THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 139 



the moment when the vucrj(popla the shout of victory was echoed by a 

 million voices, and an assembled nation rose to hail the victor in the 

 presence of his relations and friends ! Men whose hearts were stirred 

 by such scenes had no need of buying inspiration at the gin-shop. 

 The Turnvereiti is yet but in its egg, and competitive gymnastics has 

 yet to take rank again as the noblest, the happiest, and the most popu- 

 lar, of all our national pursuits. 



We have emerged from the aphanasia of the middle ages, that fear- 

 ful eclipse of reason and happiness that followed like an unnatural night 

 upon the bright sunrise of Grecian civilization, and the spiritual lethargy 

 of that night has been shaken off by all that deserve the name of men ; 

 how is it, then, that so much of its physical torpor still remains behind ? 

 Have we really forgotten that God is the creator of our bodies as well 

 as of our souls ? Our limbs seem to have been paralyzed by long dis- 

 use ; the gates of our hierarchical Bastile have been forced, but the 

 great majority of the prisoners seem in no hurry to leave their cells. 

 Though freed from Jesuitical control, our educational system is still not 

 only unnatural but anti-natural to such a degree that we think it our 

 duty to suppress the healthiest instincts of our children and keep them 

 in the beaten track which has led us deeper and deeper into the laby- 

 rinth of dogmatism, till we have almost forgotten that there is a 

 brighter light and purer air outside. 



Yet there is hope. The spirit of our Nature-loving ancestors will 

 assert itself before long, and the inhabitants of Greater Britain will 

 return from the languid repose of the Hebrew heaven to the healthier 

 pastimes of the Anglo-Saxon Walhalla. The Germans, too, are seeing 

 the dawn of a long hoped-for morning, and the prophetic words of their 

 philosophical Messiah are beginning to be fulfilled. " The spiritual 

 juggler-guild," says Gotthold Lessing, " who derive their revenues from 

 the supernatural dogmas of the three Semitic religions, have found it 

 to their advantage to divert our attention from the natural laws of God, 

 but those laws cannot be outraged with impunity. I foresee a physical 

 reformation, and its advent-sermons will be preached before long." 



THE GIGANTIC EXTINCT ARMADILLOS AND THEIR 

 PECULIARITIES, WITH A RESTORATION. 1 



By JOHN A. KYDER. 



THE general principle that, with increased size, there is an increase 

 in the thickness and strength of the skin and its protective append- 

 ages, is in no instance better illustrated than in the extinct and living 

 armadillos ; in the former the thickness attained by the bony armor 



1 It is but just to refer to Prof. H. Burmeister's magnificent monograph on these ani- 

 mals in the " Anales del Museo Publico " of Buenos Ayres, for 1S66-73, from which 



