Page:Personal Beauty and Racial Betterment.djvu/90

 would probably favor a return of a considerable distance on the road from crinoline. The percentage of women who would be even moderately presentable as barelegged dancers, regardless of dancing ability, is so low as to be shocking. From such considerations as these it is apparent that the removal from the racial streams of even the relatively small number of physically fit women absorbed by the entertaining profession, is a serious matter. One can readily imagine what would have happened in the development of trotting stock if there had been continual selection of the best specimens to be removed from breeding.

Fortunately, selection for the stage and the cabaret is not so efficiently done as it might be; the standards of beauty are to a certain extent determined by persons who are not good judges of feminine beauty; and hence the maximal harm is not accomplished. This is true at least of the selection of the majority of the entertainers typified by the chorus. Some of the choruses which are the most painstakingly selected are, on this account, less effective than others more casually chosen. Mere bodily proportion and skin texture has been emphasized at the expense of expression; the less important details of beauty have obscured the more essential. This, however, is because of the relatively novelty of the complete exposure of