Professor Peter G. Stringheimer is head of a striptease college that prepares young women for careers in burlesque. On enrollment day, Stringheimer tells the students about the college's requirements and emphasizes that they must possess qualities beyond mere beauty. After the students participate in "gymnastic" exercises to tone their bodies, Stringheimer delivers a lecture on the history of stripping and claims to have invented striptease dancing. When a student challenges this assertion, citing the French teacher Pierre Le Smelle, Stringheimer disparages Le Smelle. Another student complains that Stringheimer prohibits them from performing "bumps and grinds" while Le Smelle encourages this technique. Stringheimer informs the students that he regards striptease dancing as an art form and derides Le Smelle's efforts. Later in the students' dormitory, some students dream of performing, while others raid the ice-box and discuss bananas. Eventually, after further classes in posture, body makeup and fencing, and passing their written exams, the students reach graduation day on which they have to perform dances for the professor. Meanwhile, in Le Smelle's school in Paris, which is conducted more like a salon, the dancers are regarded more as models, than strippers. Back in the United States, one of Stringheimer's graduates has been performing for forty-two weeks at New York burlesque theater with a routine that includes bumps and grinds. Due to his stubborn opposition to these movements, Stringheimer is now a broken man and reduced to working as a doorman/utility man at the theater.