the tapering waist is because we have been
wrongly educated. We have acquired wrong ideas of beauty. We have
accepted the ideals of the fashion-plate rather than those of the
Creator. We find that some form of physical deformity maintains in
almost every country. The Chinese deform the feet, and we think this
is barbarous, but it is really not as serious as the deforming of the
vital parts of the body. The Flathead Indian is deformed in babyhood
by being compressed between boards until the head changes its shape.
Among some savage nations the leg is bandaged for a few inches above
the ankle and for a few inches below the knee and the central part is
allowed to expand as it will, and this deformity to them constitutes
beauty. Among other nations, holes are made in the ears and pieces of
wood are inserted. The size of these pieces is gradually increased
until the lobe of the ear will hang down upon the shoulder and a piece
of wood as large as a man's arm be worn in the ears. All of these
things seem to us most horrible; yet, after all, they are not as much
an insult to the Divine Architect of the body as the deformity
practised by civilized and so-called Christian people, who by
restriction of the waist interfere with the vital organs and prevent
the body from being perfect in its development, or perfect in its
action. The activity of the body is an evidence of its life, and if it
is so tied up that it cannot be active, it certainly is not in the
fullest condition of life.

CHAPTER VIII.

EXERCISE.

You said to me, my daughter, that you wanted to join the class in
Physical Culture. I asked you why, and you said because you thought
you needed to build up in certain parts of the body. You were
defective in muscular development; you needed also to acquire grace,
you thought. And I said, "Is muscular development the primary object
of physical education?" You seemed to think that it is. Now I want to
talk to you a little along that line, and to demonstrate to you, if I
can, that physical education is not primarily for the building up of
big muscle, or for the gaining of power to do great feats of bodily
strength or skill. The object of physical education is to develop a
quickly responsive, flexible instrument for the soul to use, for that
is what the body is. Physical culture, rightly conducted, aims to
secure the highest condition of the body through the exercises that
are required by the laws of the body. Law, ph