GYMNASTICS. 



79 



a stiff-jointed, clumsy, ill-proportioned body. In the fifty years since 

 the introduction into this country of systematic body-training, there, 

 nevertheless, has been great gain in the popular estimation of its 

 advantages, as is shown by the almost countless systems that have re- 

 ceived ephemeral patronage. Witness the innumerable pieces of gym- 

 nasium apparatus that have been advertised, and widely believed, to 

 prevent or to cure all manner of woes and ills. At one time it is the 

 spirometer, which, if blown into daily, will prevent consumption ; then 

 it is a patent kind of lifting-machine by which a man may soon learn 

 to lift a ton ; or rubber bands which deluded purchasers would surely 

 find it easier to stretch as the rubber grew older. This long list of 

 nostrums it is important for us to notice as in great measure account- 

 ing for the distrust many intelligent people have of the whole subject 

 of gymnastics. In their ignorance they have believed the quacks, and, 

 having suffered at least in purse, they now are shy of the subject in 

 general. The fact is plain that their distrust is because more good 

 has been claimed, and has been temporarily believed, to result from 

 the use of one especial kind of exercise than could reasonably be ex- 

 pected from all kinds together. Honest efforts have meantime been 

 made to introduce systematic exercise. Dio Lewis twenty years ago 

 carried on in Boston a normal school of gymnastics. Several hundred 

 teachers were graduated, and for a time were in considerable demand. 

 Later, Dr. Lewis had a great girls' school in Lexington, where, in 

 Bloomer dress and broad-soled boots, girls were certainly taught to 

 walk long distances. The new system, as he called it, contained this 

 principal innovation : Exercise was to be by couples holding rings or 

 wands, and with music the doctor enthusiastically believed that he 

 had borrowed all the charm of the dance, but it w T as found that, unlike 

 dancing, in his evolutions all the fun was in learning how, and now 

 his system is quite forgotten. In bringing our history of gymnastics 

 down to date, it is necessary to mention the gymnasia of city clubs 

 and colleges. Till within a few years a typical gymnasium of this 

 sort was a medley collection of apparatus under the care of a janitor, 

 who possibly knew something of the art of boxing. It was the fash- 

 ion for the would-be gymnast to work at this or that according to 

 fancy, always taking care, however, to exercise only his best-developed 

 muscles. If a good vaulter, he spent his hour in vaulting ; if strong- 

 armed, his exhibitions were on the swings and bar. These gymnasia 

 would have been even less patronized except for the training in them 

 of the sporting-men, who by general opinion were obliged to work 

 diligently at some kind of machine if the next summer they were to 

 beat other clubs and colleges on the field and river. Of their train- 

 ing and violent exercise little need be said, because they were so few, 

 except that the wide-spread fear of harmful results from excessive ex- 

 ertion in these sports seems in the light of recent careful investigation 

 to have been greatly exaggerated. The poverty in the results of 



