Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1891 — Why Doe. Woman Seek Improvement? [ARTICLE]

Why Doe. Woman Seek Improvement?

It is a difficult question to decide whether women seek to improve themselves for the sake of the effect it may have on men, or pimply for their own pleasure. More particularly do you find this a poser when you learn for the first time that there are upward of twenty of the best known belles of New York who are taking lessons in skirt dancing. This statement sounds incredible, but it is a fact. Exactly what use proficiency in skirt dancing can be to a young lady, to a young bride, or to a young mother, is difficult to discover. Also how the development of a girl’s kicking power will find for her greater favor in the eyes of her serious admirers. At a dinner given this week there were four of these energetic young beauties present, one of whom stoutly defended the idea. She said its object was simply to make them supple and graceful. “Why not calisthenics?” interrupted a man. “Because we do not want muscle: we want grace of carriage and movemen’.'’ As a matter of fact, however, this is one thing that an American woman need not cultivate. She is born with it. —Ntiv York Truth.