PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 455 



purpose defeated, and the vital energy flags, the sap of life runs to 

 seed. On the same principle an existence of joyless drudgery seems 

 to drain the springs of health, even at an age when they can draw 

 upon the largest inner resources ; hope, too often baffled, at last with- 

 draws her aid ; the tongue may be attuned to canting hymns of con- 

 solation, but the heart can not be deceived, and with its sinking pulse 

 the strength of life ebbs away. Kine tenths of our city children are 

 literally starving for lack of recreation ; not the means of life, but its 

 object, civilization has defrauded them of ; they feel a want which 

 bread can only aggravate, for only hunger helps them to forget the 

 misery of ennui. Their pallor is the sallow hue of a cellar-plant ; they 

 would be healthier if they were happier. I would undertake to cure 

 a sickly child with fun and rye-bread sooner than with tidbits and 

 tedium. 



Mirth is a remedy ; the remarkable longevity of the French aristo- 

 crats,* in spite of their dietetic and other sins, can with certainty be 

 ascribed to the gayety of their pastimes ; almost any mode of diver- 

 sion is better than the deadly monotony of our Sabbatarian machine- 

 life ; even excursion-trains have added years to the average longevity 

 of our city populations. In a temperature of 56 Fahr., Elisha Kane 

 kept his men in good health by devoting a part of the long night to 

 burlesques and pantomimes ; but, as a sanitary precaution, dramaturgy 

 was only collateral to the substitution of tea for grog ; and the most 

 striking illustration of the hygienic effect of merriment is therefore, 

 perhaps, the experience of Dr. Brehm, the manager of the Hamburg 

 Zoological Garden. Having noticed that the monkeys in the happy- 

 family department generally outlived the solitary prisoners, he con- 

 cluded to try the Swiss nostalgia-remedy, " fun and cider-]Dunch " ; 

 but the liquid stimulants proved superfluous : the introduction of a 

 grapple-swing and a few toys sufficed to reverse the shadow on the 

 dial of death, and man by man the quadrumana recovered from a dis- 

 ease which evidently had been nothing but enmii^ since the mortuary 

 lists of the last decade showed an almost uniform death-rate through- 

 out the year, except in midsummer, when the monkey-house could be 

 thoroughly ventilated. 



Men of a cheerful disposition are generally long-lived, and any- 

 thing tending to counteract the influence of worry and discontent 

 directly contributes to the preservation of health. Despair can para- 

 lyze the energy of the vital functions like a sudden poison, while the 

 fulfillment of a long-cherished hope has effected the cure of many dis- 



* E. g., Polignac, eighty-one years ; Kichelieu, eighty-three ; Sainte-Pierre, seventy- 

 eight ; Chateaubriand, eighty ; Lafayette, seventy-eight ; Duke of Bassano, eighty-one ; 

 Corneille, eighty ; Dumouriez, eighty-four ; Palinet, eighty-five ; Fontenelle, one hundred ; 

 Joinville, ninety-one ; L'Enelos, eighty-nine ; La Maintenon, eighty-four ; Rochefoucauld, 

 eighty; Yillars, eighty-one; Sully, eighty-one ; Montfaucon, eighty-six; Soult, eighty-two; 

 Talleyrand, eighty-four. . 



