GYMNASTICS. 77 



are they connected by a membrane. Without engaging in a technical 

 description of the organs of respiration, which are so far unique among 

 bony fishes, or of the organs contained within the abdominal cavity, 

 it is important to take notice of the complete absence of the swimming- 

 bladder. This fish offers in certain features resemblances to the Ana- 

 canthini, to the Scopeliclce, the Stomiddce, and to certain apodes, but 

 has also characteristics which separate it distinctly from them. It must 

 be regarded as the type of a new family, of which, unless it may be 

 found to be related to the malacosteus, it is the only representative. 

 I propose for it the name Eur "y pharynx pelecanoides. 



GYMNASTICS.* 



By ALFRED WORCESTER, A.M. 



THE very name carries our thoughts back to the ancient Greeks, 

 who provided for their children the most complete physical train- 

 ing that the world has ever known. Men and women alike took pains 

 and pride in the development of perfect bodies, and their success, re- 

 corded in inimitable statues, affords models of human beauty and 

 strength. In examining their system we discover much that is foreign 

 to our civilization. We can not find the time for daily anointing with 

 oil, powdering with dust, and long exercising in the sunshine hardly 

 time, indeed, for even an abridgment of their luxurious bathing ; and 

 yet, till after we do devote time and care to the development of our 

 physical natures, need we hope for anything like the splendid equipoise 

 of the faculties that characterizes the Greek excellence of manhood. 

 Passing now to Rome, we find early in her history the vigor always 

 characteristic of a new race. It matters not how impoverished their 

 ancestry, colonists cut off from the sloth of old centers of population, 

 forced to battle with the earth itself for their support, soon retake the 

 vigorous manhood their fathers gradually lost. And the Romans, in 

 their turn, driven under the yoke by a sturdier race, proved no excep- 

 tion to the general rule that, as ease of living rises above a certain 

 line, people deteriorate physically. That there is no underlying law of 

 nature necessitating this result is proved by the Grecian training which 

 raised the body to a far higher than any barbarian standard. In the 

 age of chivalry we can find something of a similar physical excellence, 

 and again its plain dependence upon a high estimate of the value of 

 a perfect body and upon great pains taken for its procurement. As 

 this age gave way before gunpowder and the Church, as men discov- 

 ered the uselessness of heavy armor, battle-axe, cross-bow, and lance, 



* An essay read before the Boylston Medical Society of Harvard University, Decem- 

 ber 15, 1882. 



