It is far better for the girl to be out in a wilderness world which demands all the attention of both heart and mind, than to be leading an idle or sedentary life at home. If there is one word which above all others expresses the life of the woods, it is the word WHOLESOME. It is a normal, active, “hard-pan” life which takes the softness not only out of the muscles, but also out of the thoughts and the feelings. It tightens up the tendons of our bodies and the even more wonderful tendons of the mind.

Often, to paraphrase Guts Muths, a girl is weak because it does not occur to her that she can be strong. She fails to lay the foundations of health and strength which should be laid; she fails to make the most of the energy that she has; she fails to think of the future and how important in every way it is that she should be robust and full of an abounding vitality. It is a matter of the greatest importance to the world spiritually, morally, physically, that its girls should be strong. To be out of doors insures abundant well-being as nothing else can. The wilderness instinct, the instinct for camping and all its out-of-door life and sports, is the healthiest, sanest, and most compound-interest-paying investment a girl can make.

But by an intelligent approach to this life, more can be put into it and therefore more can be taken out, than by some blindfolded dive into its mysteries. To know how to do a thing worth doing and to do it well, is both wise and economical. Some of the physical aspects of our life will give all the more value because of the payment of an added attention. A few simple rules for the physical side of camp life will do quite as much for the body as an orderly routine can do for the camp housekeeping.

Simply because you are in camp, never do anything by eating or drinking or over-strain or folly of any sort, that is against the law of health. To break the laws of health is as much a sin in camp as out of it.

Eat an abundance of simple, wholesome foods, using as much cereals, fruits, and vegetables as you can get. Don’t neglect the care of your teeth merely because you are in camp.

Do not drink tea or coffee. Stimulants are unnatural and unwholesome; no girl and no woman should ever touch them. If you have begun to drink tea and coffee, camp is the place to give them up once and for all time. The sooner the better.

If you can get a cool bath in stream or pond and a rub down with a rough towel, so much the better. Exercise both before and after the bath, and be sure, by rub down and exercise, to get into a good glow. The rub down is of especial importance, for it stimulates all the tiny surface veins, is gymnastics to the skin, and frees the pores of any poisonous accumulations which they may be holding. Drink a glass or two of pure water when you get up and the same between meals.

Never wear anything tight in camp or elsewhere. Within the circle of the waist line are vital organs which need every deep breath you can take, every ounce of freely flowing blood you can bring to them, every particle of room to grow you can give them. The Chinese woman who cramps her feet sins less than we who cramp our waists.

Sleep ten or eleven hours every night.

Study to make your body well, strong, and useful.

If you do all these things, you need not worry about beauty; you will possess what is of infinitely more value than a pretty face and abundant hair, in having a sound, wholesome body, self-controlled, instinct with joy, with clean, glowing skin, a pleasure to yourself and to everybody else. Clear vital thoughts and a keener spiritual life will both be yours. Because of the days in the woods it will be easier to be good, easier to be happy, easier to do the brain work of school and college.

Part of the title of this chapter is Wood Culture. I have something in mind that is more than physical culture: The wilderness cure, the lesson of the woods, a high spiritual as well as physical truth. For the girl who keeps her eyes open, here are forces at work, mysterious, inspiring, wonderful, that awake in her all the dormant worship and vision of her nature. Yet of physical culture in these weeks and days in the woods too much cannot be said, for, as the world is beginning to realize, on one’s physical health, cleanness, sanity, rests much of that close-builded wonderful palace of mind and soul. Every squad of girl campers should have its physical culture drill, its definite exercises, taken at a definite time, for ten or fifteen minutes. Ten or fifteen minutes are probably all that are necessary when practically the remainder of the day is spent in camp sports, canoeing, fishing, climbing, hunting and so on. The object of these physical exercises should be all-around development; the drill should be sharp and light with especial attention paid to breathing and to the standing position. A steady unflagging effort should be made to correct round shoulders, flat chests, drooping necks, and bad positions generally. Many and varied are the exercises taught in school and college,—exercises to which all girls have access. I make no apologies for suggesting a few of the simplest by means of which any squad of girl campers can make a beginning in physical culture.

(1) From attention (hands on hips), place the palms of the hands flat on the ground, keeping knees straight. Then bring arms up above head. Do this eight times.

(2) With hands on the hips and the hips as a socket, rotate the whole trunk first five times in one direction, then five times in the opposite, being sure that the head follows the line of the rotating trunk. The difficulty of this exercise can be increased by placing hands clasped behind the head, and then later over the head. But the exercise should be undertaken first with the hands on the hips.

(3) In between each exercise take deep breathing for a few seconds, rising on the toes as you inhale and lowering as you exhale.

(4) Stand with the feet apart and arms horizontal. Without bending the knee place the right fist on the ground next to the instep of your left foot. Then raise the body and reverse, placing the left fist on the ground next to the right instep.

(5) After this some free exercises with the arms, taken with the head well up, chest out, and shoulders back, make a good, sharp light finale.

These exercises repeated several times make an excellent beginning for any day, either in or out of camp. You may unfortunately be going through a state of mind, when clean skin, good lungs and digestion, seem to you negligible factors in life. How tragically important these factors are, be sure you do not realize too late, when both body and soul, health and morals, have been undermined.

Most girls need to look upon camp life as an incomparably rich opportunity to gain in an all-round physical development. The life itself, aside from its possible physical culture exercises and its sports of rowing, paddling, swimming, climbing and walking, is the big architect of a splendid substructure for health. By taking thought, refusing to eat greasy, unwholesome food, getting plenty of sleep, avoiding over-strain, taking corrective exercises, cool baths and rub downs, there is no better health builder than the wilderness life. A wise Danish man said that “He who does not take care of his body, neglects it, and thereby sins against nature; she knows no forgiveness of sin, but revenges herself with mathematical certainty.” In the woods nature keeps reminding you of this fact, and you are never allowed to forget it for any length of time.

It is only sensible to care for one’s health. It is not necessarily old maidish or silly to take precautions that the camp health should be at its zenith all the time. No one would think of criticising a man for being particularly careful of his horses under new conditions. This is precisely what we should be for ourselves. Your thorough-paced sportsman is always regardful of his physical condition. I have spoken about the drinking of pure water, the care of food, the folly of taking great risks, and of other details. There are more factors, as well, which will be at work in obtaining and maintaining good health conditions.

The right sort of underclothing—and women seldom wear suitable underwear—should be worn. It should be high necked, with shoulder caps and knee caps, and should be of linen mesh. Every girl who is in fit condition should see that each day has a brief period at least of hard, warm, strenuous work in it. A sweat once a day, with a proper rub down afterwards, is one of the best health makers on record. In “By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou labor” was enunciated one of the greatest of natural laws. If it were possible for each one of us to sweat once a day, we should scarcely ever know what sickness is. But our over-refined civilization makes even the use of the word an offence to certain middle class people who care more for the so-called propriety (they are the folk who say “soiled” handkerchief instead of dirty, and “stomach” when they mean belly, and yet are ready to use such a detestably vulgar word, straight out of the mouths of the lowest classes of immigrants, as “spiel”) of what is said than for its truth and strength. Lay it down, then, that one of the first of the camp health rules is a sweating every day. Third among the camp rules is to keep the bowels open. Do you know what one of Abraham Lincoln’s mottoes for life was? “Fear God and keep your bowels open,” and in this saying there is no irreverence whatsoever, nor any sacrilege, but only a profound common sense that is a credit both to the Maker and the great man who spoke the words. Cascara is the best and safest laxative for a girl to use in camp. It should be bought in the purest tablets or liquid form on the market, and all patent cascara nostrums should be avoided.[7]

[7] If there is a privy in the camp great care should be taken that, for every reason, it is placed at a sufficient distance from cabins and tents. It should not be placed on a slope that could possibly drain off into any water supply. An abundance of ashes should always be kept within the privy and no water of any kind be poured into the box. A few cans of chloride of lime should, if possible, be kept on hand; and one can opened and in use in the closet. Chambers and slop pails should not be emptied in the immediate vicinity of the cabins but at some distance and in different localities. There is no greater abomination on the face of the earth than a dirty camp, and no place which so thoroughly tests one’s love of order, decency and cleanliness. If you are following the trail and go into “stocked” camps for the night, shake and air the blankets thoroughly, and, out of courtesy to those who will follow you in their use, shake and air the blankets when you get out of them in the morning.