iminished by her physical state, but also because she has
so great a part in bearing the torch of life to another generation. Let
me repeat the words--it is her duty; and again, and yet again let me say
it--it is a duty!

It is a duty to exercise every part of the body, the hands, the wrist,
the fingers, each finger! Every part of the body has a function and
should be prepared for its uses. The lifting muscles, the straightening
muscles, the apparatus that pulls and that pushes, that bends and that
twists; the machinery for stepping with vibrancy, for going uphill, for
going downhill, for walking on the grass, on irregular stony paths, on
cement walks; every kind of movement has its special apparatus in this
wondrously varied human body and all should be developed and rounded
into perfection.

Housework affords a training for more of the body's needs than perhaps
any other occupation. The household administrator has an advantage
there, and the physical vigor of women in this country ought to increase
as they more and more have the opportunity to take up this work in their
homes. Probably when every house in the country has mechanical
appliances so that there will be enough work in the household and not
too much, the health of the nation will increase by leaps and bounds.

At present housework, especially in the country, affords wearying labor
which is not so well adapted to the development of physical strength as
it might be because it is not systematic. Certain parts of the body are
overexercised and certain parts are neglected. The result is frequently
a body with a semblance of strength but with, as you might say, strands
of weakness, rendering it liable to fall at the least onslaught of
infection or unusual strain. These lacks should be made up for by
consistently arranged exercises, by carefully studied diet, and by
proper sleeping plans, so that there may be rightly developed muscular
force--not too much and yet enough; so that there may be perfect
circulation; fat enough and not too much; and that there may be a full
supply of energy. If the young woman is vain enough to wish not to be
portly when she is forty, she must not wait till she is forty-five to go
to work at it; she should begin at twenty to train for that special form
of beauty; if she does this she will soon express it in trimness, in an
energetic and graceful step, in the exact curve of the spinal column at
the small of the back, the right lift of