ABSTRACT
I forget exactly when it was, but a new doctor came to live in the colony, and wanted to start gymnastic classes and lectures on hygiene. We girls, having the most time to spare and being one and all “progressives,” were quick to take up the idea. We realised the great necessity for such things, specially for the lectures, and there was a Rishon-like note about them, and a few girls who had been to secondary schools in Russia agreed with the doctor that have them we must. The next thing was to have a talk with the young men, and to get them to lay the idea in its most winning aspect before our elders. To our great disappointment, the young men were not enthusiastic. They were hard at work all day, many of them still unused to physical toil, and when they came home they liked to sit with a book or to stroll about and talk—why should they want to do gymnastics? The lectures might 74be all very well, one could always, if bored, go to sleep. Some of this was said with intent to tease us, but we took it all seriously. We declared angrily that it was quite useless to try to interest them in such sensible, practical things, or to expect their help in the matter of our elders. One way and another, however, these latter had the doctor’s suggestions put before them. They condemned them at once, partly because it was not suitable that young men and women should do gymnastics and listen to lectures on hygiene, together and partly because they felt that one concession would open the door to another, in which they were quite right. Who could tell what this new doctor might not bring forward next ?
