PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATIOI^. 



By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D. 

 GYMNASTICS. 



" Force begets Fortitude and conquers Fortune." Helvetius. 



PHYSICAL vigor is the basis of all moral and bodily welfare, and 

 a chief condition of permanent health. Like manly strength 

 and female purity, gymnastics and temperance should go hand in 

 hand. An effeminate man is half sick ; without the stimulus of phys- 

 ical exercise, the complex organism of the human body is liable to 

 disorders which abstinence and chastity can only partly counteract. 

 By increasing the action of the circulatory system, athletic sports pro- 

 mote the elimination of effete matter and quicken all the vital pro- 

 cesses till languor and dyspepsia disappear like rust from a busy 

 plowshare. " When I reflect on the immunity of hard-working peo- 

 ple from the effects of wrong and overfeeding," says Dr. Boer- 

 haave, " I can not help thinking that most of our fashionable diseases 

 might be cured mechanically instead of chemically, by climbing a 

 bitterwood-tree or chopping it down, if you like, rather than swallow- 

 ing a decoction of its disgusting leaves." The medical philosopher, 

 Asclepiades, Pliny tells us, had found that health could be preserved, 

 and if lost, restored, by physical exercise alone, and not only discarded 

 the use of internal remedies, but made a public declaration that he 

 would forfeit all claim to the title of a physician if he should ever fall 

 sick or die but by violence or extreme old age. Asclepiades kept his 

 word, for he lived upward of a century, and died from the effects of 

 an accident. He used to prescribe a course of gymnastics for every 

 form of bodily ailment, and the same physic might be successfully 

 applied to certain moral disorders, incontinence, for instance, and the 

 incipient stages of the alcohol-habit. It would be a remedy ad ^9?'^/^- 

 cipiiim, curing the symptoms by removing the cause, for some of the 

 besetting vices of youth can with certainty be ascribed to an excess of 

 that potential energy which finds no outlet in the functions of our 

 sedentary mode of life. In large cities parents owe their children a 

 provision for a frequent opportunity of active exercise, as they owe 

 them an antiseptic diet in a malarious climate. 



ISTor can this obligation be evaded by depreciating the importance 

 of physical culture as distinct from that of the mental faculties. For 

 the term of their earthly pilgrimage the human body and the most im- 

 mortal soul are more inseparable and more interdependent than the 

 horse and its rider : a Centaur would hardly have promoted his higher 

 interests by neglecting the equine part of his person. " I have sinned 

 against my brother, the Ass," said St. Francis, when the abuse of his 



