22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



vices. He can't afford to be vicious : sensuality weakens ; physical 

 vigor is a stock-in-trade ; the fierceness of competition compels him to 

 use every advantage. For the same reason a training oarsman is gen- 

 erally an exemplar of all manly virtues ; to him experience has demon- 

 strated the temporal disadvantages of vice, an argument whose cogency 

 somehow conquers objections that resist the most eloquent arguinenta 

 adjidem. Moreover, such virtues with a business purpose are liable 

 to become habits. If we could keep a record of the longevity of our 

 university crews, we would probably find that the victors outlive the 

 often vanquished ; the champions of Olympia (with the exception of 

 the cestus-fighters) generally attained to a good old age. 



It is, indeed, a pity that oar-contests should be confined to our lake- 

 shore cities and a few college towns ; as an athletic exercise roAving is 

 out and out superior to ball-playing and skating, and a sovereign rem- 

 edy for many disorders of the respiratory organs. Venice has all the 

 topographical characteristics of a consumption town stagnant lagoons, 

 damp buildings, dark and narrow streets and yet the lower classes of 

 her population are remarkably free from pulmonary affections they 

 have a gondolier in nearly every family. The watermen of the 

 Thames, too, are generally long-lived, in spite of being so much ex- 

 posed to wet and cold. If I had to limit a child to two kinds of out- 

 door exercises, I would choose running and rowing : the one does for 

 the legs and the stomach what the other does for the arms and the 

 lungs. 



It is said that Cyrus advised his countrymen ''never to eat but 

 after labor," and, as a general rule, the best time for out-door exercise 

 is certainly rather before than after meals ; but gymnastics of the 

 heroic kind may induce a degree of fatigue which decreases the- appe- 

 tite instead of stimulating it, and in summer it is by far the best plan 

 to take the last meal in the afternoon, and postpone athletic sports to 

 the cooler hours of the evening. In moonlit nights, out-door games 

 may be continued for several hours after sunset. A nearly infallible 

 receipt for pleasant dreams is a light supper, followed by competitive 

 gymnastics in the presence of (somebody's) sisters and cousins. In stress 

 of circumstances, though, the fair witnesses can be dispensed with. 

 Even an in-door gymnasium will answer the main purpose ; it is the re- 

 laxation of the strained sinews which makes rest sweet ; the soul seems 

 to revel in a conscious sense of health to come. It is a fact that a man 

 may be " too tired to sleep " ; but that sort of insomnia is always a 

 sign of general debility. Our latter-day sports are not likely to hurt 

 a healthy boy through excess of exercise. We hear of people having 

 " killed themselves with hard work " ; but, if their habits were other- 

 wise correct and their diet not altogether insufficient, they must have 

 worked hard indeed, and with suicidal intent^ I am tempted to say, as 

 we have no single word iov LehensmUde the reckless contempt of life 

 which can make men deaf to the voice of their physical conscience. 



