r 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. Thus, to begin with, women live longer, on
the average, than men do. In the light of our modern knowledge of
alcohol, however, we cannot regard this fact by itself as conclusive,
since the average age attained by men is undoubtedly considerably
lowered by alcohol, and of course to a much greater extent than obtains
in the case of women. But women recover better from poisoning, such as
occurs in infectious disease, and they are far more tolerant of loss of
blood, as indeed they have to be. The same applies to loss of sleep or
food, and to injurious influences generally. These indisputable proofs
of superior vitality co-exist with much inferior muscularity, and are
conclusive on the point. If men would make observations among themselves
and think for a moment, they would soon perceive how foolish they are in
crediting the assumptions of the strong men who so successfully persuade
the public that the great thing is for a man to have big muscles. Men,
muscular by nature, and still more so by nurture, are often in point of
fact really weak compared with much less muscular men who, though they
cannot put forth so much mechanical energy at a given moment, can yet
endure fifty times the fatigue or stress or poisoning of any order.
From the point of view of any sound physiology there is no comparison at
all between the absurd strong man and the slight Marathon runner of
small muscles but splendid vitality. If we are to test vitality in
muscular terms at all--that in itself being a quite indefensible
assumption--we must do so in terms of endurance, and not in terms of
horse power or ass power, at any given moment.

If, then, vitality be our aim in physical training, and not muscularity
as such, nor in any degree except in so far as it serves vitality, it is
plain that we shall to some extent reconsider our methods.

Pre-eminently will this apply to the girl. Just because she is now
becoming a woman, her vital energies are in no small degree pledged for
special purposes of the highest importance, from which we cannot
possibly divert them if we desire that she shall indeed become a woman.
Thus, though muscular exercise of any kind is certainly not to be
condemned, we must be cautious; for, in the first place, muscular
exerc