The reason we admire the tapering waist is because we have been wrongly educated. We have acquired wrong ideas of beauty. We have accepted the ideals of the fashion-plate rather than those of the Creator. We find that some form of physical deformity maintains in almost every country. The Chinese deform the feet, and we think this is barbarous, but it is really not as serious as the deforming of the vital parts of the body. The Flathead Indian is deformed in babyhood by being compressed between boards until the head changes its shape. Among some savage nations the leg is bandaged for a few inches above the ankle and for a few inches below the knee and the central part is allowed to expand as it will, and this deformity to them constitutes beauty. Among other nations, holes are made in the ears and pieces of wood are inserted. The size of these pieces is gradually increased until the lobe of the ear will hang down upon the shoulder and a piece of wood as large as a man's arm be worn in the ears. All of these things seem to us most horrible; yet, after all, they are not as much an insult to the Divine Architect of the body as the deformity practised by civilized and so-called Christian people, who by restriction of the waist interfere with the vital organs and prevent the body from being perfect in its development, or perfect in its action. The activity of the body is an evidence of its life, and if it is so tied up that it cannot be active, it certainly is not in the fullest condition of life. CHAPTER VIII. EXERCISE. You said to me, my daughter, that you wanted to join the class in Physical Culture. I asked you why, and you said because you thought you needed to build up in certain parts of the body. You were defective in muscular development; you needed also to acquire grace, you thought. And I said, "Is muscular development the primary object of physical education?" You seemed to think that it is. Now I want to talk to you a little along that line, and to demonstrate to you, if I can, that physical education is not primarily for the building up of big muscle, or for the gaining of power to do great feats of bodily strength or skill. The object of physical education is to develop a quickly responsive, flexible instrument for the soul to use, for that is what the body is. Physical culture, rightly conducted, aims to secure the highest condition of the body through the exercises that are required by the laws of the body. Law, physical law, governs the body, and exercise should be according to this law. The first object of exercise is to make a vital supply for the whole body. This is first secured by proper attitude. If we stand or sit properly we gain a proper position of the vital organs, and then they will do their work well, and the result will be more perfect nutrition.