816 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the most useful and best-chosen ones. It is interesting, when 

 we travel abroad, to observe the efforts made in different countries 

 to reach this aim of rendering exercise attractive. It is also often 

 curious to notice the ingenuity that is devoted to seeking for sin- 

 gular means of palliating the aridity and monotony of systematic 

 exercises. 



The pre-eminently recreative exercise is play. This natural 

 gymnastics brings with it an attraction that animates the most 

 indifferent and gives inspiration to the most phlegmatic. And 

 what a contrast there is between pupils exercising in play and 

 those upon whom a systematic gymnastics is imposed — between 

 English school children, for example, and French ! In France, to 

 everybody's sorrow, the children seem to have a horror of motion. 

 Left to themselves, as soon as they are out of the schoolroom, 

 they walk along slowly in couples or gather in groups in the cor- 

 ners of the yard ; and they pass the time in chatting, in " philoso- 

 phizing." Gymnastics is obligatory, it is true, on some days and 

 at certain hours ; but a witness of the lesson will be struck with ob- 

 serving that hardly four or five pupils out of thirty execute their 

 exercises conscientiously. The others present themselves in their 

 turn, but hardly outline the movement. The professor incites 

 them, urges them ; and they go back to their places after having 

 made an imitation of an effort. In the English colleges no regu- 

 lation makes exercise obligatory, and every one is free to dispense 

 with it or engage in it at will. But all give themselves up to it 

 with incredible ardor. Weak and strong, young pupils or students 

 twenty years old, all show an equal passion for those plays in the 

 open air, now neglected in France, for which gymnastics has been 

 so unfortunately substituted. To form an idea of the enthusiasm 

 they display one should visit Eton or Harrow, Oxford or Cam- 

 bridge, and see those immense lawns occupied after lunch by 

 crowds of young men in the costume of the game, dividing into 

 groups, forming into gangs, and organizing their parties without 

 losing a minute. I have still in vision the spectacle of a game of 

 football played in my presence by students of Cambridge. No- 

 where else have I ever seen such enthusiasm and such spirit, such 

 disregard of falls and blows. The play of ball as thus practiced 

 might constitute in itself alone a complete means of physical edu- 

 cation, so fully does it bring into action all the bodily qualities 

 and all the active moral faculties of the players. What vigor in 

 starting the ball, what agility in getting it and bearing it to the 

 goal! What address also in avoiding the throng of opponents 

 who would bar the passage, and what suppleness in gliding 

 through their arms without losing the precious trophy ! And if 

 in the struggle the vanquished champion falls to the ground, we 

 see him rebound like the ball itself, touching the turf and begin- 



