THE SCIENCE OF DRESS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
IN placing before the public a book treating of dress in a scientific manner, I may be allowed to remark that people are apt to look upon the subject in a wholly frivolous way. For my present purpose I will divide mankind into two classes, the people who think and the people who do not think. Now the people who think, the intellectual part of the population, look upon dress as something beneath and quite unworthy their attention; the people who do not think regard it wholly as a means of display. Yet it is in truth one of the great powers which preserve or destroy Health, and its influence is unceasingly felt from birth to death—a matter, not of slight, but of vital importance, for it exercises a powerful, if often unrecognized influence on the health of the community.
Hence, attention to the subject should be considered a matter of duty, and time spent on it ought to be very far from wasted, and it is much to be regretted that the subject should be so generally treated by the intelligent classes with a sort of contempt, and regarded somewhat as a necessary evil, which must be thought about as little as possible; while, with the exception of a few health reformers, the only people who devote time and trouble to it are those who, looking on dress wholly as a means of display, employ their energies to outdo their neighbours in the brilliancy and costliness of their attire. The true value of dress as a means, under favourable conditions, of preserving health, or, under unfavourable conditions, of destroying it, is not understood as it ought to be; and though I would not have it thought for a moment that I wish to discourage any one from taking pains to obtain "things of beauty" in the way of articles of dress for themselves and their children, I must contend that at least equal care should be taken that those things are such as to be conducive, not injurious, to health—for health, like beauty, is most assuredly "a joy for ever."
From the earliest times the object of dress has been twofold—first, to cover; secondly, to adorn. Amongst savage nations adornment has ever been considered the more important function, but sanitarians are popularly regarded as having no sense at all of its importance.
This misapprehension is probably owing to the fact that certain ladies, calling themselves the apostles of rational dress, go about in costumes so utterly hideous and, to some people's tastes, immodest, that they bring ridicule upon the principles which they profess to advocate, instead of gaining converts to them. The principles are perfectly correct, but these ladies, having got a smattering of them, tack on to them their own particular fads. Those who are truly concerned in the welfare of their fellow-beings, for the most part, work unseen and unknown by the public. It is time, however, that true sanitarians should come forward to clear themselves from the imputation which has, as it were, been cast upon them by the false prophets. Far from having no idea of the beautiful, we have what time will prove to be the highest and purest of all ideals. Beauty for us is the perfect adaptation of the means to the end.
This definition will be found equally applicable to anything and everything in nature or art; but in its application to the subject in hand—dress—it implies a great deal. The end of clothes, so far as we are concerned, is in warm weather to cover people without overheating them, and in cold weather to keep them sufficiently warm. Hence, as clothes to be beautiful must be perfectly adapted to this end, we must have no garments fitting so tightly as to impede the vital processes, none so heavy as to weary the wearer, none cut in such a way as to cramp her movements, and none dyed with poisonous substances.
What we want is reform, not revolution. We want in dress to obtain the maximum of health with the maximum of beauty. If our girls were taught the laws of health and a few of the principles of art as known to the ancient Greeks, they would soon see "what a deformed thief this fashion is," and would laugh at the squeezed-in waist, the crinolette, and the foot mangled and crushed by high-heeled and pointed boots of recent times, as much as we now, who call ourselves civilized, ridicule the Australian with his nosepeg, or the Bongo negro, who drags his lips down with a plug, and distends the lobes of his ears with discs of wood, in order to increase his personal attractions, or the foot of a Chinese lady artificially deformed in accordance with a fashion which is, after all, only a slight exaggeration of our own.
All over the world, "Il faut souffrir pour être belle," seems to have been the motto of men and women alike, and, strong in that conviction, they have borne, and bear, without a murmur, heavy weights, heat and cold, pinchings and squeezings which displace the vital organs and produce all sorts of deformities, and, in fact, a series of tortures which, if they, instead of being inflicted by such an impersonal tyrant as Fashion, had been enforced by any individual monarch, would have speedily brought his head to the scaffold, and have caused his name to be handed down to posterity as that of the cruellest of men and worst of kings.
In this connection it is interesting to quote the words of a thoughtful writer, Mrs. Oliphant, who, in her book on dress, after reviewing some of the historical changes of costume, says, "The reader will see from this rapid survey how persistently fashion has sought the inconvenient and unnatural in opposition to the merely useful and pretty, and how little consideration that troublesome deity has ever shown to practical use or to the comfort of her votaries; but, alas! at the same time how universal has been her sway, and how little the higher intellect has done or tried to do against it. How to make locomotion most difficult, and limit the freedom of natural action; how to keep the head hot and the feet cold, in direct opposition to all that doctors and gossips might say, has been apparently her favourite object. The hardy human race has struggled on through all, it has allowed itself to be stuffed out in different directions, now here, now there, with bran in its breeches, feathers in its sleeves, iron in its petticoats. It has submitted to have its head wrapped up in heavy folds of woollen, and its feet left free and airy in silk stockings and pointed shoes. It has 'come through' centuries of troubles of every kind and description, and by dint of hardihood and patience, and immortal vanity, has lived on through all."
Mrs. Oliphant is right in saying that in the past the higher intellect did little to combat the follies of fashion, and her statement is borne out by the fact that, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the brightest days of English intellect and the classical period of English literature, fashion in dress had reached a most absurd and unhealthy stage. But at that time there was a certain science which had not yet been born into England—the science of health, or Hygiene. That science may indeed be looked upon as the outcome of the present century. It is true that the ancient Greeks and Romans were good sanitarians, and that the Hebrews compiled the finest code of sanitary laws which has ever been made; but during the Middle Ages all this valuable knowledge was allowed to lie shut up in books.
Had the Bible been properly studied, those terrible epidemics which decimated Europe could never have happened; yet, so great was the populor ignorance on the subject, that the Jews, whose obedience to the biblical laws saved them from many diseases then common, were, on account of this very immunity, accused of causing the diseases by witchcraft and by poisoning the wells. The present century, however, has witnessed a revival of the science of health. Health knowledge was never so widely distributed among the people as at the present time, when sanitarians are making every effort to increase it and to render it popular. In Shakespeare's time the unhealthiness of certain articles of dress was not understood, so that it is not surprising that there was no revolt against them. At present, however, Fashion's sins against Health are well understood by sanitarians, who are using their best endeavours to make the devotees of fashion understand them also, so that there is every hope that "the higher intellect" will gradually succeed in making dress truly beautiful, which it cannot be without at the same time being thoroughly healthy, for health and beauty go hand in hand.
This phrase that health and beauty go hand in hand is more than a mere alliteration, it contains a deep truth which is not sufficiently acknowledged. There is a hazy belief abroad in the beauty of decay—a belief which, to a certain extent, may be accounted for by the diseased and feeble members of society being so far in the majority that they have made a law for themselves, while a thoroughly healthy woman is such a rarity that she is almost looked upon as abnormal. The perfect example of the beauty of decay is the consumptive, with soft, silky hair, delicate skin, touched on the cheeks with a brilliant flush, large, dark, sparkling eyes, made to appear still larger by the black rings which surround them, slenderly formed limbs, and tapering fingers with their filbert nails. Yet this is a beauty hardly to be desired: it is but the sign of a disease which before long will stamp it out for ever.
Delicacy is considered by some to be admirable, and women may even be met with who assume a state of ill-health for the purpose of getting sympathy. A great many people are always complaining, but still more go through life uncomplainingly, with a sort of dull, negative suffering, the result of a low vitality, which, if they think about it at all, they attribute to constitutional defects, but which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, might have been remedied by timely obedience to the laws of health.
If people are positively ill they call in a doctor, whose orders they follow more or less scrupulously, but usually without a glimmer of their true meaning; of taking care of themselves, however, and so in most cases preventing the disease which he is often called in too late to cure, they have but the most rudimentary ideas. There is a story told of an old Jewish doctor who, after performing a dangerous operation, said to his disciples: "Two years ago an easy operation might have cured this disease; six years ago a wise way of life might have prevented it." As it was, in spite of his skill, the patient died next day; and similar cases are happening every day. If people would pay attention to the care of their own and their children's health, there would be a difference, not only in the mortality returns, but in the general vitality. The majority are content to get through life with a minimum of vitality, and thousands struggle on to the appointed age of man without ever having been really ill, but yet without ever having been really well—their condition is summed up in the phrase "feeble health." This content is fatal to improvement; it is like the mental position of the savage, who, knowing of nothing better, makes no progress towards civilization; but the sanitarian wishes not only to imbue every one with the ambition of a "fuller life," but also to teach how it may be obtained. He would maintain, not the minimum of vitality, but the maximum; he would have, not inert resignation to painful conditions, but that joy and glory in living which comes with the possession of perfect health, when the performance of every function is a pleasure. The old monastic idea of the mortification of the spirit through the flesh must die out, and be replaced by a more modern philosophy, which shall teach us to make life happy, and not to regard it as a trial to be got through somehow or other in a dull, pleasureless, if not absolutely painful way. Without laying oneself open to the charge of selfishness, the care of self ought certainly to occupy a considerable amount of the thought and attention of every individual, and it is only by such care that the condition of the community can be improved.
This principle once acknowledged, no item, however seemingly trifling, which concerns the well-being of the individual can be looked upon as unimportant; and, among other subjects, dress will receive the consideration it merits as a factor in the making or breaking of health, instead of being left to the tender mercies of the ignorant, the idle, and the frivolous.
The battle of dress reform is at the present time being vigorously fought, but the soldiers of the rebel camp have unfortunately adopted a mistaken plan of attack in falling upon the enemy just where he, or rather she, is the strongest. They have all endeavoured to make changes in the dress of the adult, forgetting that the customs and habits of adults are formed, and that the human adult mind entertains the strongest prejudice against change of any sort, even if it be for the better. There is nothing more difficult to alter than a habit once formed, while to prevent a bad habit from being formed is quite easy. The grown-up woman of to-day has been broken in from childhood to wear the ordinary garments and submit to the fashion of the time. She has grown accustomed to them, and custom has so dulled her senses that they utter no protest, however inherently uncomfortable, and even painful, those garments may be. Hence she meets the attack of the dress reformer with the reply, "I'll allow that your arguments are very plausible; it does seem as if these things were wrong, but I don't feel any inconvenience from them, so they really must be all right."
In point of fact, this is a good reason why average men and women cannot understand the object of the contention of dress reformers—they like that to which they have grown accustomed. Of course sensible people of all ages can and do make modifications in their dress, which render it both comfortable and healthy, and this is done quietly and without attracting any public attention. But if dress reform is to effect any material good for the community, it must be radical. It is no good to oppose the iron rule of custom; we must strike at the root of it, and begin with the children, for, as a reviewer of my former writings on the subject justly remarked, "it is in the hands of the mothers of to-day to effect for the coming generation that revolution in toilette against which the belles of to-day so stoutly or so scornfully array themselves." To put the matter simply, we must begin at the beginning, instead of at the end, as the so-called reformers have tried to do.
If we compare the mortality of the young of the lower animals with that of children, we find that there is no animal which loses its young in so large a proportion as women do. Is this not a disgrace to civilization? Reason is justly considered to be a higher phase of mind than instinct, yet we find the instincts of the beast a better protection to her young than the reason of the woman.
There is a vague sort of maternal instinct in woman which, as in the beast, generally teaches her to love and to defend her children from violence, but which is wholly powerless to enable her to guard them against the insidious attack of disease or the misery of feeble vitality. Yet, on the strength of this feeling, mothers are apt to believe that the very fact of maternity confers on them the knowledge of how best to rear their offspring. They resent almost as an insult the suggestion that a certain amount of study is absolutely necessary to obtain this knowledge.
A short time back I met with a good illustration of how thoroughly ignorant of the first principles of health a so-called "highly educated lady" may be. On one of the hottest days in July I was at a garden party amongst a group of young married women, when one of the guests chanced to say that I had lately been lecturing on how to dress children. "Oh, indeed," said one young matron, conspicuous for her squeezed-in waist and general air of affectation. "What a strange subject for Miss Ballin to choose; she ought to leave that to married ladies, who have the necessary experience." A few minutes after, this lady remarked that her baby was very ill—"it seemed to suffer so much with the heat." The hostess then asked her if the baby was short-coated yet, as it was quite old enough; whereupon the experienced one made answer that she had bought the clothes, but that, as neither she nor any of the servants knew how to put them on, she was waiting until her mother returned from the country.
On inquiry, I found that the unfortunate infant in question was wearing two thick rollers, one of flannel and one of cotton, shirt, flannel, heavily laced and embroidered long robe, and last, but not least, an indoor cap with three rows of lace. She laid especial stress on the last, and added that all the clothes were lovely. Can any one wonder at the terribly high rate of infant mortality, if reputedly educated women thus lose their quality of reason so far as to take pride in their ignorance of matters which concern the well-being, and even the life, of their children?
This class of mother, and unfortunately the class is a very large one, thinks she is doing her duty nobly if she turns her little one into a sort of animated block on which to display costly and handsome clothes, never for a moment considering whether those clothes are healthy and comfortable. She will let her baby grow weak and feverish from being too warmly dressed in the summer, while in the winter she will let it appear in a robe of lace, with bare neck and arms.
The instinct of the hen makes her sit day after day, week after week, on her nest, to warm her chickens with the heat of her own body, lest they should die of cold. The perverted reason of woman makes her, in accordance with a foolish fashion, cut her baby's clothes low in the neck, and tie up its already short sleeves with ribbons, so that "it shall look pretty." You rarely hear of a chicken dying of cold, but in England more than half of all the children born die under twelve years of age, and they die chiefly from insufficient clothing and improper feeding.
In fashionable circles at the present time, we are constantly hearing of the necessity of making sanitary crusades into the dwellings of the poor; but while I should be the last to discourage so good a work, in my own mind 1 am convinced of the truth of the dictum, that "Charity begins at home." It is unreasonable to blame the working mother, who is half distracted with the problem of how to make both ends meet, if her children are not reared on the most approved sanitary principles, when the woman of fashion can find no time to attend to a mother's first duties, but leaves her offspring to the tender mercies of ignorant servants.
However much time and thought a mother may devote to the care of her children, both are well spent. People are too apt to regard their little ones as pretty playthings made for their amusement, instead of recognizing that they are highly sensitive beings, whose whole future lives are being influenced for happiness or misery by their present surroundings and the treatment they are receiving. Every mother ought to be pervaded with a sense of responsibility which should prompt her to exercise every means in her power to smooth the path of her children to a healthy and happy life. It is true, in a physical as well as in a moral sense, that, as Wordsworth says,—
" The child is father of the man."
Herbert Spencer says: "The training of children—physical, moral, and intellectual—is dreadfully defective, and in great measure it is so because parents are devoid of that knowledge by which this training can alone be rightly guided. What is to be expected when one of the most intricate problems is undertaken by those who have given scarcely a thought to the principles on which its solution depends?" Here Spencer touches the mainspring of the question. That the sins of the parents are visited upon the children is too true in every sense. Parents are not sufficiently impressed with the idea of their moral responsibility in regard to their children. They do not realize the important truth that every action of theirs which relates to their child, every item of that child's daily life, will influence its whole future, physical and mental; for the two are inseparably interwoven. Nor do they conceive that wider truth, that not only the future of the young individual, but that of generations to come is affected by the treatment each child receives during its earliest years.
Even sensible parents often leave their young children to the tender mercies of servants, saying, "Oh, it will be time enough for us to look after them when they are older. You can't do anything with babies." In this they are wrong, however: for the first, the earliest impressions are those which are most important for the future of the child, and they are so for a physiological reason. The whole period of growth is important; but, since from birth to about the age of seven years the growth and development of bodily and mental functions are immensely more rapid than at any period of after-life, it follows that greater care is required during these early years, when the consequences of a step in a wrong direction are more injurious than at any other time.
Of course, as Spencer says, parents sin not through malice, but through ignorance; yet surely it is not a Utopian aspiration, nor an unreasonable demand, that fathers and mothers should endeavour, by study and thought, to acquaint themselves with those laws of life a knowledge of which is necessary for the well-being of the tender creatures for whose future they are responsible. These laws are not difficult of understanding, and they are explained in a hundred good and easily accessible books, yet they are universally neglected—a neglect which is perhaps partially to be attributed to a fatalistic idea that "whatever is, is right," and that things should be allowed to take their course.
The do-nothing policy is, however, a great mistake. If things could take their natural course they would, doubtless, be quite right; but they are prevented from doing so by a thousand obstacles, which must be removed in order to attain that end, and to remove which a knowledge of the natural course is necessary.
Then, again, people are too fond of trusting to chance and grandmotherly precepts or customs, possibly founded on misapprehension, but obeyed implicitly from generation to generation, and too chary of using their own reasoning powers.
There is a common saying that there are two ways of doing anything—a right one and a wrong one. This is only partially true, for, though there may be only one way of doing a thing right, there is an endless variety of ways of doing it wrong; and, though there may be a thousand wrong methods of training children, there can be only one right one, and that must be based upon a true knowledge of physical and mental development, carried out with sympathy, and constantly modified in accordance with observation and experience, as conditions differ in different individuals.
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