666 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



They were inured to toil, to severe exercise. Their 

 bodies were developed so as to fit them for the duties 

 of maternity, and give them such constitutions to be- 

 queath to their children as would insure hardihood, 

 courage, and stamina in the conflict with the world to 

 obtain a subsistence, and with human foemen in the 

 rage of battle. The women developed by this system 

 of culture were immortalized in marble, and the beauty 

 of their forms has been the envy of the world from 

 that day to this ; yet no one seems to think of attempt- 

 ing to gain the same beauty in the same way. It might 

 be done; there is no reason why it cannot be; but the 

 only way is the one which the Grecian women adopted, 

 —physical culture. 



Overtraining. —The careful observation of results 

 in large numbers of cases shows very clearly that there 

 is such a thing as overtraining, and that excessive 

 development of the muscular system is not only a dis- 

 advantage, but absolutely harmful. Trainers are not 

 long-lived. Dr. Winship, who developed his muscles 

 until he was able to lift three thousand pounds, died 

 when he should have been in his prime. The result 

 of overtraining, or excessive development of the mus- 

 cular system, is the weakening of other vital parts of 

 the body. Sjonmetrical development is the best for 

 health and long life. This is what we plead for, not 

 for extremes in any direction. Let the nerves and the 

 muscles be developed together and equably, and we 

 shall have better results from both than would other- 

 wise be possible. Mens sana in corpore sano was the 

 motto of the ancient Greeks; and the experience of 

 every day shows that the man with strong muscles and 

 good digestion, with fair intellectual abilities, is the 

 one who wins the goal to-day in the strife for wealth 



