SAINTS, AND THEIR BODIES 21 
slightly reproached with juvenility, for still 
clinging to football, though a Senior Sophister. 
Juvenility! He only wishes he had the op- 
portunity now. Mature men are, of course, 
intended to take not less but more of active 
exercise than boys. Some physiologists go so 
far as to demand six hours of outdoor life daily ; 
and it is absurd to complain that we have not 
the healthy animal happiness of children, while 
we forswear their simple sources of pleasure. 
Most of the exercise habitually taken by men 
of sedentary pursuits is in the form of walking. 
Its merits may be easily overrated. Walking 
is to real exercise what vegetable food is to 
animal ; it satisfies the appetite, but the nour- 
ishment is not sufficiently concentrated to be 
invigorating. It takes a man outdoors, and it 
uses his muscles, and therefore of course it is 
good; but it is not the best kind of good. 
Walking, for walking’s sake, becomes tedious. 
We must not ignore the play-impulse in hu- 
man nature, which, according to Schiller, is 
the foundation of all Art. In girls’ boarding- 
schools, teachers uniformly testify to the 
aversion of pupils to the prescribed walk. Give 
them a sled, or a pair of skates, or a rowboat, or 
put them on horseback, and they will protract 
the period of exercise till the complaint is trans- 
ferred to the preceptor. 
