BOXING. 239 



bully, or drunken brute, or other infuriated animal. The cool- 

 ness of head, the quick judgment, and prompt action of a 

 trained boxer frequently save one from serious injury, and 

 add not a little to personal comfort. Like tennis, boxing 

 calls for little apparatus, little space, and only two persons. 

 In many places where ordinary gymnasium work is out of the 

 question, boxing is available. It is indeed a " manly art " ; 

 and the doctrine taught in Tom Brown's School Days at 

 Rugby is as wholesome as can be given to boys to make them 

 strong and active, to give them physical and moral health. 



Dancing is, in itself, an admirable exercise. But the very 

 exhilaration to which it owes one of its chief benefits creates 

 a tendency to over-exercise. As usually conducted, indoors, 

 frequently prolonged into the late hours, where the ventila- 

 tion is not always looked after, and there is likelihood of tak- 

 ing cold afterward, this exercise has many drawbacks. If 

 parents were wiser they would see that this very attractive 

 amusement will be indulged in, sooner or later, by most young 

 people ; and they would, perhaps, endeavor to regulate what 

 they cannot prohibit. By going with their children, by see- 

 ing what company and what hours are kept, even more, by 

 joining them so far as their age permits, this beautiful exer- 

 cise would prove beneficial, and would not meet the sweeping 

 (sometimes deserved) condemnation which it now receives in 

 many quarters. 



In many of the older writings we have met the statement 

 that sedentary persons, especially students, get a fair amount 

 of exercise of the lower limbs in walking to and from their 

 daily work, and that what they especially need is the exercise 

 of the arms and the upper parts of the body. But, while this 

 is to a certain extent true, the practice has been, in many 

 systems of gymnastics, carried to an extreme. Lagrange, 

 in his book, Physiology of Bodily Exercise, emphasizes the 



