GAMES FOR GIRLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 4, 6 January 1922, Page 7

GAMES FOR GIRLS.

EXONERATED BY SPECIAL INQUIRY. Not long ago (writes our London correspondent) there wag a vast pother about the evil of athletics for girls. Much undiluted tosh was given publicity in the Press until, as it was stated, had every physical wrong done to women of the unborn been true Atalanta herself would hare had varicose veins. But in the midst of all this clouding of the issues by stupidities such as a discussion like this evokes of outworn Early Vietorianism and' its opposite, a freedom which means excess, a sufficient amount of uneasy feeling was observable at the back of it aril to make the saner supporters of women'g rights to physical training nervous. Was there really any foundation for the belief that the eports of the modern girl were bound to unsex her and unfit her from becoming a mother pi men? For that reason the decision of the Medical Officers for Schools Association to call a public meeting for its discussion I was a very wise one, and frankly those who exclaim against the evil of games made no appearance at this meeting, convened, one understood, to give them an opportunity to stand to their guns. On the contrary the evidence was overwhelmingly for games for girls—this with jugt precisely the same limitation one would put on games for boys, that no undue strain of nerve or physique be permitted to the young of either sex. The most convincing argument wa* adduced by Miss StansfieW, principal of Bedford Physical Training College. So impressed had she been by the outcry against games for girls that she had made two specific inquiries to set her own mind at rest—incidentally it ought to reassure the general public. The first test wag that of the class of senior students passing out of the college. It was made at the end of the summer term when they had bad exceptionally hard work of every kind. They had to face their heavy work for passing their College examinations, various outside activities, and intensive training in all physical exercises preparatory to their showing their capacity to be teachers and of passing out with a diploma. The test was applied, in fact, at the one moment in all their training at which, had they any weakness latent, it would have shown. Miss Stansfield called in an independent medical opinion, and after he had made exhaustive teste the class came out with flying colours, "not a heart among them with a murmur," and of equally good report in other directions.

This was so far good, but it did not go far enough. Miss StanafieM in addition sent out a questiounalre to thirty-five old students who had married, to find out whether, escaping deterioration in college, they had yet shown themsel—ja below normal as wives and mothers. Some of these students had gone to the ends of tthe earth; one was the wife of a missionary in China, another of a hackveldt farmer in South Africa. The questionnaire into their experiences as mothers was very exhaustive. It covered such points as their health during pregnancy, how near the birth of children were they able to "carry on" as usual, their experience at child-birth, how soon after they were able to resume their usual occupations, and the health of their children.

Miss Stansfield's rapid enumeration of the replies sent by the thirty-five old students wae an emphatic denial of ill effects. With the exception of the mia--1 sionary, who in addition to the trying circumstances of her life had appendicitis complications, the reports were almost uniformly good. The majority were able to go about-until the day of their baby's birth, one until an hour before, and a very large number resumed their normal 1_» very soon; there were even two Who P—_ed golf on the tenth day after. It fc to'be reworded, too, that in all these <_M% save only the missionary's case, labour in child-birth was exceptionally easy, especially after first births. The numbers of mc children was satisfactory, there being several famfliee of -more than two children, and the record for these children was one of good health. An astonishingly large number of these Amazons fed their own babies, a fact to which Dr. Truby King win set i down the good health of the children.

Another medical woman in the discussion declared that the results were proved every day in India, where on one hand one saw the Brahmin girl, brought up from her cradle to a life of absolute idleness, and her cruel experiences as a mother with no physical or moral stamina to come to her aid; and where, on the other hand, the low caste woman did the hardest physical work in the fields, and with them 'child-birth was an affair of half an hour or a little more before she was back—with her baby—at work.

Faced with such facts, the outcry against games for girls can hardly persist. But this meeting of medical officers very sensibly viewed the subject from the widest possible point of view. With giria, as with boys, games may be wrongly played, and these medical officers are setting themselves to discover what in present systems is likely to be harmful. As Dr. Alice Clow, medical inspector of Cheltenham Ladies' College, said: "The only question was whether certain games were too strenuous for girls and had a detrimental effect on the organs of reproduction. The strenuousness of the game depended on the equality of the girls, who ought to be as far as possible of about the same size and strength. If these precautions were taken girls would not suffer from tbe effect of strenuous exarcise any more than boys. To read some of the criticisms one would imagine that schoolgir's were playing or doing gymnastics all day long. An hour or half an hour was usually tbe maximum time that could be spent on the field. The real test in this matter was surely the condition of the player afterwards. At Cheltenham the girls returned from the field day after day fresh and vigorous and with healthy appetites. As to children being allowed to play vigorous games after meals, it seemed to her that digestion proceeded just as easily if no restraint was placed on the natural desire of the child to rush about direclly after dinner. T><» critics of athletics surely forgot hunting, Generations of women who hunted had been the mothers of large and healthy families."