Part 3

With these changes the household employee will emerge from the restricted existence of “domestic service” to the broader life of ethical, industrial, and social freedom.

MORE PHYSICAL VIGOR FOR ALL

“ ...the words health, whole, holy, are from the same stock.” “The doctor does not give health, but the winds of heaven; ...”--_Edward Carpenter._

There are conditions in life which favor physical vigor. There are also conditions which stimulate mental activity, and tend to provide for it the necessary time and energy. Unfortunately these two sets of conditions, far from being identical, are often directly at war with each other.

Suppose, as an example of the former conditions, a man living apart from his fellows and obliged to secure his own food. The trees hang their fruit at such a height that in order to reach it he must exert himself moderately, not enough to exhaust himself, but enough to insure a good digestion. In pursuit of game he must keep out of doors and be much afoot. Unpolluted mountain streams invite him to drink and to bathe. To keep within easy reach of his food supply summer and winter, he must frequently change his abode. For this reason he depends upon clothing rather than upon closely built walls for shelter, and moves away from the _débris_ which collects around him before it has endangered his bodily well-being. Thus the conditions of his life combine to give him the exercise and fresh air and sunlight and good food and good water and cleanliness that are necessary for his physical vigor.

Now, suppose a man living under the other conditions--those that stimulate mental activity. A library tempts him to read, a university to study. The sight of great works of art or of other material products of human genius awakens any talents he may have. Association with thinking men and women induces currents of thought within him. Finally, contact with people who are willing and glad to climb his tree for him and pursue his game makes it possible for him to find time for brain work.

But the opportunity to read and study instead of the necessity for climbing trees and chasing game means the loss of the condition that made for muscular activity, for good circulation, and good digestion. The decline in muscular activity makes his body produce heat less rapidly, and creates a demand for closely built walls and roof in addition to clothing. This means a loss of the condition that insured a plentiful supply of sunlight and fresh air. The permanent shelter makes it impossible for him to move away from the _débris_ of his food and the excretions of his body, and thus destroys the condition that in itself favored and practically compelled cleanliness.

All this would make no difference, providing physical vigor were not necessary to mental activity. This, however, is a theory with which in the past we toyed to our sorrow. We conceived of a physical life and of an intellectual life, of a healthy body as necessary for the physical but not for the intellectual, and of development as coming through the putting off of the physical and the putting on of the intellectual. But we found that we were mistaken. The man from whom we were expecting beautiful poetry breathed bad air, weakened his lungs, fell a victim to tuberculosis, and we lost him and his song. The man to whom we were looking to plan for us beautiful buildings, to compensate in part for the natural beauties we had lost, weakened his body by insufficient exercise, then drank polluted water, died of typhoid fever, and we lost him and the beauties he might have created.

Then we began to think, and we realized that there is only one life; that that life is a bundle of desires, of loves, of sympathies, and of hopes; that development is not a putting off, but an expansion, coming when the desires increase, when the loves widen, when the sympathies broaden, and when the hopes get a farther view into the future; that for the outward expression of this inner and invisible life the body is the only tool, and that for the expression of the whole life, whether it be a life of few desires or many, a “whole” or healthy body is necessary. Acting upon this conviction, we began to establish kindergartens, and schools for manual training, for handicraft, and engineering, in order to train the hand to execute in material form what the mind conceived as an abstraction. We added departments of physical culture to the departments of Latin and Greek in our colleges, in order to train the “whole” man and the “whole” woman.

To fit a body to be the tool for the satisfaction of a few desires, and those mainly the desires for food and drink and shelter, is not a difficult task. It is only when we try to make it satisfy the many desires, including that for intellectual activity, that trouble begins. Then the poor body, put upon the stretch, is likely to develop a weak spot. To provide a suitable shelter for a body of few desires would puzzle no one. To build a fit habitation for a body of many desires is a problem that calls for all our experience and ingenuity.

At this point comes along the man who pooh-poohs at all things hygienic, and tells us that if we will only cease to think of our bodies we shall be all right; and this man has much on his side of the argument. He forgets, however, that what we have broken we must also mend, if we would have a whole. In the future there may be born a “whole” child under such favorable conditions that he will develop harmoniously without thought on his part or upon that of others. At present, however, amid the conditions that we brought upon ourselves by conceiving of an intellectual life apart from the physical, harmonious expansion is impossible without a conscious effort to regain bodily “wholeness.”

The harmful effects of dwelling upon “unwholeness” are not to be overlooked. To avoid them we must keep our attention upon the good as far as possible. There have been in the past, if we can believe the testimony of ancient statuary, fine, well-developed, full-chested, and straight-limbed bodies. These we must study, and think of our own underdeveloped bodies only long enough to learn how we can restore them to the proportions of the body beautiful. There are conditions that favor the development of the body beautiful. These we must analyze, thinking of bad conditions only long enough to learn how to make them good. Our model for our drinking water must be the water of an unpolluted mountain stream; for our air, the air of the open country; for our exercise, the varied movements of “the natural man” in his efforts to secure food; for our food, that which the man eats whose surroundings favor physical vigor.

To be sure, we cannot hope to regain the body beautiful, nor to have houses that shall favor its development, until we have secured the city beautiful, which shall unite fresh air and good water and abundance of sunlight and the opportunity for enjoyable exercise and the chance to get good food with the stimulus to and the time for intellectual activity. There are some things, however, that we can do and some things that we can leave undone which will help to restore good conditions.

Why, in the matter of fresh air, do we act upon the principle, _Windows closed except when it is absolutely necessary to open them_? Why do we not adopt the motto, _Windows open except when it is absolutely necessary to close them_? Why do we not have soft woolen jackets, such as the golfers use, to put on as the first expedient to avoid cold, leaving the closing of the windows till the last? Why, in the winter time, do we not put strips of wood in the lower parts of our windows, so as to leave an open space between the sashes, where the air can enter without striking us directly? Why, in the summer weather, do we ever close our windows? Is it because of the dust? If the dust is unreasonably great, why do we not stir up the town authorities to keep the streets in such condition that we can have fresh air? If it is not unreasonably great, but we have draperies that we value more than fresh air, perhaps we need to make a little reëvaluation. Why, in the beautiful autumn and spring days, when it is just too cool to have the windows open without a fire, do we not, instead of closing our houses, have a little fire and open the windows? Is it because that would be too expensive? Then could we not have one less course at dinner or one less dress a year and keep the air? Why do we wait until we have time for a promenade before we “air” the baby? Why do we not put the baby in its carriage on a sunny porch? Is it because we think that the baby, in some mysterious way, derives benefit from the exercise of our legs? Why do we always eat and sleep within doors? Why, when we plan new houses, do we not arrange them so that the kitchen and serving pantry will communicate as easily with a porch as with the indoor dining room? Why do we not have roof gardens, where we can sleep under the beautiful stars in warm weather? A shower bath open at the top, so that we could take water and air and sun baths all at the same time, would add to the attractiveness of the roof, and it might also be possible to have arrangements there for our European breakfast or our afternoon tea. Why do we ever shut the sun out of unoccupied rooms? Why do we not let it blaze in its life-giving, sterilizing rays? Draperies again? Carpets? Curtains? Well, there is one consolation. The old-fashioned, fast dyes are being revived, and we may in time have furnishings that will stand the sun.

In the matter of muscular exercise, why do we have our working clothes (humorously so called) made so that they weigh down our legs and bind down our arms; while our play clothes, our golf, tennis, and bathing suits, are made so as to permit free muscular activity? Why do not women, when they do their housework, which would give play to every muscle if it had a chance, wear suits akin to gymnasium suits, less abbreviated in the skirt, perhaps, but not long enough to be stepped upon when the body is bent over? Why do we put skirts on the baby that is just learning to draw himself to his feet, when we know that he cannot avoid stepping upon them and wrenching his head forward? Why, in short, do we put skirts on any living creature until that living creature demands them? If we did not put skirts on our girls until they discovered that they were differently dressed from the rest of their sex, what a long period of free, healthful, muscular activity they would have! One of the prettiest sights I ever saw was the little girls of a New England town dressed for coasting in woolen tights and sweaters and tasseled caps.

On this subject of clothes the hygienist and the teacher of physical culture have done their best to reform us. The former has shown us grewsome cross-sections of people who have had their ribs displaced by tight lacing. The latter has stood up before us at exhibitions and assumed graceful poses. But somehow neither has related the subject sufficiently to life itself. It is only when we think of life as made up of desires that find expression only through the body, when we think that by a motion, by a posture, we can express love, hatred, sympathy, cordiality, that we begin to cherish the smallest muscle and to think of clothes, not with reference to whether they are tight or loose, but with reference to whether they help or hinder the body in its effort to express the inner life.

As to baths, why do we locate our bathrooms on the north side of the house, and then make junk shops of them by filling them with blacking boxes and medicine bottles and hot water bags and any other thing that is not wanted elsewhere? Given a nice, clean, white tub in an airy room, with the morning sun falling directly upon it, and who can resist a bath?

Last of all comes food, and here is where the man who fears the physical effect of self-consciousness sees most danger. “Eat what you wish and don’t think about it, and you will be all right.” Alas, that is what the world has been doing, and instead of being all right, it has fallen a prey to numberless diseases that can be traced either directly or indirectly to dietetic errors. In food, as in other matters, we have a standard to guide us. That is the amount and kind of food that a person eats who lives under conditions that favor physical vigor. Perhaps the best we can do for ourselves is to think of the food that we ate with a relish when we were camping. Then when we find that this plain, simple diet, without “made dishes” and pastry, is no longer palatable, we will probably decide that we need a long walk, and will take it if we can possibly find the time.

Fresh air, sunlight, cleanliness, exercise, good food, good water--these, the conditions of physical vigor, come to that part of the world that is living under the intellectual stimulus only as the result of a conscious effort; but to what better use can we put our intellects after they are aroused than to the endeavor to regain bodily “wholeness”?

MORE JOY IN MERE LIVING

The machinery of life and life itself are continually getting mixed up, both in our theories and also in our practices, and it is frequently difficult to say of a given act whether it is a part of life itself or whether it is just a means of preparation for life. It was this fact, I suppose, that Henry Drummond had in mind when he said that, even at the worst, the struggle for life was really life itself. He applied this, to be sure, to the fierce struggles for food and other necessaries of life in which, during early stages of development, human beings engaged for the purpose of self-preservation. It is just as applicable, however, to our present struggle for life, for the care and the foresight that we must exercise in order to secure the food and the shelter and the fresh air and the sunlight which are necessary simply as preparation for what we consider our life work really involve just the thought and the exercise of reason that make life for us as distinguished from mere existence. Thus the fact that the harder we must struggle for life the greater is that mental activity which is an essential part of life itself is the first source of consolation for the fact that we have to struggle.

But there is another and a greater source of consolation. It was Drummond, I think, who originated the expression, _the struggle for the life of others_, making it cover all the activities to which we are prompted by love. Of these activities the most important is home-making, and it is the opportunity that home affords for merging _the struggle for life_ into _the struggle for the life of others_ that takes the sting from the work necessary for self-preservation. Thus, in providing a shelter to protect himself from the elements and to keep him in condition for work, man, if he be a home-maker, performs the same service for those he loves; and in providing for herself food that shall fit her to be an efficient working member of society, woman, if she be a home-maker, performs the same service for those who are bound to her by affection. Herein lies the second source of consolation for the fact that the greater part of our time and energy must be given to securing and caring for the machinery of life.

In getting ready to live, and in helping others to get ready to live--in these two ways we spend the greater part of our lives. But there are some activities in life which are simply a part of living. Of these, or of part of them, Browning makes David sing in “Saul”:

Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir tree, the cool, silver shock Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear, And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair, And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine, And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

To the pleasures which are here suggested, and which are chiefly those of the senses, should be added, if we are to have anything like a complete list, those pleasures which come from going to the theater, from listening to music, and from looking at works of art, providing, of course, we do not take any of them too seriously; those pleasures which come from social intercourse with friends, and which are not dependent upon “improving conversation,” but which spring from the opportunity to be near and to talk with those we love; and those pleasures which come from meditation on life and its meaning, but which do not involve any effort to straighten out its tangles. “Improving” conversation and efforts to achieve artistic appreciation and to make the world better are parts of life, but they are also parts of its struggle, and therefore must be excluded from “the joys of mere living.”

If these pleasures that are _ends_ and in no sense _means_ are a legitimate part of life, they must be taken into consideration not only in adjusting the machinery of our own lives so as to have time for them, but also in adjusting the machinery of home-making so as to secure them for others. I know a woman who has four of the healthiest and happiest children in the country. She is also the fortunate possessor of horses and a carriage. If the day dawns bright and the woods seem to call for her, she has the horses harnessed, bundles the children into the carriage, puts a basket under the seat, and starts off down the street. On the way she picks up a congenial spirit or two, and stopping at the market fills her basket with bread and fruit and cooked meat or other kinds of food that can be bought ready for eating. Then, with no more ado than this, she is off for a whole day of “the joys of mere living” in the woods. This she is able to do because she has simplified the machinery of her home-making by excluding useless decorations from furnishings and clothing. Nor is it to be understood that she has thereby traded off the pleasures of beautiful home surroundings for the joys of frequent glimpses of nature. Her windows command broad views of lake and lawn, in the presence of which elaborate draperies would seem like impertinences, and her children have bright eyes and clear skins and well-developed figures, which plain clothing sets off better than ruffles and flounces.

In passing, we must not fail to note that this woman has done something more than to simplify housekeeping. She has also simplified the machinery of picnics--a great art. We have not, all of us, horses and carriages, but we can get some kind of conveyance--an electric car, if nothing better--and we can pick up on the way to the picnic food which will taste just as good in the open air as that over which we frequently wear ourselves out before starting.

It is interesting to see how things work themselves out in this world. We used to clean house in the spring. Although spring is violet time, and a season of enormous possibilities in the way of real living, yet this custom for many years worked little hardship, because most people lived reasonably near to nature all the time. Later, however, life became so artificial that we really needed occasional excursions into the country. Then, too, the kindergartens began to teach the children to _see_ and to enjoy nature. Then, just in the nick of time, just as we had encountered the need of and the incentive to trips into the country, the necessity for “spring cleaning” was taken away. We began to have hardwood or painted floors, which made it possible to do housecleaning a little at a time all the year around. Thus there is now no great piece of work left to be done in the spring, when we really ought to be in the woods.

Perhaps the most interesting of the recent movements in the direction of simplifying housework is that in favor of sun-dried underwear, towels, bed linen, etc. This stands for another “working together for good.” When life became complex we began to begrudge the time necessary for ironing, and sometimes, if we thought we could use our time more profitably than in ironing, we used our clothes “rough-dried.” But now we no longer speak of “rough-dried” clothes, because that suggests only their negative advantage in saving work; but we say “sun-dried,” because hygienists have told us that articles that contain in their meshes fresh, sunned air are more healthful than those that contain the impure air of kitchen or laundry. They have told us, also, that because air is a poor conductor of heat, and because clothes that have not been pressed contain more air than those that have, we can get more protection from a given weight of underwear that has been sun-dried than from the same weight of that which has been ironed.

But no one is going to make effort to get time for “the joys of mere living” until he sees a prospect of getting them. For a long time we have recognized the possibility of getting these pleasures in large quantities in the summer time, during our vacations, but we have not recognized half the chances that lie about us all the year. Of all seasons the winter seems most unpromising, and yet I have experienced more joy from simply being alive in the winter than at any other time. On the greater part of the west shore of Lake Michigan there is a bluff. This serves to protect the shore from the west winds which prevail in that part of the world, and it also receives and reflects the morning sun. In cold weather the sand is hard and as easy to walk upon as a cement walk. On winter mornings, even when the thermometer is below zero, one can walk along the shore in perfect comfort in clothing that is light enough to make walking pleasurable. It is possible, also, with perfect comfort, to stop and build a fire, make coffee, and eat a lunch. And the lake and the sky present constant but ever changing beauties, and the sun sparkles on the ice that is heaped up near the shore. It is indeed good to be alive on the west shore of Lake Michigan of a bright winter’s morning, and yet, although I have spent hours walking on the shore on Saturday mornings, I have never seen a person besides those who were with me. Where are the mothers? Why don’t they bring their children down there? Don’t they know the fun of tramping up the shore and building fires and having little camp lunches, and of watching the winter landscape? This is but one instance of joys that are within the reach of all, and yet are undiscovered. Doubtless each one of us knows of some others such as these, and wonders why others do not avail themselves of them. If so, let’s tell each other about them.

But we lose joys in life not only by failing to find them and by complicating the machinery of life, but also by making machinery of those things which are really ends in themselves. There is bathing, for example. We take baths so many times a day or week in order to keep clean and healthy. We might, if we arranged things properly, forget about the necessity for health and cleanliness, and jump into the bath just for the sake of “the cool, silver shock of the plunge.” We perfunctorily “change the air” in our homes so many times each day, but it is possible to get so enamored of living out of doors as to find even the stillness of the air in the house unbearable. When one has reached that point an open window is no longer a means to health, but a part of the joy of living, because it brings the sensation of moving air.