The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 4, 1898, Page 18

18 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, .DECEMBER 4, 1898. DR SRR S s g i o o i o S S O e e e e e A Dr. W." Gill Wylie s ds among. the leaders of that sec- tion of the medical prof on which' has made woman a life In New York, where Dr. Wylie lives, he is considered st master in h ts of ‘Europe E ents that to Dr. Wylie to b Women whom the great medico- abandoned to the assaults of the ct them come from all over the ted. And thus it is when Dr. talks al woman peaks from an international he kn the characteristics, of the ent civilized nations. B R e e S R R e g Y experience is that the American horse receives on the average better treatment than the young women of America, and when T say young women I mean from the time early girlhood begins until the age of devdlopment has passed. man who breeds stock never forces the young animal Y4444+ 4444 R R S way' during the period of development. He realizes that o the time the greatest care should be taken. If American parents would devote anything like the care and attention to their ters ring the period of early development that the breeder theré would be a tremendous decrease in the ion of women and a great increase in the num- stock ical degene “The Christian Endeavor™ Just Launched Here to Do Missionary In the East a Handsome Yacht Has Just Been Equipped for Work in Cuba Work Around the Bay. and Porto Rico. ber of rosy-cheeked girls, who are now the exception rather than the rule, among the school-going section of American young women. The greatest trouble is found in the “.milies of the middle classes, where the parents have great ambitions for their children and are anxious they should be intellectually developed to a point far beyond that which they themselves were able to reach. =~ The result of this is that a girl is sent to school too early in the be- ginning, and from the time she is ten years old until she is sixteen is made to cram her head with knowledge in advance of her years and so rapidly that the brain will not assimilate it. That is why we see so many girls with the face of eighteen or nineteen when that age is reached and the body of a ‘child: The whole strength of development is devoted to the brain and physique finds expan- sion as best it can. New Ergland furnishes the best type of this sort of woman— New England, where woman is supposed to be more perfect than in any other section of the country. The New England woman is sharp and intellectually far above the average, but look at the physique of the average New England girl. It is away below par. The intellectuality has gone on and on, while the development of the physique has been comparatively at a standstill. Where the New England family of a century ago consisted of ten or a dozen children, to-day there are one, perhaps three, children, and dgain absolute sterility. Forcing the girls to study more than they should at the age of early development is the cause of this. The generative organs of a girl are the same at eleven as at two years of age. If the mind is forced, then when the time for development arrives the physical suffers and the result is degeneration. The best remedy for the existing evil is the use of common sense. There are two things, or two institutions, which enter very largely into the cause of the lack of development of the American girl. These are the Normal school and ‘the boarding school. As to the Normal school, I regard that as one of the dangers which the young girls of America have to face, and this fact is as it is because the age at which entrance to the school is per- mitted is less than it should be. No girl should be permitted to enter that institution before she is sixteen years old. I secured the appointment of medical examiner from the Board of Education of New York city for the express purpose of finding out just what the physical condition of the teachers and the girls who wanted to be teachers was. I found that the perfectly de- veloped woman was a rarity among the teachers who had reached the adult age. I found that in almost every instance the girls of fourteen who entered the Normal were stunted physically. A class of girls were given an impetus along the road to womanhood lack- ing the qualities that make the woman the mother of children who tend to advance their race, rendering them instead either sterile or in such a condition that they could only bring weaklings into the world: Parents seem to forget that their girls have hodies at all and take only their minds into consideration. It is apparently con- stantly borne in on them that in order that their girls should be smarter than some one else’s girls they must study harder and harder and take the physical exercise, the outdoor life, whenever it happens to be convenient. There is where England has the best of us. Over there a girl stays a child until the time for her to enter into young womanhood has arrived. Her associates are children, her thoughts are those of the childish mind, and so when the seed of learning is implanted in her brain it falls in fallow ground and the development is strong, healthy and enduring. Her muscular and general development keeps pace with everything else and she is healthy and strong mentally and physically. Now about the types of women that best illustrate this view of the matter. I told you that the New England woman was the most typical of the forced intellectuality. Look at her thin face and un- developed physique. She is as bright as a dollar and she is up in all sorts of intellectual ways. But if she marries she either hoe o children at all or very few and instead of motherhood being a bless- ing it sometimes proves a curse to her. I believe that the girls that best exemplify the perfect type of American womanhood are to be found in Baltimore and-Pennsyl- vania. The young women down there have not been required to lead a forced life. Nature has been allowed to have full sway, and if it was her bent to produce a girl of unusual mental power so it happened. If the girl was naturally dull intellectually there was no effort made to force her into what she was not fitted for. In this way the girls have grown up in the way they should go, as would always be the case if unnatural ways were not followed. In any section of these United States where the parents of girls are willing to make of them just what nature intended will be found the best specimens of the American womanhood. There are hopeful signs among the daughters of what the world calls the better class of men, meaning by that the men who have the most money. There seems to be less of a tendency to force daughters of such fathers than there used to be. And now I am ?\@@@@@@@G\:":\@\i‘@@G‘é‘<.'\@'\">@@@6\@'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@0@@@@0@@@@@@@@@@@@@@0@@@@@@@@@0@(&@@@@@@@@@@@@@@G@@@@@'Sr' bfitf"ifi;tingg\?essels to Work Among Sinners speaking of New Yorkers. Look into the life of the middle classes, however, and you will find that the evils of which I have spoken are rife indeed. It is just this sort of feeling among parents that results in peo- pling the world with young womén totally unfit to bear the burdens which nature intended for them. When there is a complaint of a woful absence of pretty girls it is very certain to be true that there is an equal lack of proper physical development due to the forcing process or the lack of attention to girls’ physique whieh is fatal to health and consequently good looks. There is no better example of the physical degeneration of woman than is found by a study of the old families of this country and par- ticularly of New York. In their cases it is not so much the result of the forcing process as it is of the absolute yielding to luxurious living and the lack of proper attention to physical development. In order to arrest this degeneration I would advise parents to keep them children as long as they ought to be. Let their associates be children. Put adult things away from them. Don’t let them read the books that their mothers and fathecrs read. Don't let them read the newspapers. See that they are out of doors, out of doors, out of doors. Don’t send them to school too early. Don’t make them try to learn too much when they go school. Let the development of their bodies keep pace with the development of their minds. Then there will be no more pinched and haggard faces among the children. They will be healthy and happy. ORCRR-ROERCRCRCEER X R X X 4 Is the World's Wheat Supply Growing Less? The Famous Strtement of Sir William Crookes of the British HE latest recruit to the ranks of Association Provokes a Number of Replies on the Cereal — ] Conditions of This Country. Copyrighted, 1898, by S. S. McClure Co. the fertilizing materials necessary to in. crease the capacity of the wheat fields ILITANT may, and every man of the crew will be a perhaps, in its sailor-missionary. most interesting and pictur- _ The boat is to be launched on the s it the San Ohio River and will reach the ocean by esque phase about the § gl : R LB OCRALL) sque 3 front, espe- Way of the Ohio and Mississippi waters. Francisco water front, esr All the way down the rivers m: cially sir the little Christian steel work will be carried on, and battleship, the Christian Endeavor, has been put.into commission. e and evangelical novelty en completed, was commis- P dicated last Sunday and ¢ill hereafter challenge and put forth boarders to incoming deep-s ships with the custom house cutter: intine launches, the hoat xchange, the runners boarding_masters and supply men and so on. The big ships that get into port from long trips from Bombay and around the Horn are used to being held up by such ~ular outfits as those anchor is dropped in re endured by the d crews as part of e life, and whether n ‘route for the objective point, the islands of the West Indies, every opportunity to preach Christ to the people will be made the most of. The purpose of this yacht, too, will be to. help physically. If hungry and naked this sea-going vessel will send for supplies. What folly to presume to save a soul first when emaciated and broken down with lack of nutrition. Is not this the cause of a sickly soul in a sickly body? ‘We shall recognize no nationality. Cuban and Spaniard alike will be in- vited to attend our floating chapel. The » ) 7, XX Nl 7 jaundiced philosophers is Sir William Crookes, the president of the British Association for the | Advancement of Science. In his presidential address, delivered lately at Bristol, he took the ground that only wheat-eating nations represented the highest type of civilization, and that the British nation in particular, being inferentially the greatest wheat-eater, presumably represented' the highest It type. He further attempted to show that in the course of a very few years the world would reach its maximum wheat production, about 3,260,000,000 bushels, beyond which it would be most difficult to go. Should the increase of population continue with unabated rapidity, it is evident from the views of Sir William that, beginning with about 1913, the wheat-eaters will grow short of rations, with the result that brain and brawn to meet the increase in population. Fifth, that nitrogen is the one ele- ment most essential to wheat growth. Sixth, that this will probably be s cured by the production of nitric acid by electrical action, and that the water power of Niagara could be used ‘or this purpose. The fallacies of Sir William’s state- ments are so patent that it is not neces- sary to go into very great detail to show them. - In the first place it may be mentioned that the earth’s fertility is not becoming exhausted by the prac- tice of scientific agriculture. On the other hand, it is easily dem- onstrated that the fields of the world which are properly cultivated are grow- ing constantly in fertility. This in- crease has come almost exclusively from the practical application of the results of the researches which have been carried on by agricultural chem- ists, and which have béen Work¢d out in the agricultural experiment stations of the world. Chemical research has shown the re- profanity or not, as they y are not regarded as spe- ns of grace. But hereafter a speedy little vessel about as important as any in the swarm n hand along with the rest of soon after any ship is reported passing in” and before the quaran- tine officer gets back to Meiggs wharf and b e the runners a through with their rustling there will be a little portable organ in place on deck -near the forecastle, and with the permission e captain and the indulgence of the oody and Sankey songs will rise ‘Words of prayer will be of th part ilors’ first welcome to the big harboy. Then invitations to church, reading room, social privileges and friendly care will be bestowed. This is to be a part of the regular rout of arrivals from the deep sea hereafter and is the beginning of the outcome of a long-cherished plan. All the Christian Endeavor societies of all denominations in the city and some of the suburbs compose the Golden Gate Union. The marine branch of its work is in charge of a “floating committee,” and a v to give its operations no- bility has long been its dream. Partly through the surplus from the national in Endeavor convention a gaso- unch costing $2100 was made pos- sible, and this launch is now ready. It 1 steel hull, is 32 feet long, carries 0-horsepower’ gasoline engine, is a prettily finished and _furnished, is speedy and can carry fifty people. An engineer has been hired for the start, but several athletic young endeavorers rn how to run gasoline launches turns as volunteer engineers and captains. It is proposed to keep the launch ready for service at most imes and promptly board incoming venings and Sundays trips will de all about the bay and to Sau- Port Costa and Vallejo, holding services on shin board. making mission- alls or bringing off sailors to prayer meetings and social entertain- ments. The equipment of the boat will in- clude two little portable organs, which can be lightly swung to a de a stock of lanterns to hang about decks whither the little circle gathers for devotions in the haven, a 4ot of readine matter pick- ed up from all directions, Bibles, hymn books, etc. The building and equip- ment of the launch has been in the hands of three trustees, of which J. S. Allen, president of Golden Gate Union, _is chairman. It is proposed to help sup- port the work by renting the launch to pleasure parties for a day now and CAPE ROX0 PONCE PORTG, RAC - The magpificent yacht which is being fitted out in Eastern waters to sail along the coast of Uncle Sam’s new possessions in Cuba and Porto Rico, where the missionaries on board will try and save lost souls. lation of plant food in the soil to that which is removed in the crop, and has suggested methods whereby the waste of plant food can be largely prevented. and the stores which have already been carried beyond reach can be gradually restored to the fields. The agricultural xperiment stations of the United States and the scientific divisions of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture, although young in years, have contributed no small share to the elucidation of the problem of increasing the earth’s fertility. In the north of France, which is the great wheat producing area of that country, the average production of Wwheat per acre has increased in the last twenty-five years from seventeen to over twenty-six bushels. Last sum- mer in the north of France I visited an experiment station and was shown a variety of wheat which had produced over eighty bushels per acre. This re- markable result has been attained by selecting from a prolific variety of wheat year after year, the largest grains, planting these and again select- ing, until a variety has been establish- ed which gives the phenomenal yleld mentioned above. . The State of Maryland, among the older States of our Union, has perhaps suffered more in the past from un- scientific farming methods than almost any other locality. 8o impoverished in many cases have the soils of Maryvland become that it is regarded as a proper place to avoid by all intending invest- ors in agricultural lands. Prince Georges County, which borders on ‘Washington, has perhaps suffered as much as any other portion of the State in this regard. Fifteen years ago large portiogs of the former arable land in this county had been abandoned for agricultural purposes. On these very lands scientific agriculture has been able to produce prolific crops. and the agricultural experiment station of Maryland is situated upon land which years ago had been exhausted of its fertility by the practice of the agricul- tural methods of the early times. This soil, which was regarded as almost worthless for agricultural purposes, has under the scientific treatment to which it has been subjected produced an average of forty bushels of wheat per acre for many years. ‘What is true of Maryland is true of other portions of the country. It is per- fectly certain that by the application of methods which have already been dem- onstrated as effeciive'to the wheat fields of the United States it will be easily possible, without increasing the area then, and this will make it necessary to transfer the boat to a corporation to be formed. The work will remain in charge of H. F. Eden, who is-the practical head of the floating work of the union. He was born at sea, has been a sailor most of his life, ‘and for sgme years has been associated with tHe venerable Rev. J. Rowell in the work of the Mariners’ Church. Contact is made with thou- ‘sands of sailors yearly in this port, and the new battleship will greatly increase the work. nil @ Special to the Sunday Call. EFFERSONVILLE, Ind., Dec. 2.— “Cuba and Porto Ricp for Christ. ‘With this beautiful sentiment as our masthead motto we shall safl for the West Indies when our fine yacht, at present in process of con- struction, is finished. When I say “w I mean a band of devoted missionaries, who will go to Cuba with the same de- termination to save and to help as our brave army had to kill and to destroy. We are soldiers of Christ and sailors of the gospel yacht. An army and a navy is one, and we hope to do great things for the cause we love. *The gospel ship that is to be built for us here will be the largest ever launched. There is to be a chapel on board with a seating capacity of 700. The equipment will consist of a big stock of Bibles for free distribution, Christian religion will be spread along the northern and southern shores of our new possessions wherever a com- munity can be found. With mission- aries on board cpeaking the Spanish language, the work will be carried on among the natives of our new islands as long as one remains outside the fold of the shepherd. The gospel yacht will be a lifeboat to the roving wanderers of the deep. The wonderful story that has been preached in all the cities, villages and hamlets of this favored country will be taken over the storm-tossed waves to the neglected Cubans and Porto Ricans, and white and colored will be blessed by the coming of the Bible boat. This missionar— yacht will prove itself the most wonderful and successful mission- ary agent that has ever been guided by the loving hand of the Great Pilot. In certain districts along the water’s edge of big cities are those poor, miser- able and very wretched mortals who have but one more step to take, and that is a midnight plunge in the merci- less waves that usher them into eter- nity. In those dark haunts of vice and evil our men and workers will go with .the open Bible and will point those lost souls to Christ. They will be invited on board the ship to hear the word of him who came to save the Magdaline and the woman who was a sinner. Garments will be provided for those who are wretchedly destitute,and many will donate their laid-off clothing that may be utilized for this purpose. Thus the crew of the yacht will bring sunshine and warmth to many a dark and gloomy place, and the same that Is written will come to pass, “The people who sat in darkness saw a great light,” and those in the valley and shadow of death on them great light has shone, —_————— It is sald that Saturday has been a fatal day to the royal family of EY land for the last 185 years. William fi, Queen Anne, George 1, George II, George gaorge IV, the D just been launched 11T, uchess of Kent, the Dike” ot Aipany and Frincess wiies it an; It died on that day. e the bay. » 1 % % New steel hull boat,” whiéh has in San Francisco harbor, to be used - in missionary work around - e > It is generally supposed that the type- writing machine is quite a modern inven- but there tion, S e English i’alem Office for 1714 of an of th ohl :f'-.m, and the construction of their ma>. World. will be rapid enough to absorb chine afforded a basis that enabled a Mr. Tm‘xrher, at Wor::esteri to_improve the about 1913. system. patent for a'very in achin nentn‘;fifbluvn of the same year, ant ' created lication for a will enter upon an era of stasls, fol- lowed soon by an actual retrogression. The distinguished position in chemistry and physics which Dr. Crookes occus ples has given to his vaporous vaticina- tions a remankable vogue. English printed newspapers the world over have given a prominent place to his prophecies, and people not familiar with the facts have been thrown into the greatest perturbations by fear of impending starvation. Fortunately Sir ‘William Crookes in dealing with the food supply of the world has entered a field with which he is to a certain ex- tent unfamiliar, and therefore his views are not entitled to the same weight as if they had been expressed concerning the conditions of radiant matter, of the four dimensions or of telepathic inter- course. Stated briefly, Sir William’s views are ! as follows: First, that the maximum wheat pro- duction of the world will be reached in a record in the archives a few years, and that this maximum i only about 3,260,000,000 bushels. 3 Second, that the increase in popula- on of the wheat-eating nations of the L tent ro]r txmclt:ha ’rlna- Exact] years later the & Wr’;gm applied for a Similap th the maximum production of wheat in In the year 1851 a Frenchman of e of Foucall obtained an English e ously con hine which was shown in this Third, that it will not be possible, with the acreage and natural fertiliz- ers available, to increase the wheat production beyond the limit named. no small sensation Fourth, that the chemist must supply under wheat bv a single acre, to more than double the vield. The total area of Belgium is 7,278,720 acres, and the population is 6,410,783, or nearly one pverson for each acre. The State of Ohio resembles Belgium in contour, climate and fertility of soil. Ohio, how- ever is nearly four times as large as Belgium, and, measured by the Bel- gian standard, could easily feed 20,000,- 000 people. The wheat fields of Ohio alone, cultivated according to the high- est standard of the mzricultural art, could almost produce wheat enough to feed the present population of this country. The acreage devoted to wheat in the United States could be easily doubled did the price of this staple jus- tify the expangion. It is no rosy vision to predict that this country can, with- out violence to other agricultural inter- ests, easily produce a thousand million bushels of wheat per annum. Theories often suffer when brought into violent collision with facts. The real facts about wheat production are that it has more than kept pace with the increase of population, so that wheat and its products were never cheaper than they are to-day. Perhaps there has never been a time in txe history of the world when a day’s labor could buy so much wheat as at the present moment. The catastrophe of starvation for lack of wheat is there- fore evidently one which is to come suddenly since it gives no evidence of its approach at the present time, and according to Sir William it is so nearly due. H. W. WILEY,