PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 17 



mind. Having learned to rely on their personal strength and judg- 

 ment under circumstances where shams are peculiarly unavailing, 

 gymnasts will generally be men of self-help ; practical, rather apt to 

 believe in the competence of human reason and human virtue and to 

 question the utility of a pious fraud. 



On rainy days an in-door gymnasium is as useful as a private libra- 

 ry. ^Yhere wood is cheap, the aggregate cost of the following appa- 

 ratus need not exceed fifty dollars : 1. A spring-board and leaping- 

 gauge ; 2. An inclined ladder ; 3. A horizontal bar ; 4. Swinging- 

 rings ; 5. A vaulting-horse (rough hewed) ; 6. A chest-expander 

 (elastic band with handles) ; and, 7. A pair of Indian clubs. Buckets 

 filled with shot or pig-iron will do for a health-lift. With this simple 

 apparatus an infinite variety of health-giving exercises may be per- 

 formed without much risk ; on the horizontal bar alone Jahn and 

 Salzmann enumerate not less than one hundred and twenty different 

 movements, most of which have proved very useful in correcting spe- 

 cial malformations. For general hygienic purposes a much smaller 

 number will be sufficient, especially where the neighborhood affords 

 an opportunity for occasional out-door sports ; for an in-door gymnasium 

 is, after all, only a preparatory school, or at best a substitute for the 

 palaestra of Xature the woods, the seashore, and the cliffs of a rocky 

 mountain-range. But in large cities even the poorest ought to procure 

 a few gymnastic implements ; no dyspeptic should be without a spring- 

 board and some sort of health-lift. 



The victims of asthma would throw a considerable quantity of 

 physic to the dogs if they knew the value of a mechanical specific 

 a few minutes' exercise with the halance-stick, an apparatus which any 

 man can manufacture in half an hour, and at an expense representing 

 the value of an old broom-stick and a yard of copper wire. Take a 

 straight stick, about six feet long and one inch in diameter, and marl- 

 it from end to end with deep notches at regular intervals, say twc 

 inches apart, with smaller subdivisions, as on the beam of a lever-bal- 

 ance. Then get a ten-pound lump of pig-iron, or a large stone, and 

 gird it with a piece of stout wire, so as to let one end of the wire pro- 

 ject in the form of a hook. The exercise consists in grasping the stick 

 at one end, stretching out arm and stick horizontally like a rapier at a 

 home-thrust ; then draw your arm back, still keeping the stick rigidly 

 horizontal, make your hand touch your chin, thrust it out again, draw 

 back, and so on, till the forearm moves rapidly on a steady fulcrum. 

 Next load the stick i. e., hook the stone to one of the notches ; every 

 inch farther out will increase the weight by several pounds. Hook it to 

 one of the middle notches, and try to move your arm as before. It will 

 be hard work now to keep the stick horizontal ; even a strong man will 

 find that the effort reacts powerfully on his lungs : he will puff as if the 

 respiratory engine were working under high pressure. On the same 

 principle, the lungs of a half -drowned man may be set awork by mov- 



YOL. XIX. 2 



