PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 15 



touches the ground. Now rise by straightening the left leg, with the 

 right still extended horizontally, and without letting your hands or 

 your right heel touch the ground. Then squat down as before, extend 

 the left leg this time and rise on the right, and so on until the weight 

 of the body has been raised twenty or thirty times by the effort of 

 either knee-joint without the aid of the other. A moderate proficiency 

 in this exercise will enable girls and city boys to walk up-hill for hours 

 with the ease of a Tyrolese goat-herd. 



In classifying gymnastics after the degree of their usefulness, a 

 prominent place should be assigned to leaping, especially high leaping, 

 an exercise which imparts a powerful stimulus to the digestive organs, 

 and, combined with the shock of the descent, exerts an invigorating 

 influence on the nervous system in general. The leajDing-gauge of the 

 Turner-hall consists of two upright posts with pegs and a cord stretched 

 from post to post. Every peg is marked with a figure indicating the 

 number of inches from the ground, and by raising or lowering the 

 cord each gymnast can measure his jumping capacity and keep tally 

 of his score in a certain number of leaps. Competition imparts to 

 this sport an incentive which may be put to as good account in gym- 

 nastics as in mental exercises, and is certainly j^referable to the only 

 other method of stimulating the zeal of young pupils. Personal am- 

 bition, according to the ethics of a certain class of pedagogues, is 

 inconsistent with the spirit of true Christian humility, and should be 

 quelled rather than fomented ; in dealing with unruly youngsters 

 they have consequently to resort to the only alternative, slavish fear, 

 enforced by punishments and espionage. For the nonce, that system 

 answers its purpose quite as well as the emulation-method ; as to fu- 

 ture results, your choice must depend upon the main question of mod- 

 ern education, Are we to form men or canting sneaks ? 



A quadruped has an evident advantage over a biped jumper, but 

 practice will do wonders. Leonardo da Yinci often astounded his 

 visitors by jumping to the ceiling and knocking his feet against the 

 bells of a glass chandelier, and a private soldier of Vandamme's cui- 

 rassiers even leaped over the tutelar deity of a brass fountain on the 

 Frankfort market-square. But the champion jumper of modern times 

 was Joe Ireland, a native of Beverley in Yorkshire. In his eigh- 

 teenth year, " without any assistance, trick, or deception," he leaped 

 over nine horses standing side by side and a man seated on the middle 

 horse. He could clear a string held fourteen feet high, and once kicked 

 a bladder hanging sixteen feet from the ground.* In horizontal leaps 

 our turners can not beat the record of antiquity : a Spartan once 

 cleared fifty-two feet, and a native of Crotona even fifty-five. Kor 

 would any modern filibusters be likely to emulate the trick of the 

 Teuton freebooters who crossed the Alps during the consulate of Cai- 

 us Marius : Finding the Roman battle-front inexpugnable, they at- 



* Strutt's " Plays and Pastimes," p. 176. 



