This
applies to all education--that our aim be defined, that we shall know
"what it is we are after," and it applies pre-eminently to the
education, both physical and mental, of girls.
Now it will be granted, in the first place, that by physical
training--whether in the form of gymnastics or games or what not--we
desire to produce a healthier and more perfectly developed body. Some
will add a stronger body, but as this term has two meanings constantly
confused, it really contains the crux of the question. Stronger may mean
stronger in the sense of resistance to disease or fatigue or strain of
any kind, or it may mean stronger in the sense of the capacity to
perform feats of strength. It being commonly assumed that vitality and
muscularity are identical, this distinction is, on that assumption,
merely academic and trivial. But as muscularity and vitality are not
identical, and have indeed very little to do with each other, and as
muscularity may even in certain conditions prejudice vitality, the
distinction is not academic but all-important. I freely assert that it
is substantially ignored by those who concern themselves with physical
training, whether of boys or girls or recruits, all the world over.
Though a woman is naturally less muscular than a man, her vitality is
higher. This seems to be a general truth of all female organisms. The
evidence is of many orders.
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