KINDS 0* EXERCISE. 131 



useful sports, and in fishing. Such exercises have 

 the additional advantage of animating the mind, and, 

 by increasing the nervous stimulus, making exertion 

 easy, pleasant, and invigorating. 



Pedestrian excursions, in pursuit of mineralogi- 

 cal or botanical specimens, or in search of scenery, 

 combine in their results all the advantages which 

 well-conducted exercise is capable of yielding, and 

 are much resorted to in the German seminaries, for 

 the purpose of developing the mental and bodily 

 powers. In summer, walking excursions to the 

 Highlands of Scotland are common among the youth 

 of our cities, and when proportioned in extent to 

 the constitutions and previous habits of the individ- 

 uals, nothing can be more advantageous and delight- 

 ful. But not a season passes in which health is not 

 sacrificed and life lost by young men imprudently 

 exceeding their natural powers, and undertaking 

 journeys and excursions for which they are totally 

 unfitted. It is no unusual thing for youths still 

 weak from rapid growth, and perhaps accustomed 

 to the desk, to set out in high spirits at the rate of 

 twenty-five or thirty miles a day, on a walking ex- 

 cursion, and (in consequence of carrying exercise, 

 for days in succession, to the third degree, or that 

 in which waste exceeds nutrition) to come home so 

 much worn out and debilitated that they never re- 

 cover. Young soldiers, whose growth is scarcely 

 finished, are well known to die in great numbers, 

 when exposed to long and heavy marches, particu- 

 larly when food is at the same time scanty. Even 

 a single day of excessive fatigue will sometimes 

 suffice to produce permanent bad health; and I 

 know one instance of a strong young man, who 

 brought on a severe illness and permanent debility, 

 by a sudden return to hard exercise for a single day, 

 although some years before he had been accus- 

 tomed to every species of muscular exertion in run- 

 ning, leaping, and swimming. Many young men 



