the chest beneath the neck, and
the perfect position of chin, elbows, shoulder blades, hips, feet, and
all the parts of the body, for walking, sitting, standing, running,
sleeping, and for every possible activity. Beauty is a thing to be
valued and worked for; but a greater motive for the attention necessary
to the full development of our physical powers is that we should be able
to give to our children the greatest allotment of beauty and vigor that
we can possibly command.

Miss Goldmark in her valuable study, _Fatigue and Efficiency_, says that
the results of overstrain in the labor of women are manifest in a
heightened infant mortality, in a lowered birth rate, and in an impaired
second generation. We should take this to heart. Not to make a struggle
to increase our store of vigor for the sake of the children that are to
be is to do them a great wrong.

For girls under twenty the responsibility of the mother is greater
because so much depends upon the establishment of the daughter's health
during these earlier years. But girls themselves should take it upon
their own responsibility to a large extent also. In the appendix to
this volume will be found a bibliography where among the works published
by the Young Women's Christian Association, the girl may find some that
will answer many questions that perhaps have puzzled her in the period
of swift growth between fifteen and twenty.

Every mother should be in her daughter's confidence in regard to all
questions of health and physical well-being. And now and then the father
should stand his daughters up in a row before him, look them over, and
see for himself whether they are sound, blooming, well developed and
rosy. Do their chests stand up good and strong? Is the chin well down
and back? Are the shoulders well back? Can they take full, deep, long
breaths? If they were set back against the wall, would the hips be close
to the wall, the shoulder blades nearly flat against the wall and would
the girls be perfectly comfortable in that position? And can they then
walk off, holding the frame in this way, and keep the position firmly
and gracefully? How hard can they hit, how fast can they run, how high
can they jump, how much can they lift, how free are they from pain, and
how happy are they? If the answers to these questions are not
satisfactory, that farmer's crop of humanity does not take a prize! And
he should try to know the reason why. It is not a lightning streak of