17 



frequent occurrence of the opposite peculiarities 

 strengthens the analogical proof just given, that 

 this is not a necessary state of things. From the 

 Sacred History it would seem (comparing 1st 

 Chronicles, xii — 2, and Judges, xx— 16), whatever 

 may be the etymology of the Hebrew word for 

 left-handed, that the men who could sling stones 

 at an hair breadth, and not miss, were such as 

 used hofk hands alike. 



§ 4. On the principle that the inequality of 

 strength in the arms was to be remedied, consid- 

 erable attention was at one time paid in the Brit- 

 ish army to exercising the left arm. It might ap- 

 pear to be a sufficient remedy for grown men that 

 they should exercise the neglected arm, and for 

 children, that they should be educated in exercis- 

 ing both arms equallj^ ; but, in the former case, the 

 results of so many years' previous habit having to 

 be overcome, the remedy hardly reaches the centre 

 of motion;- and, in the latter case, so long as 

 children are subject to the prevailing customs, par- 

 ticularly those of always reading to the right, 



♦Perhaps the nearest approach to a fuudamental remedy is the rule 

 given in the French, and in the, from them translated, U. S. Cavalry 

 Tactics to " keep the right shoulder forward," but, unless there be a 

 good understanding that this means the upper right side of the chest, 

 it, too, may fall under the category of covering one fault by another. 



