MEISO. 437 



attained. When we speak of physical culture, in the minds of many will at once 

 arise the remembrance of some great athlete we may have seen or known ; and 

 vision of red, brawn, sinewy limbs, great knotted muscles, and wondrous feats of 

 arms and legs will appear. But true physical culture is a term whose signifi- 

 cations should not be narrowed to the consideration of a culture whose end is 

 only the development of one part and phase of the physique. It is the cultiva- 

 tion to the furtherest extent in the safest way, and to the full possibility, of every 

 organ and function of the body. The hardest limbs may be but the overgrown 

 and over-educated accompaniment of a weak heart or dyspeptic stomach, or may 

 lead to them. The swiftest runner may forget that the lungs need training as 

 well as the legs, and a consumptive may thus have cause to remember his races, 

 and repent them. But more likely then either, the stomach, lungs or heart to be 

 forgotten in the effort for high bodily powers, are the most important organs of 

 all. The nerves doing their duties as messengers and stimulators, from the com- 

 mander, the brain, to its subjects the muscles, silently motionlessly, and with all 

 the mystery of a perfect telegraph system, are most liable to be forgotten and 

 left to care for themselves, or more often, are taxed beyond their capabilities and 

 irreparably injured for life. The strain must be equal and every function carried 

 systematically to its fullest development. 



Physical culture should keep pace with mental development, bodily exercise 

 accompany and supplement intellectual work. The amount of physical exercise 

 should be just enough and of just such a kind as will rest the mind and divide 

 with it the burden of life and work. It should be neither prolonged nor excessive, 

 and should be constant and regularly taken. Each brain must be the judge of 

 how much and what variety of exercise the body that houses and serves it de- 

 mands. The hard worked clerk who stands for hours in the close atmosphere of a 

 store does not require the gymnasium as much as he does the open air, nor exercise 

 for his legs as much as he does for his lungs, while many a busy man whose calling 

 keeps him in the street can find exactly what he needs only on the horizontal 

 bars or with the Indian clubs. The part to be worked and -stimulated should be 

 the one most neglected. Yet the proper care of the body means care of the whole 

 body, and watch must be kept on all sides lest some function be overdone at the 

 expense of some equally important one. The safe course is to test them all from 

 time to time and build up and revivify the weaker ones as occasion may demand, 

 not forgetting that moderation is a physical as well as a moral virtue. 



MEISO. 



BY PROF. D. P. PENHALLOW, LATE OF THE IMPERIAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



OF JAPAN. 



It is well known that the Japanese are a rice-eating people, with whom this 

 article, Meiso, is perhaps, the most important of all their foods, but it is not so 

 generally known that the flesh of animals could hardly be considered a regular 



