PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 759 



moral and physical life of the ante-Christian ages from the scrofulous 

 effeminacy of our stove-room civilization. 



The teachers of the Pedagogium and similar institutions assured 

 me that their scholars were never more aufgeweckt (wide-awake) than 

 during the first six or eight weeks after the long .vacations ; even the 

 drawing-masters had no reason to complain about " club-fists." It is 

 a very common but quite erroneous notion that the burly strength of 

 the human hand impairs its capacity for delicate manipulations : the 

 iron-fisted Gemsen-jiiger of the Tyrolese Alps are the nicest marks- 

 men ; and Leonardo da Vinci, who could draw a perfect circle without 

 a compass, could not the less break a silver piaster between his two 

 thumbs and two forefingers. 



The Ilefelders were also the first to make Saturday an hygienic sab- 

 bath. In spring and fall, all such Saturdays should be consecrate to 

 the wood-gods ; leaf -forests, under the influence of sunlight, exhale the 

 antidote of our atmospheric poisons. Start the youngsters at sunrise 

 with a basketful of cold meats, and orders for an equal quantity of 

 strawberries, or, if the woods are safe, let them go on Friday night, 

 and camp in the open air ; they will long for the advent of that night 

 as Tom-a-lin for the festival of the fairies. Let them rise with the sun 

 and spend the whole day in active exercise, the mei'rier the better ; in a 

 mountain country arrange a new programme for every week, explore 

 the local Ararats, and let the boys scale them in succession, as the 

 members of the Alpine Club tackle their bergs and horns. If the weather 

 should disappoint you, do not hesitate to improve the next sunny day, 

 though it should happen to be a Sunday. The God of Nature can be 

 worshiped in his own temi^le : the wonder of his living world is his most 

 authentic revelation. Where Sunday is the only free day in the week, 

 no puritanical tyranny or Jesuitical ingenuity will ever prevent the 

 poor from making it a day of recreation ; the only question is, whether 

 that recreation shall be sought in the secret rumshops and back-alleys 

 of the city, whose gates the Sabbatarians would shut upon us, or in 

 the free woods and mountains, Avhere the w^orshiper of the All-Father 

 can find inspiration as well as joy and health. The wood-thrush, it is 

 true, does not modulate her anthems in a whining drawl ; the pine-tree 

 lifts his head without fear of provoking his Creator by a want of 

 crawling humility ; no dread of a joy-hating priest-god disturbs the 

 gambols of the squirrel and the aerial dances of the brook-midge ; the 

 butterfly and the humming-bird do not think it necessary to "mortify 

 the eye with dreary drab," but their happiness imparts a lesson not 

 less divine for being at variance with the doctrines of an atrabilious 

 fanatic. 



According to the Grecian allegory, the wood-craft goddess Diana 

 was the antagonist of the Cyprian Venus ; and a penchant for out-door 

 sports is indeed the best safeguard against certain vices of youth. 

 The precocious Don Juans of our great cities could be more easily re- 



