Project Gutenberg's How to Get Strong and How to Stay So, by William Blaikie This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: How to Get Strong and How to Stay So Author: William Blaikie Release Date: June 29, 2011 [EBook #36557] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO GET STRONG *** Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Iris Schröder-Gehring and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net cover HOW TO GET STRONG AND HOW TO STAY SO BY WILLIAM BLAIKIE decoration NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS FRANKLIN SQUARE 1883. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO ARCHIBALD MACLAREN WHO HAS PROBABLY DONE MORE THAN ANY ONE ELSE NOW LIVING TO POINT OUT THE BENEFITS RESULTING FROM RATIONAL PHYSICAL EXERCISE, AND HOW TO ATTAIN THOSE BENEFITS THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY D e d i c a t e d PREFACE. Millions of our people pass their lives in cities and towns, and at work which keeps them nearly all day in-doors. Many hours are devoted for days and years, under careful teachers, and many millions of dollars are spent annually, in educating the mind and the moral nature. But the body is allowed to grow up all uneducated; indeed, often such a weak, shaky affair that it gets easily out of order, especially in middle and later life, and its owner is wholly unequal to tasks which would have proved easy to him, had he given it even a tithe of the education bestowed so generously in other directions. Not a few, to be sure, have the advantage in youth of years of active out-door life on a farm, and so lay up a store of vigor which stands them in good stead throughout a lifetime. But many, and especially those born and reared in towns and cities, have had no such training, or any equivalent, and so never have the developed lungs and muscles, the strong heart and vigorous digestion—in short, the improved tone and strength in all their vital organs—which any sensible plan of body-culture, followed up daily, would have secured. It does not matter so much whether we get vigor on the farm, the deck, the tow-path, or in the gymnasium, if we only get it. Fortunately, if not gotten in youth, when we are plastic and easily shaped, it may still be had, even far on in middle life, by judicious and systematic exercise, aimed first to bring up the weak and unused parts, and then by general work daily which shall maintain the equal development [p.5] [p.6] of the whole. The aim here has been, not to write a profound treatise on gymnastics, and point out how to eventually reach great performance in this art, but rather in a way so plain and untechnical that even any intelligent boy or girl can readily understand it, to first give the reader a nudge to take better care of his body, and so of his health, and then to point out one way to do it. That there are a hundred other ways is cheerfully conceded. If anything said here should stir up some to vigorously take hold of, and faithfully follow up, either the plan here indicated or any one of these others, it cannot fail to bring them marked benefit, and so to gratify New York, July, 1883. CONTENTS. CHAP. I. Do we inherit Shapely Bodies? II. Half-built Boys III. Will Daily Physical Exercise for Girls pay? IV. Is it too late for Women to begin? V. Why Men should Exercise daily VI. Home Gymnasiums VII. The School the true Place for Children's Physical Culture VIII. What a Gymnasium might Be and Do IX. Some Results of Brief Systematic Exercise X. Work for the Fleshy, the Thin, the Old XI. Half-trained Firemen and Police XII. Special Exercise for any given Muscles a. To Develop the Leg below the Knee b. Work for the Front of the Thigh c. To Enlarge the Under Thigh d. To Strengthen the Sides of the Waist e. The Abdominal Muscles f. Counterwork for the Abdominal Muscles g. To Enlarge and give Power to the Loins h. Development above the Waist i. Filling out the Shoulders and Upper Back j. To obtain a good Biceps k. To bring up the Muscles on the Front and Side of the Shoulder l. Forearm Work m. Exercises for the Triceps Muscles n. To Strengthen and Develop the Hand o. To Enlarge and Strengthen the Front of the Chest p. To Broaden and Deepen the Chest itself XIII. What Exercise to take Daily a. Daily Work for Children b. Daily Exercise for Young Men c. Daily Exercise for Women d. Daily Exercise for Business Men e. Daily Exercise for Consumptives Appendix I. " II. " III. " IV. " V. " VI. The Author. [p.7] PAGE 9 23 42 57 74 91 104 117 138 154 177 199 200 208 214 215 218 224 227 228 230 233 236 237 238 241 243 245 [p.8] 252 253 273 276 278 283 291 291 292 292 293 294 " VII. Conclusion TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Fig. 1. A warped University Oarsman, imperfectly developed in Muscles not used in Rowing " 2. A warped Professional Sculler, imperfectly developed in Muscles not used in Rowing " 3. Horizontal Bar and Chest-bars, for Home Use " 4. Noiseless Pulley-weights " 5. Appliance for developing the Sides of the Waist " 6. A Correct Position for Fast Walking " 7. Device for developing the Abdominal Muscles " 8. A Chest-widener " 9. A Chest-deepener HOW TO GET STRONG, AND HOW TO STAY SO. CHAPTER I. DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? Probably more men walk past the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, in New York city, in the course of one year, than any other point in America—men of all nations and ages, heights and weights. Look at them carefully as they pass, and you will see that scarcely one in ten is either erect or thoroughly well-built. Some slouch their shoulders and double in at the waist; some overstep; others cant to one side; this one has one shoulder higher than the other, and that one both too high; some have heavy bodies and light legs, others the reverse; and so on, each with his own peculiarities. A thoroughly erect, well-proportioned man, easy and graceful in his movements, is far from a frequent sight. Any one accustomed to athletic work, and knowing what it can do for the body, must at times have wondered why most men allowed themselves to go along for years, perhaps through life, so carrying themselves as not only to lack the outward grace and ease they might possess, and which they occasionally see in others, but so as to directly cramp and impede one or more of the vital organs. Nor is it always the man's fault that he is ill-proportioned. In most cases it comes down from his progenitors. The father's walk and physical peculiarities appear in the son, often so plainly that the former's calling might almost be told from a look at the latter. A very great majority of Americans are the sons either of farmers or merchants, mechanics or laborers. The work of each class soon develops peculiar characteristics. No one of the four classes has ordinarily had any training at all aimed to make him equally strong all over. Broad as is the variety of the farmer's work, far the greater, and certainly the heavier, part of it tends to make him stoop forward and become inerect. No man stands up straight and mows. When he shovels, he bends more yet; and every ounce of spade or load pulls him over, till, after much of this sort of work, it requires an effort to stand upright. Ploughing is better for the upper body, but it does not last long. While it keeps one walking over uneven ground, it soon brings on an awkward, clumsy step, raising, as it does, the foot unnaturally high. Chopping is excellent for the upper man, but does little for his legs. In hand-raking and hoeing the man may remain erect; but in pitching and building the load, in nearly every sort of lifting, and especially the heavier sorts, as in handling heavy stone or timber, his back is always bent over. It is so much easier to slouch over when sitting on horse-rake, mower, or harvester, that most persons do it. Scarcely any work on a farm makes one quick of foot. All the long day, while some of the muscles do the work, which tends to develop them, the rest are untaxed, and remain actually weak. A farmer is seldom a good walker, usually hitching up if he has an errand to go, though it be scarce a mile away; and he is rarely a good runner. He is a 294 295 295 36 37 92 94 217 220 225 248 250 [p.9] [p.10] [p.11] hearty, well-fed man, not only because wholesome food is plenty, but because his appetite is sharp, and he eats with relish and zest. Naturally a man thinks that, when he eats and sleeps well, he is pretty healthy, and so he usually is; but when he is contented with this condition of things, he overlooks the fact that he is developing some parts of his body, and leaving others weak; that the warp he is encouraging in that body, by twice as much work for the muscles of his back as for those of the front of his chest, while it enlarges the former, often so as to even render it muscle-bound, actually contracts the latter, and hence gives less room for heart, lungs, stomach, and all the vital organs, than a well- built man would have. If a man should tie up one arm, and with the other steadily swing a smith's hammer all day, there is little doubt that he would soon have an excellent appetite and the sweet sleep of the laboring man. But in what shape would it leave him in a few years, or even in a few months? The work of the farmer, ill-distributed as to the whole man, leaves him as really one-sided as the former. It is in a lesser degree, of course, but still so evident that he who looks even casually may see it. While the farmer's work makes a man hearty and well, though lumbering, it takes the spring out of him. The merchant is, physically, however, in a worse position. Getting to his work in boyhood, sticking to it as long as the busiest man in the establishment, his body often utterly unfit and unready for even half the strain it bears, he struggles on through the boy's duties, the clerk's, and the salesman's, till he becomes a partner; or perhaps he starts as entry-clerk, rises to be book-keeper, and then stays there. In many kinds of work he has been obliged to stand nearly all day, till his sides and waist could scarcely bear it longer, and he often breaks down under the ceaseless pressure. If his work calls him out much, he finds that the constant walking, with his mind on the stretch, and more or less worried, does not bring him that vigor he naturally looks for from so much exercise, and at night he is jaded and used up, instead of being fresh and hearty. When exceptional tension comes, and business losses or reverses make him anxious and haggard, there is little in his daily work which tends to draw him out of a situation that he could have readily and easily fitted himself to face, and weather too, had he only known how. To be sure, when he gets well on and better to do, he rides out in the late afternoon, and domestic and social recreation in the evening may tend to freshen him, and fit him for the next day's round; but, especially if he has been a strong young man, he finds that he is changed, and cannot work on as he used to do. His bodily strength and endurance are gone. The reason why is plain enough: when he was at his best, he was doing most work, and of the sort to keep him in good condition. Now there is nothing between rising and bedtime to build up any such strength, and he is fortunate if he retains even half of what he had. To be sure, he does not need the strength of a stalwart young farmer; but, could he have retained it, he would have been surprised, if he had taken sufficient daily exercise to regulate himself, how valuable it would have been in toning him up for the severer work and trial of the day. If, instead of the taxed and worn-out nerves, he could have had the feeling of the man of sturdy physique, who keeps himself in condition, who does not know what it is to be nervous, what a priceless boon it would have been for him! Who does not know among his friends business men whose faces show that they are nearly all the time overworked; who get thin, and stay so; who look tired, and are so; who go on dragging along through their duties—for they are men made of the stuff which does the duty as it comes up, whether hard or easy? The noon meal is rushed through, perhaps when the brain is at white-heat. More is eaten, both then and in the evening, than will digest; and good as is the after or the before dinner ride, as far as it goes, it does not go far enough to make the digestion sure. Then comes broken sleep. The man waking from it is not rested, is not rebuilt and strong, and ready for the new day. With many men of this kind—and all city men know they are well-nigh innumerable—what wonder is it that nervous exhaustion is so frequent among them, and that physicians who make this disorder a specialty often have all that they can do? One of the most noted of them, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, in his valuable little book, "Wear and Tear; or, Hints for the Overworked," page 46, says: "All classes of men who use the brain severely, and who have also —and this is important—seasons of excessive anxiety or grave responsibility, are subject to the same form of disease; and this is why, I presume, that I, as well as others who are accustomed to encounter nervous disorders, have met with numerous instances of nervous exhaustion among merchants and manufacturers. "My note-books seem to show that manufacturers and certain classes of railway officials are the most liable to suffer from neural exhaustion. Next to these come merchants in general, brokers, etc.; then, less frequently, clergymen; still less often, lawyers; and, more rarely, doctors; while distressing cases are apt to occur among the over-schooled young of both sexes." And while the more active among business men run into this sort of danger, those less exposed to it still do little or nothing to give themselves sound, vigorous bodies, so as to gain consequent energy and health, and so they go through life far less efficient and useful men than they might have been. Hence their sons have to suffer. The boy certainly cannot inherit from the father more vigor and stamina than the latter has, however favored the mother may have been; so, unless the boy has some sort of training which builds him up, his father's weaknesses or physical defects are very likely to show in the son. Nor do most classes of mechanics fare much better. Take the heavier kinds of skilled labor. The blacksmith rarely uses one of his hands as much as the other, especially in heavy work, and often has poor legs. Indeed, if he has good legs, he does not get them from his calling. The stone-mason is equally one-handed—one hand merely guiding a light tool, the other swinging a heavy mallet. Nine-tenths of all machinists are right-handed. And so on, through the long list of the various trades where severe muscular exertion is requisite, there is a similar uneven distribution of the work to the various parts of the body, the right arm generally getting the lion's share, the left but little, the back more than the chest [p.12] [p.13] [p.14] [p.15] [p.16] —or, rather, than the front chest—and the legs having but passive sort of work at best. Puddlers and boiler-makers, plumbers and carpenters, coopers and smiths, shipwrights, carriage-makers, tinners, and all who follow trades calling for vigorous muscular action, not only constantly work one side more than the other, but many of their tools are made, purposely, right-handed, so that they could hardly use them with the left hand if they wanted to. As to those whose work is more delicate, saddlers and shoe-makers, mill-hands and compositors, wood-turners, tailors, jewellers and engravers, and nearly all the lighter craftsmen, learn their trade with one hand, and would never venture to trust any of its finer work to the other. In short, take the mechanic where you will, in the vast majority of instances his right arm and side are larger and stronger than his left, and quite as often his vocation does little or nothing to strengthen and develop his legs. The fact that most of these men have active work for some of the muscles, with enough of it to insure a good appetite, combined with inherited vigor, makes them often hearty men, but it leaves them unequally developed. When they get into the gymnasium, they are usually lacking in that symmetry, ease, and erectness which they might all along have had, had they but used the means. The result, then, of overworking one part of the body at the expense of the other, especially in heavier mechanical labors, and of too little vigorous action in the lighter, tends to make the average workman more prone to disease. Were there uniform development, and that daily vigorous exercise which would stimulate the dormant parts of the man's body, it would add to his life and usefulness. But how is it with the sturdy laborer? He can hardly be liable to the same defects. His work certainly must call into play every muscle of his body. Well, watch him awhile and see. Try the coal-heaver. His surely is heavy, hard work, and must make him exert himself all over. But does it? While it keeps his knees steadily bent, his back is all the while over his work. The tons of coal he lifts daily with his shovel gradually, but with positive certainty, insures his back remaining somewhat bent when his work for the time is done. When a year is spent at such labor, the back must take a lasting curve. While his back broadens, growing thick and powerful, his chest does not get so much to do; hence he is soon a round-shouldered man. As he does not hold his chest out, nor his neck and head erect, he contracts his lung-room, as well, indeed, as his general vital-room. Scarce any man grows earlier muscle-bound, for few backs do so much hard work. Now, standing erect, let him try and slap the backs of his hands together behind his shoulders, keeping his arms horizontal and straight at the elbow. Now he will understand what is meant by being muscle-bound. It will be odd if he can get his hands within a foot of each other. The navvy is no better. The gardener's helper has to do much stooping. So do track-hands, stone-breakers, truckmen, porters, longshoremen, and all the rest. Especially are ordinary day-laborers, whose tools are spade, pick, and bar, who are careless about their skin, who are exposed to dust and dirt, who are coarsely shod, most prone to have bad feet. They, too, have the hearty appetite and the sound sleep. Seldom do they give their bodily improvement a thought, and so often, like their own teeth, they decay before their time, and materially shorten their usefulness and their days. Here, then, we see that the vast majority of men in this country—three out of four at least—are born of fathers but partially developed, and uniformly of inerect carriage. And how is it with their mothers? Naturally they come, to a large extent, from the same classes. They inherit many of the characteristics of their fathers—size, color, temperament, and so on, and generally the same tendency to be stronger on one side than on the other. In the poorer classes their life is one of work, frequently of overwork and drudgery, and in ill-lighted, ill-ventilated apartments. Among those better off, they do not work enough, and often, though of vigorous parents, are not themselves strong. Thoroughly healthy, hearty women are not common among us. Ask the family physician, and he will endorse this statement to an extent most men would not have supposed. American women are not good walkers. Look how they are astonished when they hear of some lady who walks from five to ten miles a day, and thinks nothing of it. One such effort would be positively dangerous to very many, indeed probably to the majority of our women, while nearly all of them would not get over its effects for several days. Yet many English and Canadian ladies take that much exercise daily from choice, and, finding the exhilaration, strength, and health it brings, and the general feeling of efficiency which it produces, would not give it up. No regular exercise is common among the great majority of the women of this country which makes them use both their hands alike, and is yet vigorous enough to add to the size and strength of their shoulders, chests, and arms. Ordinary house-work brings the hands of those who indulge in it a good deal to do, even though the washing and ironing are left to hired help. The care of children adds materially to the exertion called for in a day. But far too often both the house-work and the looking after the children are sources of great exertion. Were the woman strong and full of vigor, she would turn each off lightly, and still be fresh and hearty at the end of the day. With the father, as with the mother, the conclusion arrived at seems to be as follows: now that the day's work is done, no matter whether it brings with it strength or weakness, let us be perfectly contented with things as they are. If it makes us one-handed, so be it. If it stoops the back over, so be it. If it does little or nothing for the lower limbs, or cramps the chest, or never half fills the lungs, or aids digestion not a whit, so be it. If it keeps some persons thin and tired-looking, and does not prevent others from growing too fleshy, it never occurs to most of them that a very small amount of knowledge and effort in the right direction would work wonders, and in a way which would be not only [p.17] [p.18] [p.19] [p.20] [p.21] valuable but attractive. Most of us get, then, from our parents a one-sided and partial development, and are contented with it. Unless we ourselves take steps to better our condition, unless we single out the weak spots, prescribe the work and the amount of it, and then do that work, we shall not remedy the evil. More than this, if we do not cure these defects, we will not only go through life with limited and cramped physical resources, with their accompanying disorders and ailments, but we will cruelly entail on our children defects and tendencies which might have readily been spared them, and for which they can fairly blame us. A little attention to the subject will show that the remedy is quite within our reach; and so plain is this, that a generation later, if the interest now awakening in this direction becomes, as it promises to, very general among us, our descendants will understand far better than we do that the body can be educated, as well as the mind or the moral nature; that, instead of interfering with the workings of these, the body will, when properly trained, directly and materially aid them; and, further, that there is no stand-point from which the matter can be viewed which will not show that such training will pay, and most handsomely at that. CHAPTER II. HALF-BUILT BOYS. But, whatever our inherited lacks and strong points, few who have looked into the matter can have failed to notice that the popular sports and pastimes, both of our boyhood and youth, good as they are, as far as they go, are not in themselves vigorous enough, or well enough chosen to remedy the lack. The top, the marble, and the jack-knife of the boy are wielded with one hand, and for all the strength that wielding brings, it might as well have been confined to one. Flying kites is not likely to overdo the muscles. Yet top-time, marble-time, and kite-time generally cover all the available play hours of each day for a large portion of the year. But he has more vigorous work than these bring. Well, what? Why, ball-playing and playing tag, and foot-ball, and skating, and coasting, and some croquet, and occasional archery, while he is a painfully accurate shot with a bean- shooter. Well, in ball-playing he learns to pitch, to catch, to bat, to field, and to run bases. How many boys can pitch with either hand? Not one in a hundred, at least well enough to be of any use in a game. Observe the pitching arm and shoulder of some famous pitcher, and see how much larger they are than their mates. Dr. Sargent, for many years instructor in physical culture in Yale College, says that he has seen a well-known pitcher whose right shoulder was some two inches larger than the left; indeed, his whole right side seemed out of proportion with his left. The catcher draws both hands in toward him as the ball enters them, and passes it back to the pitcher almost always with the same hand. He has, in addition, to spring about on his feet, unless the balls come very uniformly, and to do much twisting and turning. The batter bats, not from either shoulder, but from one shoulder, to such an extent that those used to his batting know pretty well where he will knock the ball, though, did he bat from the other shoulder, the general direction of the knocking would be quite different. Some of the fielders have considerable running and some catching to do, and then to throw the ball in to pitcher, or baseman, or catcher. But that throw is always with the stronger hand, never with the other. Many of the fielders often have not one solitary thing to do but to walk to their stations, remain there while their side is out, and then walk back again, hardly getting work enough, in a cold day, to keep them warm. Running bases is sharp, jerky work, and a wretched substitute for steady, sensible running over a long distance. Nor is the fielder's running much better; and neither would ever teach a boy what he ought to know about distributing his strength in running, and how to get out of it what he readily might, and, more important yet, how to make himself an enduring long- distance runner. For all the work the former brings, ordinary, and even less than ordinary, strength of leg and lung will suffice, but for the latter it needs both good legs and good lungs. Run most American boys of twelve or fourteen six or eight miles, or, rather, start them at it—let them all belong to the ball-nine if you will, too—and how many would cover half the distance, even at any pace worth calling a run? The English are, and have long been, ahead of us in this direction. To most readers the above distance seems far too long to let any boy of that age run. But, had he been always used to running—not fast, but steady running—it would not seem so. Tom Brown of Rugby, in the hares-and-hounds game, of which he gives us so graphic an account, makes both the hares and hounds cover a distance of nine miles without being much the worse for it, and yet they were simply school- boys, of all ages from twelve to eighteen. Let him who thinks that the average American boy of the same age would have fared as well, go down to the public bath-house, and look carefully at a hundred or two of them as they tumble about in the water. He will see more big heads and slim necks, more poor legs and skinny arms, and lanky, half-built bodies than he would have ever imagined the whole neighborhood could produce. Or he need not see them stripped. One of our leading metropolitan journals, in an editorial recently, headed, "Give the boy a chance," said: [p.22] [p.23] [p.24] [p.25] [p.26] "About one in ten of all the boys in the Union are living in New York and the large cities immediately adjacent; and there are even more within the limits of Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and the other American cities whose population exceeds a hundred thousand. The wits of these millions of boys are being forced to their extreme capacity, whether they are taught in the school, the shop, or the street. But what is being done for their bodies? The answer may be obtained by standing at the door of almost any public or private school or academy at the hour of dismissal. The inquirer will see a crowd of undersized, listless, thin-faced children, with scarcely any promise of manhood about them." Take a tape-measure and get the girth of chest, upper and forearm, of waist, hips, thighs, and calves of these little fellows, likewise their heights and ages. Now send to England and get the statistics of the boys of the same age who are good at hares-and-hounds, at foot-ball, and see the difference. In every solitary measurement, save height, there is little doubt which would show the better figures. Even in height, it is more than probable that the article just quoted would find abundant foundation for calling our boys "undersized." Next cross to Germany, and go to the schools where boys and their masters together, in vacation days, sometimes walk two or even three hundred miles, in that land where the far-famed German Turners, by long training, show a strength and agility combined which are astounding, and try the tape-measure there. Is there any question what the result would be? When the sweeping work the Germans made of it in their late war with France is called to mind, does it not look as if there was good ground for the assumption so freely made, that it was the superior physique of the Germans which did the business? Where work is chosen that only sturdy limbs can do, and that work is gradually approached, and persistently stuck to, by-and-by the sturdy limbs come. But when all that these limbs are called on to do is light, spasmodic work, and there is none of the spur which youthful emulation and pride in superior strength bring, what wonder is it if the result is a weakly article? Another and natural consequence many parents must have noticed. Often, in a city neighborhood, there is not one strong, efficient boy to lead on the rest, and show them the development which they might have and should have. Boys, like men, are fond of doing whatever they can do well, and of letting others see them do it, and, like their elders, they gladly follow a capable and self-reliant leader. But if no one of their number is equal to tasks which call for first-class strength and staying powers, when no one will lead the rest up to a higher physical plane, they never will get there. It is not a good sign, or one that bodes well for our future, to see the play-grounds of our cities and towns so much neglected. You may stand on many of them for weeks together and not see one sharp, hot game of ball, or of anything else, where each contestant goes in with might and main, and the spectator becomes so interested as to hate to leave the fun. Foot-ball is a game as yet not at all general among us. Excellent is it for developing intrepidity and other manly qualities. The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said that her foot-ball fields were where England's soldiers were made. The short, hasty school recess in the crowded school-yard, or play snatched in the streets—these will never make robust and vigorous men. Yet these are too often all that our boys get, their cramped facilities for amusement soon bringing their natural result in small vital organs and half-developed limbs. Many of our large cities are wretchedly off for play-grounds. Such open spaces as we have are fenced around, and have signs nailed all over them saying, "Keep off the grass!" at the same time forbidding games on the paths. One part of Boston Common used to be a famous play-ground; and many hard-fought battles has it seen at foot-ball, base-ball, hockey, and cricket. Many an active school-boy there has more than once temporarily bit the dust. But now rows of street lamps run through that part of the Common, and the precious grass must be protected at all hazards. New York city is scarcely better off. Central Park, miles away from the great majority of the boys in the city, is elegant enough when they get to it; but let them once set their bounds and start a game of ball, or hares-and-hounds, or try a little jumping or running, on any one of those hundreds of beautiful acres, save in one solitary field, and see how soon the gray-coats will be upon them. The Battery, City Hall Park, Washington Square, Union Park, Stuyvesant Square, and Madison Square are well located, and would make capital play-grounds, but the grass there is altogether too well combed to be ruffled by unruly boys. If a boy's cousin comes in from the country, and he wishes to try conclusions with him, he must confine his efforts to the flagged sidewalk or the cobble-stoned street, while a brass-buttoned referee is likely at any moment to interfere, and take them both into custody for disorderly conduct. Again, outside of a boy's ball-playing, scarce one of his other pastimes does much to build him up. Swimming is excellent, but is confined to a very few months in the year, and is seldom gone at, as it should be, with any regularity, or with a competent teacher to gradually lead the boy on to its higher possibilities. Skating is equally desultory, because in many of our cities winters pass with scarcely a week of good ice. Coasting brings some up-hill walking, good for the legs, but does practically nothing for the arms. So boyhood slips along until the lad is well on in his teens, and still, in nine cases out of ten, he has had nothing yet of any account in the way of that systematic, vigorous, daily exercise which looks directly to his weak points, and aims not only to eradicate them, but to build up his general health and strength as well. He gets no help in the one place of all where he might so easily get it—the school. So far as we can learn, no system of exercise has been introduced into any school or college in this land, unless it is at the military academy at West Point, which begins to do for each pupil, not alone what might easily be done, but what actually ought to be done. It will probably not be many years before all of us will wonder why the proper steps in this direction have been put off so long. Calisthenics are here and there resorted to. [p.27] [p.28] [p.29] [p.30] [p.31] In some schools a rubber strap has been introduced, the pupil taking one end of it in each hand, and working it in a few different directions, but in a mild sort of way. At Amherst College enough has been accomplished to tell favorably on the present health of the student, but not nearly enough to make him strong and vigorous all over, so as to build him up against ill health in the future. At another college certain exercises, excellent in their way, admirable for suppling the joints and improving the carriage, have for some time been practised. But this physical work does not go nearly far enough, nor is it aimed sufficiently at each pupil's peculiar weak spot. It also neither reaches all the students, nor is it practised but a small part of the year. In the great majority of our schools and colleges, little or no idea is given the pupil as to the good results he will derive from exercise. The teacher's own experience in physical development is often more limited than that of some of his scholars. The evil does not end here. Take the son of the man of means and refinement, a boy who is having given him as liberal an education as money can buy and his parents' best judgment can select, one who spends a third or more of his life in fitting himself to get on successfully in the remainder of it. That boy certainly ought to come out ready for his life's work, with not only a thoroughly-trained mind and a strong moral nature, but with a well-developed, vigorous physique, and a knowledge of how to maintain it, so that he may make the most of all his advantages. But how often does this happen? Stand by the gate as the senior class of almost any college in this country files out from its last examination before graduation, and look the men carefully over. Ask your physician to join you in the scrutiny. If, between you two, you can arrive at the conclusion that one-half, or even one-third of them, have that vitality and stamina which make it probable that they will live till seventy, it will be indeed most surprising. A few of these young men, the athletes, will be well-developed, better really than they need be. But this over-development may be far from the safest or wisest course. Even though physically improved by it, it is not certain that this marked development will carry them onward through life to a ripe old age. But, with others indifferently developed, there will be many more positively weak. Such men may have bright, uncommon heads. Yes; but a bright and uncommon head on a broken down, or nearly broken down, body is not going to make half as effective a man in the life-race as a little duller head and a good deal better body. But have these graduates had a competent instructor at college to look after them in this respect? Will some one name a college where they have such an instructor? or a school where, instead of building the pupil up for the future, more has been done than to insure his present health? One or two such there may be, but scarcely more than one or two. Take even the student who has devoted the most time to severe muscular exercise—the rowing-man, not the beginner, but the veteran of a score or more of races, who has been rowing all his four college years as regularly and almost as often as he dined. Certainly it will not be claimed that his is not a well-developed body, or that his permanent health is not insured. Let us look a little at him and see. What has he done? He entered college at eighteen, and is the son, say, of a journalist or of a professional man. Finding, when he came to be fourteen or fifteen, that he was not strong, that somehow he did not fill out his clothes, he put in daily an hour or more at the gymnasium, walked much at intervals, took sparring lessons, did some rowing, and perhaps, by the time he entered college, got his upper arm to be a foot or even thirteen inches in circumference, with considerable muscle on his chest. Now this young man hears daily, almost hourly, of the wonderful Freshman crew—an embryotic affair as yet, to be sure, but of exalted expectations— and into that crew he must go at all hazards. He is tried and accepted. Now, for four years, if a faithful oar, he will row all of a thousand miles a year. As each year has, off and on, not over two hundred rowing-days in all, he will generally, for the greater part of the remaining time, pull nearly an equivalent daily at the rowing-weights. He will find a lot of eager fellows at his side, working their utmost to outdo him, and get that place in the boat which he so earnestly covets, and which he is not yet quite sure that he can hold. Some of his muscles are developing fast. His recitations are, perhaps, suffering a little, but never mind that just now, when he thinks that there is more important work on hand. The young fellow's appetite is ravenous. He never felt so hearty in his life, and is often told how well he is looking. He attracts attention because likely to be a representative man. He never filled out his clothes as he does now. His legs are improving noticeably. They ought to do so, for it is not one or two miles, but three or four, which he runs on almost every one of those days in the hundred in which he is not rowing. Our young athlete has not always gone into the work from mere choice. For instance, one of a recent Harvard Freshman crew told the writer that he had broken down his eyes from over-use of them, and, looking about for some vigorous physical exercise which would tone him up quickly and restore his eyesight, and having no one to consult, he had taken to rowing. The years roll by till the whole four are over, and our student is about to graduate. He looks back to see what he has accomplished. In physical matters he finds that, while he is a skilful, and perhaps a decidedly successful, oar, and that some of his measurements have much improved since the day he was first measured, others somehow have not come up nearly as fast, in fact, have held back in the most surprising way. His chest-girth may be three or even four inches larger for the four years' work. Some, if not much, of that is certainly the result of growth, not development, and, save what running did, the rest is rather an increase of the back muscles than of front and back alike. Strong as his back is— for many a hard test has it stood in the long, hot home-minutes of more than one well-fought race—still he has not yet a thoroughly developed and capacious chest. Doubtless his legs have improved, if he has done any running. (In some colleges the rowing-men scarcely run at all.) His calves have come to be well-developed and shapely, and so too have [p.32] [p.33] [p.34] [p.35] [p.36] [p.37] [p.38] his thighs, while his loins are noticeably strong-looking and well muscled up, and so indeed is his whole back. But if he has done practically no other arm-work than that which rowing and the preparation for it called for, his arms are not so large, especially above the elbow, as they ought to be for a man with such legs and such a back. The front of his chest is not nearly so well developed as his back, perhaps is hardly developed at all, and he is very likely to carry himself inerectly, with head and neck canted somewhat forward, while there is a lack of fulness, often a noticeable hollowness, of the upper chest, till the shoulders are plainly warped and rounded forward. Fig. 1. Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 2. With professional oarsmen, who for years have rowed far more than they have done anything else, and who have no especial care for their looks, or spur to develop harmoniously, the defects rowing leaves stand out most glaringly. Notice in the cuts on pp. 36, 37 (Figs. 1 and 2) the flat and slab-sided, almost hollow, look about the upper chest and front shoulder, and compare these with the full and well-rounded make of the figure whose body is sketched on the cover. It will not take long to determine which has the better front chest, or which is likely to so carry that chest as to ward off tendencies to throat and lung troubles. Yet Fig. 1 is from a photograph of one of the most distinguished student-oarsmen America ever produced, while Fig. 2 represents one of the swiftest and most skilful professional scullers of the country to-day.[A] Better proof could not be presented of the effect of a great amount of rowing, and of the very limited exercise it brings to those muscles which are not especially called on. After the student's rowing is over, and his college days are past, and he settles down to work with not nearly so much play in it, how does he find that his rowing pays? Has it made him fitter than his fellows, who went into athletics with no such zeal and devotion, to stand life's wear and tear, especially when that life is to be spent mainly in-doors? When, in later years, with new associations, business cares, and long, hard head-work, accompanied, as the latter usually is, by only partial inflation of the lungs, when all these get him out of the way of using his large back muscles, he will find their very size, and the long spell of warping forward which so much rowing gave the shoulders, tends more to weigh him forward than if he had never so developed them. Instead of benefiting his throat and lungs, this abnormal development actually inclines to cramp them. Here, then, is the case of a man who voluntarily gave much time, thought, and labor to the severest test of his strength, and who had hoped to bring about staying powers, and he comes out of it all, to begin his real race in life, often no better fitted, perhaps not nearly so well fitted, for it as some of his comrades who did not spare half so much time to athletics. The other men, who did not work nearly as much as he did, still managed to hit upon a sort which, instead of cramping their chests, expanded them, enlarging the lung-room, and so gave the heart, stomach, and other vital organs all the freest play. If the ordinary play and exercise of the boy do not build and round him into a sound, well-made, and evenly- balanced man; if the hardest work he has hit on, when left to himself to find out, mostly to be paid for by a considerable amount of money; if these only leave him a half-developed man, can it not be seen at once that an improvement is wanted in his physical education? Are we not behindhand, and far behindhand, then, in a matter of serious importance to the well-being of the people of our country? Do we not want some system of education which shall rear men, not morally and intellectually good alone, but good physically as well? which shall qualify them both to seize and to make the most of the advantages which years of toil and struggle bring, but which advantages among us now are too frequently thrown away. Men too often, just as they are about clutching these benefits, find, Tantalus-like, that they are eluding their grasp. The reason must be plain to all. It is because that grasp is weakening, and falls powerless at the very time when it could be and should be surest, and potent for the most good. CHAPTER III. WILL DAILY PHYSICAL EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? Observe the girls in any of our cities or towns, as they pass to or from school, and see how few of them are at once blooming, shapely, and strong. Some are one or the other, but very few are all combined, while a decided majority are neither one of them. Instead of high chests, plump arms; comely figures, and a graceful and handsome mien, you constantly see flat chests, angular shoulders, often round and warped forward, with scrawny necks, pipe-stem arms, narrow backs, and a weak walk. Not one girl in a dozen is thoroughly erect, whether walking, standing, or sitting. Nearly every head is pitched somewhat forward. The arms are frequently held almost motionless, and there is a general lack of spring and elasticity in their movements. Fresh, blooming complexions are so rare as to attract attention. Among eyes, plenty of them pretty, sparkling, or intelligent, but few have vigor and force. If any dozen girls, taken at random, should place their hands side by side on a table, many, if not most, of these hands would be found to lack beauty and symmetry, the fingers, and indeed the whole hand, too often having a weak, undeveloped, nerveless look. Now watch these girls at play. See how few of their games bring them really vigorous exercise. Set them to running, and hardly one in the party has the swift, graceful, gliding motion she might so readily acquire. Not one can run any respectable distance at a good pace. There is abundant vivacity and spirit, abundant willingness to play with great freedom, but very little such play as there might be, and which would pay so well. Most of their exercise worth calling vigorous is for their feet alone, the hands seldom having much to do. The girls of the most favored classes are generally the poorest players. The quality and color of their clothing necessitates their avoiding all active, hearty play, while it is [p.39] [p.40] [p.41] [p.42] [p.43] the constant effort of nurse or governess to repress that superabundance of spirits which ought to belong to every boy and girl. Holding one's elbows close to the body while walking, and keeping the hands nearly or quite motionless, may accord with the requirements of fashionable life, but it's terribly bad for the arms, keeping them poor, indifferent specimens, when they might be models of grace and beauty. As the girl comes home from school, not with one book only, but often six or eight, instead of looking light and strong and free, she is too often what she really appears to be, pale and weak. So many books suggest a large amount of work for one day, certainly for one evening, and the impression received is that she is overworked, while the truth frequently is that the advance to be made in each book is but trifling, and the aggregate, not at all large, by no means too great for the same girl were she strong and hearty. It is not the mental work which is breaking her down, but there is no adequate physical exercise to build her up. See what ex-Surgeon-General Hammond says, in his work on "Sleep", as to the ability to endure protracted brain-work without ill result: "It is not the mere quantity of brain-work which is the chief factor in the production of disease. The emotional conditions under which work is performed is a far more important matter. A man of trained mental habits can bear with safety an almost incredible amount of brain-toil, provided he is permitted to work without distraction or excitement, in the absence of disquieting cares and anxieties. It is not brain-work, in fact, that kills, but brain-worry." The girl, of course, has not the strength for the protracted effort of the matured man, nor is such effort often required of her. Her studying is done quietly at home, undisturbed, usually, by any such cares and responsibilities as the man encounters. Hers is generally brain-work, not brain-worry. Yet the few hours a day exhaust her, because her vital system, which supports her brain, is feeble and inefficient. No girl is at school over six hours out of the twenty-four, and, deducting the time taken for recitation, recess, and the various other things which are not study, five hours, or even less, will cover the time she gives to actual brain-work in school, with two, or perhaps three, hours daily out of school. With the other sixteen hours practically her own, there is ample time for all the vigorous physical exercise she needs or could take, and yet allow ten, or even twelve, of those hours for sleep or eating. But notice, in any of these off-hours, what exercise these girls take. They walk to and fro from school, they play a few minutes at recess, they may take an occasi...