This basket-ball player had also been taught how to rest after
exercise in a way which appealed to her especially, because of her
interest which had already been aroused in Kipling's polo pony. She
was taught intelligently that if, after vigorous exercise, when the
blood is coursing rapidly all over the body, you allow yourself to
be entirely open and passive, the blood finds no interruptions in
its work and can carry away the waste matter much more effectually.
In that way you get the full result of the exercise. It is not
necessary always to lie down to have your body passive enough after
vigorous exercise to get the best results. If you sit down after
exercise you want to sit without tension. Or if you walk home from
gymnasium you want to walk loosely and freely, keeping your chest up
and a little in advance, and pushing with the ball of your back foot
with a good, rhythmic balance. As this is the best way to sit and
the best way to walk--gymnasium or no gymnasium--to look out for a
well-balanced sitting and a well-balanced walk directly after
vigorous exercise, keeps us in good form for sitting and walking all
the time.
I know of a professor in one of our large colleges who was offered
also a professorship in a woman's college, and he refused to accept
because he said women's minds did not react. When he lectured to
girls he found that, however attentively they might seem to listen,
there was no response. They gave nothing in return.
Of course this is not true of all girls, and of course the gentleman
who refused the chair in the woman's college would agree that it is
not true of all girls, but if those who read the anecdote would,
instead of getting indignant, just look into the matter a little,
they would see how true it is of many girls, and by thinking a
little further we can see that it is not at present the girls'
fault. A hundred years ago girls were not expected to think. I
remember an anecdote which a very intelligent old lady used to tell
me about her mother. Once, when she was a little girl, her mother
found some fault with her which the daughter knew to be unjust, and
she answered timidly, "But, Mother, I think--"
"Abigail," came the sharp reminder, "you've no business to think."
One hundred years ago it was only the very exceptional girls who
really thought. Now we are gradually working toward the place where
every girl will think. And surely it cannot be very long now before
the united minds of a class of college girls will have the habit of
reacting so that any man will feel in his own brain a vigorous
result from lecturing to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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