) Careful study in the construction of buildings for recitation and dormitory purposes, with special reference to counteracting the acknowledged ovils of the dormitory system.

(7) The requirement (whenever practicable) that candidates for admission shall reach a certain standard of attainment in physical education. Physical health is already required for admission by Wellesley College, and a knowledge of physiology by Cornell University.

III.

The women studying in our colleges are urged by the women graduates of these colleges

(1) To bear constantly in mind in their own work the fact that the best intellectual results cannot be attained without perfect physical health.

(2) To maintain a constant and sensible watch over their own habits as regards sleep, exercise, food, dress, etc. Failure to take the requisite amount of sleep, food, or exercise, should be lamented as much as failure in recitation.

(3) To form athletic associations for the promotion of wholesome exercise and the stimulation of public opinion.

(4) To collect comparative statistics relating to the age, height, weight, size of waist, breadth of chest, weight of clothing, etc., of women college students. Such statistics should be taken at regular intervals throughout the college course. As taken by Dr. Sargent, of Harvard University, in his ladies' gymnasium at Cambridge, they have proved valuable as well as interesting.

The association hopes to publish a series of short, practical monographs on these and similar subjects at some future time. Meanwhile, information in regard to the practical working of these suggestions, many of which are already in operation, may be obtained on application to any of the officers of the association: President, Mrs. J. F. Bashford, University of Wisconsiu, Auburndale, Mass.; vice-president, Miss F. M. Cushing, Vassar College, 8 Walnut street, Boston, Mass.; secretary, Miss Marion Talbot, Boston University, 66 Marlborough street, Boston; treasurer, Miss Margaret Hicks, Cornell University, Cambridge, Mass.; directors, Miss A. E. F. Morgan, Oberlin College, Wellesley, Mass.; Mrs. E. H. Richards, Vassar College, Jamaica Plain, Mass. Miss A. E. Freeman, University of Michigan, Wellesley, Mass.; Miss K. E. Morris, Smith College, Hartford, Vt.; Miss H. M. Peirce, Wellesley College, Newton Center, Mass.

PHYSICAL TRAINING AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE.

Wellesley College, in Massachusetts, has a more highly organized department of physical training than any other institution at present devoted to the education of women. The Sargent system is followed and out-of-door games are encouraged. Since 1880 all applicants for admission have been required to present a certificate from some reputable physician that they were physically fit to undertake the course of study prescribed in the institution. Out of 485 who presented such certificates in 1882-'83, 23 were found within nine months to be unable to continue their studies on account of ill health. During the same year 470 students underwent physical examination touching the condition of "spine, lungs, and heart," made by Miss E. H. Jones, M.D., the resident physician. Of these, 32 were found to have "narrow chests with poorly developed lungs ;" 9 had valvular disease of the heart; 2 had hypertrophy of the heart; 16 had curvature of the spine; and 7 had spinal irritation.

No woman's college in America, however, has a gymnasium which approaches in costliness and completeness that of Bryn Mawr College, soon to be opened, to which allusion has been made already.

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INSTRUCTION IN HYGIENE.

SUGGESTION OF THE APOSTLE ELIOT.

Lectures upon health topics were not uncommon in American colleges long before any systematic effort was made by any of them to provide its students with practical facilities for living in obedience to the laws therein enunciated. Even here American educators cannot lay claim to originality, for in Basedow's Philanthropinum at Dessau, in 1774, lectures were given by a physician on human anatomy and physiology. It is not possible for the writer to state when such lectures were first given to American students; but it is safe to surmise that their date is not earlier than the year 1647, when the following rather vague suggestion of a course of medical instruction for his Indian scholars was penned by the Apostle Eliot. "I have thought in my heart," he wrote to Thomas Shepard, the pious minister of Cambridge in Massachusetts, "that it were a singular good work if the Lord would stir up the hearts of some or other of his people in England to give some maintenance toward some schoole or collegiate exercise this way, wherein there should be anatomies and other instructions that way."

LECTURES AT HARVARD.

In 1781, Dr. J. Warren, father of Dr. J. C. Warren, alluded to in the early part of this paper as a lecturer on health to the students of Harvard College, at the request of the Boston Medical Society, "demonstrated a course of anatomical lectures at the hospital in Boston." This course was "quite public," and "some of the students of Harvard College were permitted to attend." In 1784 the Harvard Medical School was opened at Cambridge. Its first quarters proving unfit, the Holden Chapel was fitted up, and lectures in anatomy, surgery, and materia medica were delivered there. "The number of medical students who attended was small, but as the president permitted the two elder classes to attend the lectures the rooms were well filled."

It is not clearly shown in such statements as have come to our notice that instruction on the nature of the human body has regularly been provided for Harvard students since the time of those lectures alluded to as having been delivered in Holden Chapel; but it is stated in Quincy's "History of Harvard University" that in 1810, when the medical school was removed to Boston, "the medical professors were required to deliver an annual course at Cambridge, adapted to resident graduates and the Senior class of undergraduates." Dr. J. C. Warren, in 1825, and Dr. James Jackson, in 1830, were in the habit of giving such lectures. It is a part of Dr. Sargent's duty at the present day to deliver lectures on personal hygiene and physical training to the stupents of the university.

LECTURES AT DARTMOUTH.

The first published announcement of the course of instruction at Dartmouth College is contained in its catalogue for 1822. From it we learn that the members of the two upper classes were "permitted to attend all the lectures of the medical professors by paying a small fee." In 1825 this fee amounted to 67 cents a term for Juniors, and to twice that sum for Seniors. At present the Freshmen at Dartmouth are required to attend six lectures, and the Seniors twelve lectures, delivered by the professor of science and practice of medicine in the medical school.

INSTRUCTION IN HYGIENE AT OTHER COLLEGES.

Colleges of the present day very generally aim to give at least textbook instruction in "anatomy, physiology, and hygiene." At Amherst, Dr. Hitchcock instructs, both by lectures and recitations, the two lower classes in these subjects, especial stress being laid upon hygiene, and such has been his custom during almost all of his term of office, i. e., since 1861. At Cornell University careful provision has been made ever since its foundation, in 1868, for the study of human anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. At Cornell, moreover, applicants for admission are required to pass an examination in physiology.

There is such a variety of usage in regard to the character and amount of instruction in hygiene in our principal colleges that the facts concerning it, so far as the inquiries made by the writer have elicited any information on this head, may best be set forth in tabular form.

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