Part 3

It is certainly not my wish to decry the faithful service that nurses have given to their charges, a good deal more faithful than many mothers. But what I do want to point out is that the training of nurses and teachers is as a rule far from what it ought to be, and until this training is most thoroughly altered it is worse than useless to try and raise the education of children to a higher and purer level. First of all, it must be recognised that these people on whom the future of our young so largely depends ought to be the most respected and honoured amongst people, and this feeling of responsibility and honour ought to be ingrained in the minds of those who intend to enter the vocations of nursing or teaching. Not, as so often is the case, that teaching is taken up when a failure is made at other professions, and when you find in rich houses that the teachers or nurses of the children are paid considerably less than the cook or butler. Until teaching is put upon its proper pedestal and regarded as the most honoured of professions, and one not to be entered into lightly, so will education remain at its present low level. It is constantly being said that there are so many clever women leaving our colleges each year, and finding it difficult to earn a livelihood: surely teaching ought to give many of them a profession in life; but until the profession is regarded rightly, as one of the most high and sacred callings, clever men and women will consider it beneath them, or only to be used as a step towards something better. Certainly, latterly, there has been some improvement in the methods of imparting knowledge to the young, but I am afraid that these methods have not always been used for the good only of the child. Too many good teachers are given to cramming infants’ minds to an extent extremely harmful, only caring to produce on examination days tiny children who can repeat pages of verse and prose--in other words, at the expense of the child’s health and mind, they nurture their own vanity, showing that their idea of responsibility is as lax as their knowledge of the delicate structure they undertake to build up.

The ignorance of the people to whom children are entrusted on the science of Pedagogy is truly amazing. They know nothing about the body, and still less about the working of a child’s brain. They do not know what is harmful physically, or what effect body has on brain, or _vice-versa_; they have a smattering of Physical Culture and this is used indiscriminately, and they cannot be blamed, as they have never been taught even the rudiments of a science which they ought to know thoroughly before they essay to teach. For it is, I am certain, this entire lack of knowledge as to the brain and body and the effect of one on the other, that leads to so much distress and sin, and that is such a handicap in any efforts that are made to fill the mind with only what is worth while. Excellent methods such as Dr. Montessori’s are terribly hampered by the difficulty of finding people in any quantity capable of carrying out ideas which require careful observation and a real knowledge of the child’s mind and body. They may earnestly strive, but they will fail, and consequently many good methods brought forward by clever trained people go to the wall and are labelled as useless, simply because the teachers are quite incompetent to either grasp or carry out any method which requires a real and not a superficial knowledge of Pedagogy. Now this is all rather dreadful, and the only way to improve matters and give children a chance of starting life with a healthy and pure outlook is for all parents to band themselves together and insist that the people who volunteer to take charge of and educate children, shall have received a proper training both mentally and physically.

If this was done, in one generation, education in the highest sense of the word would have a bright outlook, as people who have received a sane and clean education themselves will most certainly see that their children receive and benefit by the same. I do not think that parents can often give much thought as to the unlimited amount of harm done in their nurseries. The conversations that are carried on before young children, between nurse and nursery-maids, are five times out of six harmful, I am certain; and any observing mother can tell, from the way children behave and the things they talk about, the sort of influence that is unconsciously wielded by the nurses in charge. Looking back at my nursery days, and my memory of them is very distinct, I can easily remember the kind of topics that were discussed before me: every sort of gossip on the latest scandals, the latest murder, horrors of war, &c., all in their most gruesome details. I was, I suppose, about four or five years of age, and those conversations are clear in my memory to this day. My nurse was the dearest and most faithful of old Scotch servants, and would have given her life gladly for any of her charges, but she had never been taught herself as to what was harmful and what was not for children to see and hear, and had the uneducated person’s general idea that children up to the age of about ten years are deaf, dumb, and blind. Many and many an evil growth and crooked outlook on life is gained in those early nursery days, and they cling steadily through life. In these days of heavy doings and light thinkings, the children of the well-to-do are more and more left in the charge of others than their parents, and it seems that this would become more so than less in the future.

So, surely, a giant effort should be made towards establishing a training college, or improving the ones at present in existence, and insisting that nurses and teachers are trained so as to have considerably higher ideals than they have at present, and a far deeper knowledge of the mind and body, before they are allowed to play havoc with the lives of the young. Most certainly there are many young people who love children, and have themselves been brought up in a clean, though perhaps limited manner: opportunities should be given to them to train so as to become able to take charge of children and to fully understand the tremendous responsibilities they undertake when children are given into their charge. A man would be considered a great fool if he placed a valuable racehorse in the hands of an ordinary stable-man to be trained for a great race, and the horse would stand little chance to win unless handled by an experienced trainer who had made it his business for years to learn all there was to know on the subject of handling valuable animals. He would give hours of observation and thought, he would know to a hair’s weight what the animal could stand physically, any mental idiosyncrasies would be studied and sought to be overcome. But the average person who has charge of children as a rule not only does not know even the anatomy of the child, but the formation of its mind and the proper way of training that mind, and bringing it to a full and perfect development, is often not even considered a matter of importance. I do not wish to imply that these people are purposely negligent of their duties, I merely wish to point out that the large majority do not realise or understand, from their imperfect training, either duties or responsibilities, the idea being very often that children will turn out good or bad men or women quite independently of their upbringing and the influence brought to bear on them during the early years of their development. DANCING For many years I have been a most ardent admirer of Miss Isadora Duncan, and there is no doubt that in the revival of classical barefooted dancing she stands out with great brilliancy. All praise is due to her as a creator of this school of dancing, and those amongst us who seek to follow in her footsteps do so, I fear, but feebly.

I think I am right in saying that all the sincere classical dancers wish to forward this school, not merely from the point of view of making money on the stage, but from the educational value they feel it ought to hold in the upbringing of all children of both sexes. And that this value is very great has been proved as much as such a young movement can be proved by Miss Duncan, M. Jacque Dalcroze, and others. Though, of course, the eurhythmics of Jacque Dalcroze is a system of training entirely different in method from that of any one else. [Illustration: MISS ISADORA DUNCAN _From a Photograph by the Dover Street Studios_] One of the greatest advantages that classical dancing holds over the toe-dancing school is that it is possible to become proficient in it by giving a short time daily to its practice, instead of the many hours and years of arduous work that a toe-dancer has to go through before becoming a finished exponent of the art. One is an accomplishment that we all ought to be able to enjoy, the other is only possible for the woman who means to make it a profession, and give the best years of her life to it. Though to become a good classical dancer it is not only necessary to take a child and instruct it in the art of moving gracefully if the rest of its education does not assist in the teaching. From earliest infancy it must be taught to observe, to concentrate, to realise the beautiful in line and colour, and to have the ugly and repulsive kept away from it, encouraged to copy beautiful poses and eventually express to music in movement what that music says to it. The educational value of classical dancing is that its expression has to come from within.

A toe-dancer is very often merely a brilliant machine. Her dance is often composed for her by her professors, and her well-trained muscles merely respond like a perfect machine to their commands. It therefore follows that the educational value in such dances is practically nil, apart from the dancers having had to learn muscle-control, patience, and endurance, which of course is of use. A child trained to classical dancing in the right way will, by the time it reaches full growth, dance, I feel sure, as we were all meant to dance, every muscle in control and the mind enveloped in the glory of expressing beauty by perfect rhythmical movements. Having worked on the stage as a classical dancer for a short time I was a good deal saddened by the adverse criticisms I heard on all sides, about the bare-footed school of dancing: general sameness and general dullness were the two most severe. My own dancing being criticised I did not mind. I was merely a beginner, and beginners nearly always have to suffer. I asked many and various people as to the reasons of these criticisms and always got the same answer: ‘Very pretty, yes, but when it is seen once, that is sufficient.

Interesting, I dare say, to painters and sculptors who know when a pose is pure and a faithful copy of the antique, but the general public don’t, and all the poses and dances look much alike.’ At that time I used to get angry, and salved my wounded feelings by putting these people down as narrow-minded and inartistic, but at the bottom of my heart I felt that they had some right on their side. I went several times to see classical dancing which was supposed to be good, and tried fairly with an open mind to criticise it. After a good deal of sincere study and thought on the subject I came to the conclusion that to a great extent these criticisms were right. What was lacking I was sure was the absence of any real joyousness and life in the dancing. The dancers did their best, but with the exception of Miss Duncan’s work, which carries a splendid joyousness in it, the dancing was curiously dead and heavy. The poses were good, the arms and body graceful and trained, but the legs and feet of most of them were totally untrained, the muscles soft and flabby, thus causing every movement to be devoid of life. In fact, an exact antithesis to the toe-dancer, who very often has wonderfully trained legs and a great rigidity of arms and body. The Russian dancers have to a great extent got away from this very ugly style. [Illustration: MAD^{LLE} ADELINE GENÉE _From a Photograph by the Dover Street Studios_] Many contend that the ancient Greek dancers, whom the present-day classical dancers try to copy, did not train their legs for dancing, but merely used them as supports for the body and arms, to which all the graceful movements were confined.

Personally, I feel sure that the Greeks if they trained their bodies and arms for the dance did not neglect the legs and feet, as they were known to insist most strongly in their physical education on perfect muscular development throughout the body. [Illustration: MADAME KARSAVINA _From a Photograph by the Dover Street Studios_] Then came to me the problem which I have attempted to solve during the last three years. Is it possible to combine Greek poses, graceful body movements, and plastic light movements of the legs, so that the whole may be welded and work smoothly together. In fact, to try and resemble the Russian dancers in their lightness and charm, but avoiding the tortuous and unnatural movements and positions favoured by the toe-dancer. I felt sure that a great deal of the lightness of the toe-dancer’s work could be brought with great advantage into the classical dancer’s, and still lose none of the simplicity and purity which is the barefooted dancer’s ideal, rather in fact add to it, as it is quite unnatural to have heavy, uncontrolled muscles. This can be proved by watching the dancing of savages, whose movements may be grotesque, but every muscle is under control, and each movement sure. The answer to all this by many would be that it is only necessary to remove the tights, shoes, and ballet-skirt from any of the leading toe-dancers, replace them by a Greek drapery, and you will have a perfect classical dancer: for many of the Russians have shown that they have studied a certain amount of this work as far as poses go in some of their ballets--‘Narcissus,’ for instance. But there are several insuperable objections to this, one of the foremost being that an experienced toe-dancer’s bare foot is nearly always a thing of horror to look at. Secondly, a toe-dancer gets all her positions with her foot pointed as stiffly as possible, and her foot when not on the ground is never otherwise than pointed.

A bare foot pointed, even a well-shaped bare foot, is an extremely ugly thing. A toe-dancer’s foot has at all times to be rigid. She gets her muscular control from the rigid foot upwards, and it would be an unheard-of fault for a toe-dancer to allow her foot to become limp at any moment while dancing. Again, a classical dancer must have her bare feet limp exactly like her hands: the greatest difficulty I found was to keep the feet limp and get the muscular control in the legs, also not to let the feet look dead. All dancers have to conquer this difficulty in their hands when learning to dance. A limp hand and a dead-looking hand are two very different things. I have worked hard for three years at what I think I am justified in calling a new form of bare-foot dancing. I make no pretence of having perfected it, but I hope it is a step in the right direction towards dancing that shall be perfect in pose and expression, and that will help the human mind and body to retain its birthright of beauty. [Illustration: BAREFOOTED DANCING AFTER THE GREEK STYLE _From a Photograph by the White Studios_] [Illustration: BAREFOOTED DANCING AFTER THE GREEK STYLE _From a Photograph by the White Studios_] SWIMMING If asked which style of physical exercise I should recommend to bring nearly all the greater muscles of the body into play, and be of all-round value to the exerciser, I should unhesitatingly say swimming--and it is with a good deal of pleasure one notices how greatly on the increase the learning of swimming is amongst well-to-do people, and that parents are beginning dimly to realise what an incalculable amount of good children of both sexes gather from this exercise.

Having seriously studied swimming and diving since I was fourteen years old, I feel that I am at liberty to speak strongly on the subject; of the good that can be got from indulging in one of the most pleasurable physical exercises there are, and also the harm that can result from bad teaching, &c. Having been a member of the Bath Club, London, since it first opened, I have had every opportunity of studying swimming and the people who swim--and there is no doubt that the Club has done an enormous lot to encourage learning swimming amongst the rich and their children, particularly the latter, averaging in age from three years old and upwards; also, of course, I have swum and watched swimming in many other countries and baths. An interesting thing is that most of the men anyway who swim seriously, going in for competitions, exhibitions, &c., are gleaned from the working classes, not from the idle rich, who one would imagine have far more time and opportunity to perfect themselves. But the art of swimming and diving is curiously little excelled in by the latter. They of course know how to swim, as that is taught at most public schools--but few get any further, the real swimming world being composed nearly entirely of hard-working men. This, of course, refers to England. When I first began swimming it was thought quite out of the common to take an interest in this exercise, and women who swam, amongst one’s friends, could be counted on the fingers of one’s hand. As to high diving, that was looked at in horror and amazement. [Illustration: ENGLISH POSITION IN AIR WHILE DIVING] Then the Swedish divers came to London and gave exhibitions of high diving; and people began to realise that there might be something worth while in this art beyond the ordinary flopping-along breast-stroke through the water, which was about as much as the average woman, anyhow, dared to try.

Swimming clubs for both sexes began to crop up, competitions were started, prizes given--and the standard rose by degrees to what it is now. Not high enough, by any means, but an enormous improvement on fifteen years ago. I personally think that what makes the Swedish divers stand out as a rule head and shoulders above any other divers is their marvellous realisation of form in their work, and to define what one means by form is almost impossible. Some will say a diver with a great deal of finish has good form, personally I think it quite possible to be an absolutely finished diver and yet lack a great deal in form. It seems to me that the great dash and boldness and muscular control the Swedes exhibit in the air has a great deal to do with it. One of the above qualities is often seen, but all three together seems almost unique to the Swedish divers. Perhaps it may be interesting to mention the difference between a plain English dive and a plain Swedish dive. As regards the positions--the English dive is taken with the hands pointed straight up above the head, from the tips of the fingers to the end of the toes the body ought to be in a straight line.

The Swedish plain dive is the swallow dive, so called from the position of the hands and arms out from the shoulders at almost right angles. During the flight through the air the back is hollowed as much as possible. A man doing a high running swallow dive greatly resembles a bird swooping down, and the beauty of line that the best divers manage to get into it is remarkable. [Illustration: SWEDISH SWALLOW DIVE] Of course the muscular development and control needed in high diving is very great--therefore making it a most valuable exercise. A really good high dive and perfectly developed and controlled muscles are bound to go together. I think that the beauty in the art of diving is greatly under-valued, and gracefulness not nearly enough insisted on in the teaching of it; like all other physical exercises unless fitness and beauty of the body are the aim of the exerciser, they ought to be left alone, little good will certainly be gathered from any form of exercise if it is entered into merely in the spirit of competition, and not with the wish to improve the body and the mind. Most exercises of a vigorous kind will help a person mentally: for instance, the mind would have to be a seething mass of corruption if it was past being helped by the contact and feel of cold water after a rush through the air from a height; unclean and impure thoughts that crowd gaily and with little shame under the electric lights in a crowded restaurant would not venture to show themselves when the body is tingling and the mind rioting with joy from a swift rush through the sunlit air into a still pool in a river, or even into the green depths of a swimming-bath. No; exercise aided by cold clean water and fresh air do not walk hand in hand with uncleanliness of spirit, and if only this was more understood and realised by parents, how much unhappiness and peril might be saved their children. As to the teaching of children--swimming ought to be taught to all and taught in the right spirit--not regarded as a means to clutch a gold medal from some less fortunate brother or sister, but a glorious means of helping themselves mentally and physically, and an exercise that ought to be put within the reach of rich and poor; and, I feel most strongly, taught, as all physical exercises should be taught, to man and woman, as a weapon to combat through life temptations and sorrows which come to all on life’s journey.