of giving to our children erect frames, clothed with firm flesh (or muscle), which will scorn the use of artificial support.
In a former chapter I urged "the total abolition of the binder," and I have now to plead against the use of those baby stays with, which so many little ones are provided. Here mothers will exclaim, "But what harm can they do? They are not at all stiff. Why, they are only made of corded jean, or something of that sort." The answer is: They can do harm in many ways.
In the first place, if they are not stiff they are unyielding, and thus not adaptable to the changing proportions of the little body. That body, moreover, is all "straight down alike," to use common parlance; hence, if the stays are loose, they slip down and press on the pelvis, crushing the surrounding soft parts, and possibly deforming the bony structure, which during childhood is cartilaginous and easily bent, thus creating a source of misery for the girl's future. Since the stays thus tend to slip down, mothers are inclined to tighten them somewhat, "just to give them a little grip, you know," and in this way the evil of tight-lacing is initiated; or shoulder straps are added, for the purpose of keeping them in place, and these give rise to stooping by dragging on the shoulders, and not unfrequently to curvature of the spine.
The too common custom of pinching in the waists of growing girls has most probably arisen from the difficulty of keeping their clothes, as ordinarily constructed, from slipping down. The diffi-
