102 METHODS OF OBTAINING EXERCISE. 



portion of modern educational privileges, and a few years hence we 

 may see the palatial public school-house on every inhabited section 

 of the country. What will come of all this we do not undertake to 

 say. At all events the school system is a prodigy, at which the peo- 

 ple of this country will do well to look long and carefully. We 

 have only referred to it in passing, to demonstrate the propriety of 

 that action of the government in establishing those institutions for 

 physical culture and development, for which we plead. The argu- 

 ment is plain to any mind. If the State can do so much for the 

 mental training of the children of the country, which is not always 

 certain to make them better citizens, it can surely do something for 

 the training of the body, which will certainly ensure for the rising 

 generation, robust physical vigor and a higher intellectual stature. 



METHODS OF OBTAINING EXERCISE. 



Exercise strengthens and invigorates every function of the 

 body, and is essential to health and long life. No one in health 

 should neglect to walk a moderate distance every day, and if possi- 

 ble, in the country, where the pure and invigorating air can be 

 freely inhaled. Walking is the healthiest as well as the most 

 natural mode of exercise. Other things being equal, this will 

 insure the proper action of every organ of the body. The walk for 

 health should be diverisfied, and if possible include ascents and 

 descents and varying scenery, and be alternated, when circumstances 

 admit of it, with riding on horseback, active gardening or similar 

 pursuits, and with gymnastics and games of various kinds. Calis- 

 thenics prevent deformities as well as cure them; a gymnasium 

 should be attached to every school, whether for boys or girls. 

 Athletic sports and manly exercise should form a part of the educa- 

 tion of youth, nor should they be neglected in after life, especially 

 by persons of sedentary pursuits. Many aches and pains would 

 rapidly vanish if the circulation were quickened by a judicious and 

 regular use of the muscles. These modes of exercise, practiced 

 moderately and regularly, and varied from day to day, are much 

 more advantageous than the exciting, immoderate and irregular 

 exertions which characterize the ball-room, the hunting-field, and 

 even the cricket-ground or the rowing-match, which are sometimes 

 pursued so violently as to be followed by severe and permanent 

 injury to the constitution. In the case of very feeble and infirm 

 persons, carriage-exercise, if such it may be called, and frictions, by 

 means of bath-sheets and gloves, over the surface of the body and 

 extremities, are the best substitutes for active exertion. 



Time for Exercise The proper periods for exercise are when 

 the system is not depressed by fasting or fatigue, nor oppressed by 

 the process of digestion. The robust may take exercise before 

 breakfast; but delicate persons, who often become faint from exer- 



