GREETING BY GESTURE. 477 



personal safety. We can learn to swim and climb only by exer- 

 cises in swimming and climbing. It is not by running that we 

 learn to overcome the vertigo we feel in lofty places or to extri- 

 cate ourselves from danger by the strength of our arms. 



These truths can and ought to be taught. A considerable por- 

 tion of them are already popular ; some, new or less known, form 

 the matter of the new manual of gymnastic exercises and school 

 plays which the Minister of Public Instruction is about to pub- 

 lish. 



However important these tentatives in teaching may be, they 

 are still insufficient. There should be instituted in physical edu- 

 cation a special technical teaching in which the mechanism of 

 the movements and their physiology shall be studied with all the 

 development which it permits. On this condition we can raise 

 the level and the return of physical education. We can also by 

 this means introduce ameliorations into manual trades by seeking 

 for a more perfect adaptation of tools to the human organization, 

 and in general the best utilization of muscular force wherever it 

 is called into exercise. This branch is, with hygiene, one of the 

 most useful applications of biological science and touches at many 

 points upon the amelioration of the condition of the laboring 

 classes. While it requires the co-operation of a number of par- 

 ticular branches of knowledge necessitating specialization, its 

 social bearing still deserves to interest special minds and exercise 

 the sagacity of students. Translated for The Popular Science 

 Monthly from the Revue Scientifique. 







GREETING BY GESTURE. 



By GAEEICK MALLEEY. 

 I. 



VERBAL salutations have generally been employed to ex- 

 plain those expressed by gesture and posture. The study of 

 ancient literature and of modern travel has furnished many 

 friendly phrases of anthropologic and ethnic interest. But 

 friendly greetings were common before articulate speech pre- 

 vailed. Sign-language was then the mode of communication, 

 and gestures connected with the concepts and emotions of men 

 preceded and influenced all historic ceremonials of greeting. So 

 it is judicious to resort to gesture-speech, as still found surviv- 

 ing among some peoples and deaf-mutes, for the explanation of 

 the existing and still more of the oldest known forms of saluta- 

 tion, whether verbal or silent. Undoubtedly some of the verbal 

 forms are of recent origin and are independent of any gesture, 



