PHYSICAL CULTURE FOR CHILDREN
Dr. Emerson's exercises, like Checkley's, call for no apparatus, yet are so efficacious that we saw one man the head of a large high-school who, at twenty-four, hollow-checked and dyspeptic, weighed but 133 pounds; yet by twenty-eight weighed 175 pounds, and—a five-foot-eight man—he had a magnificent figure also. But he worked at the Emerson exercises two hours a day to get this—two hours profitably spent for him.
Miss Jenness has dedicated her book upon Comprehensive Physical Culture to Dr. Emerson, and among the valuable suggestions with which it abounds she says:
Page 198: "In sitting it is necessary to hold the chest up; to guard against bending forward at the waist line. for this contracts the chest, cramps the lungs and stomach; and often produces dyspepsia.
"In sitting, if one wishes to bend, the movement should be from the hips; but never from the waist; that the knees should never be crossed; for this position, besides being inelegant and ungraceful often leads to paralysis, by diverting the blood from the leg through pressure; one may cross the ankles with propriety, and incur no serious results; that the one rule to be observed by the woman who seeks to be healthy and graceful is to keep the chest active; that it should never be relaxed; that holding this part of the body constantly erect gives real poise to the carriage and strength to the muscles; that a fine bearing is of great advantage; for it has a moral significance which people instinctively recognize and respect; that the person who comes before us with chest raised and head erect inspires confidence; that other things being equal the person who elevates the chest constantly is more self-respecting than the one who habitually depresses it."
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