RACE OF SUPERMEN.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1869, 1 October 1913, Page 5

RACE OF SUPERMEN.

AN AMERICAN EXPERIMENT. In order to produce a race of supermen and 6iiperwomen, American educational authorities (says tho New York correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph") are making experiments the novelty of which must appeal even to a blaso public. Harvard, America's greatest University, is arranging for a kindergarten class, so that the mental development of tile child shall be under close observation at tho University from start to finish. It is believed that close observation will enable methods to he formulated which will lighten tho children's labour and hasten their progress from the kindergarten to tho high school, and so to the University. Now Brvn Mawr College, which is just as famous in the United States as Girton in England, proposes another development of the super-education programme. Bryn Mawr this autumn will establish an open-air model school for girls which will give tho students the first chance that lias ever been offered by an educational institution in America for instruction tencjing'to make girls physically perfect above everything else. j According to Miss M. Carey Thomas, I dean of tho college, it will take eleven years to ascertain whether tho plan is going to provo a success. They will take twenty young girls as nearly perfect physically as they can get, ranging between 10 and 12 years of age, and train thorn for seven years in elementary subjects and bring them up as women should bo educated. The girls will be trained in the open all the time; they will havo all kinds of physical exercises and outdoor life, and when they leave Bryn Mawr ,thoy will have not only perfect physical condition to aid them, but will have learned all the rudiments of English, Latin, French, and German, to solve algebraic problems, to draw, to model, to appreciate pictures, • to interpret music by rhythmic movements, and to express musical impressions by dancing. At tho age of 17 they will be ablo to enter Bryn Mawr College and complete their classical education. The pupil in the open-air school who passes the best test after seven- years' work will receive a £500 scholarship for her course at Bryn Mawr. Sho will receive free tuition and all her expenses for four years. Tho school will bo housed in seven separate one-story classrooms constructed of wood and glass, and tliore tho pupils will live in 'winter, bundled in furs and warm clothing. These twenty girls will neiver breath tho air of a class-room, summer or winter, except wliero they are housed, and the sides of tho rooms aro so arranged as to bo let down in pleasant weather. In cold weather the girls aro to be clothed in Esquimaux suits. Their hours in the classroom will bo from 9 till halfpast 3, and after that they will spend all their time in tho air. By means of open-air deep breathing, hygienic exercises daily, simple liro, and rational diet, Bryn Mawr believes that the production of tho American superwoman will bo only a matter of a few years. The girls themselves seem delighted at the prospect, more especially since it was stated in a medical paper hero lately that " starlight baths," that is, sleeping in the open, aro tho best things possible for tho complexion.