8 1 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ous processes for methodically exercising the muscular groups of 

 each region. It has exercises for the arms, for the legs, the trunk, 

 the head, and the pelvis ; for the flexor muscles and for the exten- 

 sors, etc. There are several systems of gymnastics. The Swedish 

 system is characterized by simplicity of movement and modera- 

 tion in effort. The French system is conceived on the opposite 

 theory of raising the physical aptitudes of the man to the highest 

 point of development. With this purpose it seeks ingenious com- 

 binations designed to make each movement represent a difficulty 

 to be conquered ; and it contrives expedients for augmenting the 

 effort of the muscles and invents muscular acts to which the 

 man is not naturally inclined. 



The natural and artificial methods have very distinct and 

 very characteristic tendencies. The most commonplace example 

 will permit us to show clearly the divergence of their processes. 

 Put a man before a vertical pole and tell him to climb to the top. 

 Left to his instinct, he will utilize all the means of action of which 

 Nature has given him command. He will hug the pole with his 

 arms and legs, and will use his feet and hands. It is the natural 

 process and the easiest one. But if he is a gymnast he will have 

 no use for his legs. He has been taught to climb poles with his 

 hands alone. This is an artificial method to which no one feels 

 naturally disposed, because it increases the difficulty of the move- 

 ment. Here, then, we find a marked difference between the two 

 methods — one avoids difficulties, the other seeks them. 



The essential character of our gymnastics is, therefore, that it 

 demands much more intense muscular effort than the pupil is nat- 

 urally inclined to, and more difficult movements than his instinc- 

 tive ones. It tends, for that reason, to make him stronger and more 

 adroit than it was in his nature to become. It is a method of im- 

 provement more capable than any other of forming chosen sub- 

 jects. It has the faults of its qualities ; it perfects the man, but 

 at the expense of hard work of which not all men are capable ; it 

 may form choice gymnasts, but it forms very few. If it is ap- 

 plied to physical education, we find very few children capable of 

 executing at first, or without long preliminary efforts, the move- 

 ments which it calls for. Most pupils are discouraged by the 

 difficulties at the beginning, and those who acquire a taste for it 

 are those who are best endowed physically, the strongest, or pre- 

 cisely those who can do best without it. This select minority I 

 admit acquires superior physical capacity, but weak subjects, or 

 those of any medium strength, find no benefit in the gymnastics, 

 for the simple reason that they do not practice it. Repelled by 

 the difficulties of the beginning, they refuse to attempt new efforts 

 and continue in their first impression, which was bad and dis- 

 couraging. Through all their life they have an aversion to exer- 



