MENTAL AND MUSCULAR EXERCISE. Ill 



cles is felt after witnessing a pantomime, or other 

 continuous spectacle, by which we are induced to 

 keep the neck for a long time in a constrained and 

 unvaried position. 



Instead, therefore, of so many successive hours 

 being devoted to study and to books, the employ- 

 ments of the young ought to be varied and inter- 

 rupted by proper intervals of cheerful and exhilarat- 

 ing exercise, such as is derived from games of dex- 

 terity, which require the co-operation and society 

 of companions. This is infinitely preferable to the 

 solemn processions which are so often substituted 

 for exercise, and which are hurtful, inasmuch as 

 they delude parents and teachers into the notion 

 that they constitute in reality that which they only 

 counterfeit and supersede. We have already seen 

 what an important part the mental stimulus and 

 nervous impulse perform, in exciting, sustaining, 

 and directing muscular activity ; and how difficult 

 and inefficient muscular contraction becomes, when 

 the mind, which directs it, is languid, or absorbed by 

 other employments. The playful gambolling and 

 varied movements which are so characteristic of 

 the young of all animals, man not excepted, and 

 which are at once so pleasing and so beneficial, show 

 that, to render it beneficial in its fullest extent, 

 nature requires amusement and sprightliness of 

 Blind to be combined with, and be the source of, 

 muscular exercise ; and that, when deprived of this 

 healthful condition, it is a mere evasion of her law, 

 and is not followed by a tithe of the advantages 

 resulting from its real fulfilment. The buoyancy 

 of spirit and comparative independence enjoyed by 

 boys when out of school prevent them suffering so 

 much from this cause as girls do ; but the injury 

 inflicted on both is the more unpardonable, on ac- 

 count of the ease with which it might be entirely 

 avoided 



Facts illustrative of the influence of mental, co- 

 operating with and aiding muscular, activity, must 



