SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF RECREATION. 781 



the amount of muscular exercise that is requisite for maintaining full 

 and sustained health. By habitual neglect of sufficient exercise the 

 system may and does accommodate itself to such neglect ; so that not 

 only may the desire for exercise cease to be a fair measure of its need, 

 but positive exhaustion may attend a much less amount of exercise 

 than is necessary to long continuance of sound health. However 

 strong and well, therefore, a man may feel notwithstanding his neglect 

 of exercise, he ought to remember that he is playing a most dangerous 

 game, and that sooner or later his sin will find him out either in the 

 form of dyspepsia, liver, kidney, or other disease, which so surely 

 creep upon the offender against Nature's laws of health. According 

 to Dr. Parkes, the amount of exercise that a healthy man ought to 

 take without fatigue is at the least that which is required for raising 

 150 foot-tons per diem. This, in mere walking, would, in the case of 

 a man of ordinary weight, be represented by a walk of between eight 

 and nine miles along level ground, or one mile up a tolerably steep 

 hill ; but it is desirable that the requisite amount of exercise should 

 be obtained without throwing all the work upon one set of muscles. 

 For this reason walking ought to be varied with rowing, riding, active 

 games, and, where practicable, hunting or shooting, which, to those 

 who are fond of sport, constitute the most perfect form of recreative 

 exercise. 



Turning next to all the large class of men below the grade of clerks, 

 their possible means of recreation are alike in this that they must be 

 more or less of a corporate kind. These men depend for their recrea- 

 tion on public institutions, and therefore it is of the first importance 

 to the national health, happiness, morals, and intelligence that no 

 thought, pains, or money should be spared in providing such institu- 

 tions, adequate in number and competent in character to meet so im- 

 portant and so immense a need. Within the limits of so general an 

 essay it is impossible to do anything like justice to this subject ; but 

 I may say a few words on the kinds of institutions that I should most 

 like to recommend. 



Every town the size of which is so considerable that green grass 

 and fresh air are not within easy reach of all its inhabitants, ought at 

 any expense to be provided with public parks. In many of our large 

 towns it is now virtually impracticable to provide such parks in central 

 situations ; but even suburban parks are infinitely better than no parks 

 at all. Public recreation-grounds having been provided, every induce- 

 ment ought to be added to attract the people to use them. Gymnasia, 

 boating, cricket and golf implements, lawn-tennis, and tennis-courts, 

 ought all to be supplied at the public expense, so that workingmen 

 and boys might be able to spend their holidays and half-holidays in 

 healthy outdoor amusement without requiring to incur the expense of 

 club subscriptions. Outdoor clubs, however, ought not the less to be 

 encouraged for the sake of the additional inducement which esprit de 



