1896 article - "In a Girls' Gymnasium"

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September, 1896 – Munsey’s Magazine

Written by Jean Pardee-Clark

…The girls, twenty five in number, were arrayed in typical gymnasium suits—loose blouse waists, low at the throat, and generally finished off with a neat sailor collar, fastened with a knotted bow of ribbon. Their dark blue divided skirts reached only to the knee. The visitor could not but be impressed with the healthy freshness of their faces. It was surprising to learn that several of these plump, round throated, fresh complexioned girls had passed their thirtieth birthday. Their average age was twenty five, but they seemed like school girls, so full were they of good spirits, so enthusiastic was their interest in the exercises that formed their daily routine.

…No woman can be beautiful without a good figure; and what woman does not wish to be beautiful? If all American girls knew what a gymnasium course can do for them, how it can strengthen and develop the body, how it can add to their enjoyment of life and their attractiveness, there would not be enough schools in the country to accommodate the throngs that would apply for membership.

Beauty is not skin deep, it may be objected; but the adage does not apply to the sort of beauty that comes from three years of first rate physical teaching. It is an education that goes far deeper than the skin. It brings health—for a well developed figure means a body with healthy functions; it makes existence a happiness instead of a burden; it touches the moral life, and gives the mental soundness that comes from physical soundness.

…Fashion is not always allied to common sense, but she never was wiser than when she decreed the downfall of the helpless sentimental heroine of a former day, and set up in her place, as the ideal of womanhood, the healthy modern girl who frankly admits that she has arms and legs, and who knows how to use them.

The typical society belle is no longer languid, lily-like, and quickly passée. She is a robust, strong limbed girl, who has no idea of fading even when she finds herself surrounded by girls of her own, who will learn to jump bars, swing clubs, and climb ladders, as their mother did before them.

Illustration by J.M Gleeson.

Excerpted from "Daughters of the Lost Century"

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