All that people need for their daily in-door exercises is a few pieces of apparatus which are fortunately so simple and inexpensive as to be within the reach of most persons. Buy two pitchfork handles at the agricultural store. Cut off enough of one of them to leave the main piece a quarter of an inch shorter than the distance between the jambs of your bedroom door, and square the ends. On each of these jambs fasten two stout hard-wood cleats, so slotted that the squared ends of the bar shall fit in snugly enough not to turn. Let the two lower cleats be directly opposite each other, and about as high as your shoulder; the other two also opposite each other, and as high above the head as you can comfortably reach.
Again, bore into the jamb, at about the height of your waist, a hole as large as the bar is thick. Now work the auger farther into each hole, till it reaches the first piece of studding, and then an inch or so into that. Find how many inches it is from the jamb to the end of the bore in the studding, and cut the second fork handle in halves. Pass one half through the hole in the jamb, and set its end into the hole in the studding. Bore a similar hole in the other jamb directly opposite, and repeat the last-named process with its nearest studding-piece, and adjust remainder of the fork handle to it. Now cut enough off each piece of the handle to leave the distance between the two about eighteen inches. You have then provided yourself with a pair of bars on which you can try one of the exercises usually practised on the parallel bars, and that one worth almost as much as all the rest. (See Fig. 3.)
Fig. 3.
On the following page is a sketch of a pair of pulley-weights recently made, designed by Dr. Sargent, which are excellent. Their merits will be seen at a glance. Instead of the weights swaying sideways and banging against the boxes, as they are liable to do in the ordinary old-fashioned pulley-weight boxes, they travel in boxes, A A, between the rods B B. A rubber bed also prevents the weight from making a noise as it strikes the floor, while another capital feature is the arrangement of boxes, in which you may graduate the weight desired by adding little plates of a pound each, instead of the unchanging weight of the old plan.
Fig. 4.
One of these boxes, with its load, can easily be used as a rowing-weight, by rigging a pulley-wheel a few inches above the floor, and directly in front of the weight box, and then making the rope long enough to also pass under this pulley. A stick of the thickness of an oar handle can then be attached to the end of the rope. If the old-fashioned pulley-weights are preferred, as they are cheaper, long boxes take the place of these iron rods, and a common iron weight travels up and down in the boxes. At some of the gymnasiums—that of the Young Men's Christian Association in New York, for example—these weights, of various sizes, snaffles, ropes, and handles, can all be had, of approved pattern and at reasonable rates.
Here, then, we have a horizontal bar fitted for most of the uses of that valuable appliance, a pair of parallel bars, or their equivalent for certain purposes, a pair of pulling-weights, and a rowing-weight. Now, with the addition of a pair of dumb-bells, weighing at first about one twenty-fifth of the user's own weight, we have a gymnasium more comprehensive than most persons would imagine. Mr. Bryant was contented for forty years with less apparatus even than this, and yet look at the benefit he derived from it![D] The bar, cleats, and parallels ought to be made and put up for not over two dollars, and four or five dollars more will cover the cost of pulling-weights and gear on the old plan, unless a heavy rowing-weight is added, which can be had at five cents a pound, which is also the price of well-shaped dumb-bells.
Here is a gymnasium, then, under cover, rent free, exactly at hand, when one is lightly clad on rising or just before retiring, which takes up but little room, can hardly get out of order, which will last a dozen years. With these few bits of apparatus every muscle of the trunk, nearly all those of the legs, and all those of the arms, can, by a few exercises so simple that they can be learned at a single trying, be brought into active play. The bar in the upper place will be useful mainly for grasping, hanging, or swinging on by the hands, or for pulling one's self up until the chin touches it. In the lower place it enables one to perform very many of the exercises usual on the horizontal bar. The short bars or handles have scarcely more than one office, but that is one of the most important of all exercises for the weak-armed and the weak-chested. This exercise is the one called "dipping." The bars are grasped with the hands, the feet being held up off the floor; then, starting with the elbows straight, gradually lowering until the elbows are bent as far as possible, then rising till they are straight again, and so continuing.
The pulley-weights admit of a great variety of uses, reaching directly every muscle of the hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, chest, abdomen, the entire back and neck; while, by placing one foot in the handle and pulling the weight with it, several of the leg muscles soon have plenty to do, as is also the case with the rowing-weight. The field of the dumb-bells is hardly less extensive.
If but one of these pieces of apparatus can be had, the pulley-weights are the most comprehensive, and so the most important, though it is astonishing how closely the dumb-bells follow; and then they have the great advantage of being portable. Combine with the exercises you can get from all this apparatus those which need none at all, such as rising on the toes, hopping, stooping low, walking, running, leaping, and no more tools are needed to develop whatever muscles one likes. What special work will employ any particular muscle will be indicated later.
If the apparatus is only to be used by a man or boy, a striking-bag can be made of seven or eight pieces of soft calf-skin, so that the whole, when full of sawdust, shall be either round like a ball or pear-shaped, and shall be about fifteen inches in horizontal diameter. This should be hung on a rope from a hook screwed into one of the beams of the ceiling. This makes a valuable acquisition to the snug little home-gymnasium. For a person having a weak chest, and who aims to broaden and deepen that important region, perhaps no better and safer contrivance can be had than the one sketched in Fig. 8, on page 248.
The fact of having a few bits of apparatus close at hand, when one is lightly clad, will tend to tempt any one to get at them a little while morning and evening. If a parent wants children to use them, instead of placing the apparatus in his own room, the nursery, or an empty room where all can have ready access, would be better. Of course, in such case there should be additional weights, and dumb-bells suited to the age and strength of those who are to use them.[E] Indeed, by providing children at home with articles which they like to use, and the use of which brings much direct good, the nursery has a new value—greater, perhaps, when made the most of, than it ever had before. All the exercises needed to make children strong can be readily learned, as all of them are exceedingly simple. In another place these exercises will be indicated. The parent can then select those exercises he sees the child needs, and teach them in a few minutes, so arranging it as to get the children to exercise a certain time every day. As has been shown, the cost of all these appliances will not be nearly as much as a moderate doctor's bill, and quite as little as the patent gymnastic articles, which are so often praised, mostly by people who know little or nothing of other forms of exercise than those fitted to their own apparatus. A large beam, for instance, has been devised, with handles fastened by a contrivance above it, which is meant to restore the spine (when out of place) to its proper position. But there is scarcely anything it can accomplish which cannot readily be done on some one of these simple, old-fashioned, and far less cumbrous pieces of apparatus.
Again, in the large cities there are establishments where the chief and almost the sole exercise is with the lifting-machine. A person, standing nearly erect, is made to lift heavy weights often of several hundred, and even a thousand or more pounds. The writer, when a lad of seventeen, worked a few minutes nearly every day for six months on a machine of this kind; and while it seemed a fine thing to lift six hundred pounds at first, and over a thousand toward the end, there came an unquestioned stiffening of the back, as though the vertebræ were packed so closely together as to prevent their free action. There came also a very noticeable and abnormal development of three sets of muscles: those of the inner side of the forearm, the lower and inner end of the front thigh just above the knee, and those highest up on the back, branching outward from the base of the neck. With considerable other vigorous exercise taken at the same time, this heavy lifting still produced the most marked effect, so that the development caused by it was soon large, out of all proportion compared with that resulting from the other work.
Now, if it is the fact that they who practice on the "health lift" ordinarily take little or no other vigorous exercise, why is not this same partial development going to result? And if this is the case, is it not rather a questionable exercise, especially for those to whom it is so highly recommended—the sedentary—and even worse for those who stand at desks all day? We have seen it make one very stiff and ungainly in his movements, and it is natural that it should; for he who does work of the grade suited to a truck-horse is far more likely to acquire the heavy and ponderous ways of that worthy animal than he who spreads his exercise over all, or nearly all, his muscles, instead of confining it to a few, and who makes many vigorous and less hazardous efforts instead of a single mighty one. All the muscles of the arm, for instance, which are used in striking out, putting up a dumb-bell, or any sort of pushing, are wholly idle in this severe pulling—more so, even, than they are in the oarsman when rowing. Hence, unless they get even work, there will be loss of symmetry, one-sided development, and only partial strength.
Another popular piece of apparatus is the "parlor gymnasium;" and, though needlessly expensive, it is a surprisingly useful affair, if once one knows how to use it to the best effect. But it has some disadvantages which, while not conceded by its inventor, it is yet well enough to know. In its more elaborate and complete form it is called the "Parlor Rowing Apparatus," and is also described as "the most complete rowing apparatus in the world." In reality it is very poorly adapted to the oarsman's wants, and tends to get him into habits he should, if he wishes to be a good oar, be careful to refrain from. It is a matter of supreme importance in rowing to get a strong grip at the beginning of the stroke, and to put the weight on heavily then; while it is a glaring fault to do anything like jerking toward the end of the stroke. But with this parlor rowing-machine, instead of lifting a solid weight, as in the ordinary rowing-weight, a rubber strap, or, rather, two rubber straps, are simply stretched while the stroke is pulled, and then slackened to begin the next. The trouble is that the straps have to be pulled nearly half the length of the stroke before it begins to grow hard to pull, so that throwing one's weight on heavily at the beginning causes the rower to feel somewhat as he would if, in taking a stroke in a boat, his oar-blade had missed the water entirely, or as a boxer who unexpectedly beats the air. The better the beginning of a stroke is caught in the water, the more the fulcrum of water itself solidifies, and by so much more can the rower throw his weight on then, and at just the right time. The effect with the rubber straps is the very reverse; for, in throwing the weight on at the beginning, the straps do not offer enough resistance to have the desired effect, while they offer too much at the finish of the stroke. This same defect stands out plainly in some of the pushing exercises done with it, as well as in using it as a lifting-machine, making it necessary, for the latter purpose, not to catch hold of the handles at all, but, as we have seen the inventor himself do, somewhere toward the middle of the straps, else the knees would get entirely straightened before the tension became great, which would force the bulk of the work to be done with the hands. Great care must be taken, also, to have the bolts at the farther ends of these straps fastened very firmly into the wood-work, or wherever they are attached; for if, under a heavy pull, one of these bolts should work out, it would be in great danger of striking the performer in the eye or elsewhere with terrific force.
Still, with these few defects, this parlor rowing apparatus is an excellent contrivance, and, used intelligently and assiduously, ought to bring almost any development a person might reasonably hope for, though its range is hardly as wide as that of these few bits of house apparatus before named, when taken together. There is nothing novel about the latter, excepting Dr. Sargent's apparatus for the chest. All have been known for a generation or more. But the many uses of them are but little known, and their introduction into our homes and schools has hardly yet begun. Yet, so wide is the range of exercise one can have with them, and of exercise of the very sort so many people need; and so simple is the method of working them, so free, too, from danger or anything which induces one to overwork, and so inexpensive are they and easy to make, that they ought to be as common in our homes as are warm carpets and bright firesides. Every member of the family, both old and young, should use them daily, enough to keep both the home-gymnasium and its users in good working order.
But, well adapted as our homes are in many ways for the proper care and development of the body, there is one place which, in almost every particular, surpasses them in this direction, if its advantages are understood and fully appreciated, and that is the school. A father may so arrange his time that a brief portion of it daily can be regularly allotted to the physical improvement of the children, as John Stuart Mill's father did his for his son's mental improvement, and with such remarkable results. But most fathers, from never having formed the habit, will be slow to learn it, and their time is already so taken up that it will seem impossible to spare any. The mother, being more with the child, feels its needs and lacks the more keenly, and would gladly deny herself much could she assure her children ruddy health. But her day is also by no means an idle one, and, just when she could best spare half an hour, it is hardest to have them with her. Besides, in too many instances she is herself far from strong, and needs some one to point out to her the way to physical improvement more, even, than do her children.
There is a feeling that the child is sent to school to be educated, and that certain trained persons are paid to devote their time to that education. As they are supposed to bring the children forward in certain directions, this leads easily to the conclusion that they would be the proper persons to care for other parts of that education as well. Nor is this view so wide of the mark. The teacher has always a considerable number of scholars. He can encourage the slower by the example of the quicker; he can arouse the emulation, he can get work easily out of a number together, where one or two would be hard to move. If he rightly understood his power; if he knew how easy it is, by a little judicious daily work, to prevent or remove incipient deformity, to strengthen the weak, to form in the pupil the habit of sitting and standing erect, to add to the general strength, to freshen the spirits, and do good in other ways, he would gladly give whatever time daily would be necessary to the work, while, like most persons who try to benefit others, he would find that he himself would gain much by it as well. He has not a class of pupils stiffened by long years of hard overwork of some muscles, and with others dormant and undeveloped. The time when children are with him is almost the best time in their whole lives to shape them as he chooses, not morally or mentally only, but physically as well. The one shoulder, a little higher than its mate, will not be half so hard to restore to place now as when confirmed in its position by long years of a bad habit, which should never have been tolerated a day. If the chest is weak and flat, or pigeon-breasted, now is the time to remove the defect. Build up the arms to be strong and comely now; accustom the chest and shoulders to their proper place, whatever their owner is at; cover the back with full and shapely muscles; get the feet used to the work which comes so easy and natural to them, once they are trained aright; and the same boy who would have grown up half-built, ungraceful, and far from strong, will now ripen into a manly, vigorous, well-knit man, of sound mind and body, familiar with the possibilities of that body, with what is the right use and what the abuse of it, and knowing well how to keep it in that condition which shall enable him to accomplish the best day's mental labor. And he will be far fitter to face the privations, anxieties, and troubles of life in the most successful way.
Nor is the rule at all difficult to follow. Little by little the boy's mind is led along, until the difficult problem in arithmetic seems no harder to him than did the adding of two and two at first. For hundreds of years the mental training of youth has been a matter of careful thought and study, and no effort is spared to secure the best advantages of all the teaching of the past. But with that past before him; with its many great men—not always, to be sure, but so often—men whose bodies were sturdy, and equal to the tremendous tasks which their great activity of mind led them willingly to assume, he is encouraged and urged to keep his mind under continual pressure for many hours daily, and every incentive is brought to make the most of him in this direction. And yet that which would have helped him in almost every step he took, which would have fitted him to stand with ease what now in a few years so often breaks him down, is totally ignored and left quite out of sight.
It is plainly no fault of his. The blame lies with the system which, for generations together, has gone along so blindly. The life a farmer's son leads makes him strong and hearty, and when his school-days are over his work is of such a sort as to maintain all his vigor. The city lad who plays on the brick sidewalks, born often of half-developed parents, has no daily tasks which bring his muscles into vigorous play, strengthening his digestion. Is there any possible reason why the city lad should be favored physically like the country boy? The first has every incentive for daily exercise, the latter none at all.
There ought to be no more delay in this matter of physical education in the schools. Prompt and vigorous steps should be taken to acquaint every school-teacher in this country with such exercises as would quickly restore the misshapen, insure an erect carriage, encourage habits of full breathing, and strengthen the entire trunk and every limb. If the teachers have not the requisite knowledge now, let it at once be acquired. They, of all persons, are expected to know how to acquire knowledge, and to aid others in doing the same. As soon as they have gained even partial knowledge of how to effect these things, let them lose no time in imparting that knowledge to the pupil.
Physical education ought to be made compulsory in every school in this land. Have it directly under the eye and guidance of the teacher, and have that teacher know that, at the quarterly or semi-annual examinations, reasonable progress will be expected in this department just as certainly as in any other, and if he is not up to his work, that some one who is will be put in his place. Then that progress will surely come. It has come already, where the means have been understood and used, as witness Maclaren abroad and Sargent here; and it brings such a benefit to the pupil that no pains should be spared to insure it.
Scarcely a week passes but the press of our larger cities repeats the story of some overworked man or woman breaking completely down with general debility, the body not only a wreck, but too often the mind as well. Had that body been early shaped, and hardened, and made vigorous—as, for instance, Chief-justice Marshall's father looked to it that his great son's was—and the habit formed of taking daily work, and of the right sort to keep it so, and had the importance of that care been impressed on the mind till it had fixed itself as firmly as the sense of decency or the need of being clean, is it likely that the person would have allowed himself to get so run down, or, if he did, to remain so?
The trouble usually is that the man does not know what to do to tone himself up and keep himself equal to his tasks, or that it needs but a little to effect this. He will spend money like water; he will travel fast and far; he will do almost anything, but he knows no certain cure. Is it not as important to have good health and strength as to figure or write correctly, to read the Æneids or Homer, to pick up a smattering of French or German? Who is the more likely, if his life be in-door and sedentary, not to live half his days—he who has never learned to build and strengthen his body, and keep it regulated and healthy, and to know the value of that health, or he who has?
Is not work which will almost surely lengthen one's life, and increase his usefulness, worth doing, especially when it takes but a very little while daily to do it, and less yet when the habit commenced in childhood? Go through our public and private schools, and see how few thoroughly well-built boys and girls there are. Good points are not scarce, but how small the proportion of the deep-chested, the well-made and robust, who give good promise of making strong and healthy men and women! Fortunately there is nothing really difficult in the work of strengthening the weak, making the somewhat crooked straight, of symmetrizing the partially developed; indeed, on the other hand, it is, when once understood, simple, inexpensive, and easy. More than all this, it is a work which the teacher will find that almost every scholar will take hold of, not, as in many other branches, with reluctance, but with alacrity; and it is always pleasant teaching those who are eager to learn.
But a little time each day is needed, never over half an hour of actual work in-doors and an hour out-of-doors. Suppose a teacher has forty pupils, and that thirty of them have either weak or indifferent chests. Let her form a chest-class out of the thirty, and, for ten minutes a day, let them practice exercises aimed exclusively to enlarge and develop the chest. Some of such exercises will be pointed out on page 245. Begin very gradually, so mildly that the weakest chest there shall have no ache or pain from the exercise. For the first week do that same work, and that much of it daily, and no more; but do it carefully, and do not miss a stroke. Let this exercise come at the appointed hour, as certainly as any other study. The second week make the work a trifle harder, or longer, or both. In this, and in every exercise, insist, as far as possible, on an erect carriage of the head and neck, and frequently point out their value. Insist, further, on the pupil's always inhaling as large, and full, and slow breaths as he can, seeing to it that every air-cell is brought into vigorous play. Be careful that he or she does not, without your knowledge, get hold of heavier apparatus, or try more difficult exercise in the same direction, before the muscles are trained to take it. Overdoing is not only useless, and sure to bring stiffness and aches, but it is in it that any danger lies, never in light and simple work, adapted to the pupil's present strength, and done under the teacher's eye, or in heavier work after he has been trained gradually up to it. Now, when a fortnight has gone by, use a little heavier weights; stay at the work without weights a little longer, or draw the pulley-weight a few more strokes daily, never forgetting to hold the head and neck erect.
Will dumb-bells and weight-boxes be necessary? Yes, or their equivalents. If the former cannot be had, flat-irons or cobble-stones of the same weight will do pretty well, and sand-bags can be used in the weight-boxes when pear-shaped weights or packed-boxes are scarce. It is a very small matter to supply a school with light dumb-bells, when they cost but five cents a pound, and when, if necessary to retrench, a quarter as many pairs of them as there are scholars will suffice. As will be shown in a later chapter, there is a very wide variety of exercises which could be practised in a school-room, which do not need one cent's worth of apparatus. They simply need to be known, and then faithfully practised, and most gratifying results are sure. In large cities it would be well to have all the teachers instructed by a competent master in the various exercises which they could so readily teach in school, and which would prove so beneficial to the scholars. London is already ahead of us in this direction. Harper's Weekly of February 8th, 1879, says: "The London School Board has appointed Miss Lofving, at a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year, as superintendent of 'physical education' in the girls' schools."
A man like Dr. Sargent, of the Fifth Avenue Gymnasium, in New York, could easily, in a few half-hour lessons, instruct the two thousand or more teachers of the public schools of that city in the simpler, and yet very valuable exercises. They would be then well qualified, in turn, to instruct all the pupils, and to so grade their exercises as to adapt the work to all. The ordinary gymnastic instructor, as years have shown, in most of our gymnasiums, lets the pupil do about as he has a mind to. This would be just about as effective as if the same rule was followed out in mental training. But men like Sargent, strict disciplinarians, trained physicians, and practical gymnasts as well, are far too scarce among us, and his is a field which many of our young physicians might enter with prospects of doing very great good in the community in which they live.
Let the school commissioners of each State look to this matter at once. Let them insist that each teacher shall forthwith obtain the knowledge requisite to properly instruct and bring forward every pupil in his or her class. A knowledge should be had of the exact kind and amount of work requisite for a class of a certain age. Let some suitable person or persons be appointed in the cities to supervise this branch of education, and see that the teachers are thoroughly qualified. Let the scholar understand that his body can be trained exactly as well as his mind, and that the sound health of both is intimately connected with having it so trained. Let the school-hours be so arranged that ten minutes in the middle of the morning session, and again in the afternoon, shall be allotted to this branch. See what Maclaren[F] did for the Radley and Magdalen boys in one hour a week! see what Sargent[G] did in our country for two hundred youth in two hours a week, and with wooden dumb-bells, very light clubs, and a few pulley-weights at that! Let people at once and forever get rid of the notion that this exercise is a mere play-spell, or that it is only good to make athletes or acrobats. It is as much a branch of education as any taught in our schools to-day; and who will question that, if such uniform and splendid progress was made in each school as was made in the cases just cited, and in different instances, with at first such unpromising pupils, the brief twenty minutes daily so spent would be as well spent and as valuable to each pupil as any other twenty or thirty minutes of his day? It should no more be allowed to interfere with their usual play than any other branch is. It is a matter of progress and development, in a way highly important to every scholar, and should be so treated, and the child's play-hours should be in no way curtailed to accomplish it.
Superintendent Philbrick, of the Boston schools, is a man of long experience in most matters connected with schools, their management, and wants. This gentlemen has lately received, at the Paris Exposition, high honor for his accomplishments in this direction. But are the schools of Boston to-day taking the care they ought to and could so easily take to make the children healthy and vigorous? Let Mr. Philbrick set about introducing into every public school in that city such a system of physical education as shall effect, for example, simply what Maclaren effected, what Sargent effected and is now effecting, and no more. Let him stick to his task as persistently, if need be, as Stanley stayed at his infinitely harder one, until every boy or girl who is graduated from a Boston school has a strong, shapely, and healthy body, and knows what did much to make it so, and what will keep it so. Then the east wind may blow over that good city, even until no gilding remains on the State-house dome, and the formerly weak throats and lungs will not mind it any more than they do the gentlest southern zephyr; Mr. Philbrick can feel, when he looks over his life's work, that he has accomplished a thing for the scholars of his charge, and introduced a public benefit, which will redound to his credit as long as the city stands. There is no more need of Americans having poor legs than Englishmen. There is no more need of a boy's chest remaining a slim and half-built affair at the Brimmer School, or the Boston Latin School, than there was at Radley.
When the good work is commenced, when other cities begin to send their delegates and committees to watch methods, progress, and results, to take steps to secure the same benefits for their own schools, then the admirable example Boston has set in leading off in this direction will be better understood. Then all will wonder why so simple, so sensible, so effective a course, conducive to present and future health and well-being, had not been thought of and been carried out long ago.
Few colleges of any pretension have not some sort of a gymnasium—indeed, hold it out to parents as one of the attractions. There is a building, and it has apparatus in it. The former often costs twice as much as needs be; the latter may be well made, and well suited to its purpose, or may not—in fact, more frequently is not. Instead of having apparatus graded, so as to have some for the slim and weak, some for the stout and broad, too often one pair of parallel bars or one size of rowing-weight must suffice for all. Frequently the apparatus getting loose, or worn, or out of repair, remains so. The director is little more than a janitor, and is so regarded. In many instances he does so little as to render this opinion a just one. Imperfect ventilation, and in winter lack of proper warmth, help to make it unattractive. The newly-arrived Freshman is generally run down and thin from overwork in preparing himself for college. Many a time, when much work was telling on him, he consoled himself with the thought that in the college-gymnasium, with his fellow-students about him all eagerly at work, he would soon pick up the strength he had lost, and perhaps come to be, in time, as strong as this or that fellow, a few years his senior, the fame of whose athletic exploits was more than local.
As a rule, the American student is not very strong on entering college. President Eliot, of Harvard, said, a few years ago, of a majority of those coming into that university, for instance, that they had "undeveloped muscles, a bad carriage, and an impaired digestion, without skill in out-of-door games, and unable to ride, row, swim, or shoot."
The student is usually inerect, and really needs "setting up" quite as much as the newly-arrived "pleb" at West Point. But does he get it? No. If coming from good stock, stronger than the average, and it happens to be a year when there is much interest in athletics, the rowing-men or the base-ball or foot-ball fellows will be after him. If they capture him, he will get plenty of work—more than enough—but in one single rut. If he knows something of the allurements of these sports, and desires to steer clear of them and be a reading man, still not to neglect his body, he is at a loss how to go to work. He finds a house full of apparatus, and does not know how to use it. He sees the boating and ball men hard at it, but on their hobbies, and looks about for something else to do. He finds no other class of fellows working with any vim, save those eager to show well as gymnasts. He falls in with these, takes nearly as much work the first day as they do, which is ten times too much for him, quite out of condition as he is. He becomes sore all over for two or three days, has no special ambition, after all, to be a gymnast, and, ten to one, throws up the whole business disgusted.
In the warmer months even the oarsmen and ball-players work out-of-doors, and, except a little brush by the new-comers during the first month or so, he finds the place deserted. At the start there was nobody to receive him, place him, and to encourage and invite him on. If naturally persistent, and he sticks to it awhile, he gropes about in a desultory way, now trying this and now that, until, neither increasing in size nor strength so fast as he had expected, he prefers to spend his spare hours in more attractive fields, and so drops the gymnasium, as many have done before him.
He has no more given it a fair trial than he would have his chemistry had he treated it in the same way. It is not his fault, for he knew no better. The whole method of bringing up most American boys does almost nothing to fit the average boy for even the simpler work of the gymnasium, let alone its more advanced steps. Often, in the university gymnasium, you will see fellows actually so weak in the arms that they can hardly get up in the parallel bars and rest their weight on their hands alone, much less go through them clear to the other end. It is a pretty suggestive commentary on the way these establishments are conducted that the men so lamentably deficient are by no means all from the new-comers, but often those who have nearly completed their course.
Yet here is a school which, rightly used, would do the average student more good, and would fit him better for his life's duties, than any other one branch in the whole curriculum.
But a few years since a son of a lawyer of national reputation, a highly gifted youth, made a most brilliant record at one of our best known colleges. All who knew him conceded him a distinguished future; and yet he was hardly well out of college when he took away his life. Had there been a reasonable, sensible allowance of daily muscular work, had the overtaxed brain been let rest awhile, and vigor cultivated in other directions, the rank, the general average, might have been a trifle lower, but a most efficient man saved for a long and honorable life. And yet every college has men who are practically following this one's plan, overworking their brains, cutting off both ends of the night, forcing their mental pace, till even the casual observer sees that they cannot stand it long, and must break down before their real life's race is well begun. Now, however exceptional may be the talents such a man has, does not his course show either dense ignorance of how to take care of himself, or a lack of something which would be worth far more than brilliant talents—namely, common-sense?
Ought there not to be some department in a college designed to bring round mental development, where the authorities would step in and prevent this suicidal course? Oh, but there are such and such lectures on health. Yes, and in most instances you might as well try and teach a boy to write by merely talking to him, taking care all the time that he have no pen or pencil in his hand. It is a matter of surprise that college faculties are not more alive to the defects of the gymnasium conducted right under their very eyes. In every other branch they require a definite and specific progress during a given time, an ability to pass successfully periodical examinations which shall show that progress, and, if the pupil fails, it tells on his general standing, and is an element which determines whether he is to remain in college.
But in the gymnasium there is nothing of the sort, and in many cases the young man need not step into it once during the four years unless he likes. This state of things is partly accounted for by the fact that too many of the professors in our colleges do not know anything about a gymnasium, and what it can do for a man. Indeed, often, if from practical experience they were better up in this knowledge, it would beneficially affect the reputation of their college as a live institution.
Nor is the director, with very few exceptions, the right sort of man for his place. Either the faculty have no conception what they do need here, or they effectually drive off the man they ought to have by starving him. Professors' salaries are generally small enough, but the director of the gymnasium seldom gets half so much as the poorest paid of his brother professors. Indeed, the latter do not regard him as an equal at all, and until they do so with good reason, there is little prospect of improvement in this direction. A doctor as ill up to his work as the average college gymnasium director would soon be without a patient.
Nor are the gymnasiums of our cities and towns much better off. New York city to-day, with one or two exceptions, is utterly without a gymnasium worthy of her. Two of the best known are situated, one far below the street level, the other directly over a stable, and formerly at least, if not still, a very redolent stable at that. There is generally plenty of apparatus, most of which is good enough; but the boy or man who comes to use it finds at once the same things wanting as does the student in the college gymnasium. If he can already raise a heavy dumb-bell over his head with his right hand, he may, and often does, go on increasing his power in this single direction, but in years actually gains little or no size or strength in his other arm, his legs, or any other part of his body. No one stops him, or even gives him an idea of the folly of his course; indeed, no one has the power to do so. Ordinarily the place is kept by a man simply to make a living. This secured, his ambition dies. He may be a boxer or an acrobat, or even a fair general gymnast. With one or two exceptions, we have yet to hear of an instance where the instructor has either devised a plan of class exercise which has proved attractive, or in a given time has brought about a decided increase in size and strength to a majority of his pupils in a specific and needed direction.
College rowing and base-ball, while often unquestionably benefiting those who took part in them, have been found to work detrimentally, but in a way, as will be shown in a moment, certainly not expected by the public. The colleges in this country which pay most attention to rowing are Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Columbia. It is well known that in both Oxford and Cambridge universities the men who row are numbered by hundreds; that over twenty eight-oared crews alone, to say nothing of other classes, are sometimes on the river at once, and that the problem for the "'Varsity" captain is not, as here, to find eight men all fitted for places in the boat, but, out of many fit, to tell which to take. For years the American press has reported the performances of our student oarsmen even oftener and more fully than the English non-sporting papers those of their own oarsmen, so that they have filled a larger space in the public eye. Men naturally thought that the interest among the students themselves was well-nigh universal, and many fathers expressed misgivings about sending sons to institutions where the regular curriculum seemed a secondary matter, and performance in athletic contests the chief thing.
Yet, strange as it may seem, this whole idea is an egregious mistake. Most of the students do take some interest in these contests, but it goes no farther than talking somewhat about them, and viewing them when they come off, and perhaps betting the amount of their term-bills on them. The number who actually take part, either in the racing or the ball matches, or in trying for a chance in them, is ridiculously small. Dr. Sargent says that at Yale College, where he has been for six years instructor in physical culture, they actually do not exceed three per cent. of the whole number of students, while five per cent. will include every man in college who takes active work at the gymnasium, on the river, or the ball-field! Any one familiar with American college athletics knows that the proportion of students who either play ball or row is probably, taking year and year together, about as great at Yale as anywhere in the country.
Surprising as these figures are, they prove conclusively that the present system of college athletics, so far as it assumes to benefit the students at large, or even a tithe of them, is an utter failure. Here, then, instead of the supposed advance in the general physical culture over that of years ago, there has been almost no advance. There are a few men who devote much time and attention to severe athletics, more than there is any need of, and become skilled and famous at them, but the great majority do little or nothing. Better ideas they doubtless have of what is and what is not creditable performance among the athletes, and also as to the progress that can be made in muscular development by direct and steady work. But that progress and that work they have no share in.
The very natural result follows, that the great majority of students, at graduation, average no better in size, strength, health, vigor, endurance, or stamina than those of a generation ago, or are any fitter to stand successfully the wear and tear of their life's work. Indeed, it is very doubtful if they are physically as well fitted for what is before them as the previous generation were, for in the latter case probably more came from farms and homes where much manual labor was necessary, while now a greater fraction are from the cities, or are the sons of parents whose occupation is mainly sedentary. Yet in that day gymnasiums at the colleges were almost unknown, while now they are general.
Does the gymnasium, then, pay? Yes, like a bath-tub—if used, and used sensibly; but if not, not. Then, as it is used so little, is it worth having?
At Harvard, for instance, to-day there is in process of erection, at great expense, a gymnasium which, when finished, will doubtless be the most costly building of the sort in this country, and very possibly the best appointed as well. But unless there is introduced some sensible and vigorous system of bringing the students regularly there, and working them while they are there, it will almost surely prove a failure, and accomplish little or no more good than did the old one. Now, suppose, first that this new institution is to be carried on with no more vigor or good sense than its predecessors. Next, suppose that, opposite this expensive affair, on some neighboring field, there were built a commodious shed, costing perhaps one-tenth as much as its more pretentious rival, strongly framed, weather-tight, sensibly arranged, well lit, and comfortably warmed, large enough, too, to admit, at the edge of the main room, of a running track of say twenty laps to the mile. In an L adjoining let there be ample and well-ventilated dressing-rooms, a locker for each student, and sufficient washing facilities to meet the demand. Suppose the ordinary sorts of apparatus were there, but made with great care, and of the proportions skilled gymnasts have found most suitable. Let there be, besides, all newly-invented appliances which have proved valuable, such as the twenty or more Dr. Sargent has introduced, and any other good ones as well. Suppose, too, that heavy weights for lifting, and all heavy clubs and dumb-bells, were carefully excluded.
On the walls there should be casts and drawings, showing well-proportioned and well-developed arms, legs, and trunks, and a brief statement with each of the various measurements and proportions, and the ages of the men from whom they were taken, and, if possible, the sort and amount of work done by each in their progress. These need by no means be all modern. Greece and Rome, Troy and Pompeii, could furnish their quota.
Suppose the director at once, on the joining of a pupil, recorded, on a page set apart specially in his register, the age, height, general physical characteristics, weight, girth of calf, thigh, hips, waist, lower chest, upper chest—both at rest and inflated—neck, upper arm—extended and drawn up—and the forearm, hand, and wrist, taking care to note the time of day the measurements were made, and also obtaining a photograph of the man as he then appeared in exercising costume. Suppose that, outside of the ordinary requirements as to method, decorum, order of using apparatus, and so on, the director refused to take any pupil who would not expressly agree to two things: first, to be at the gymnasium, stripped and ready for work, exactly at such a moment, four days out of the seven; second, to obey implicitly the director's orders, both as to what work he should do, and what omit.
Suppose the director's training had been such that he could tell at once, both from the looks and measurements of the man, where he was physically lacking, and that he so arranged his classes that all whose left hands were weaker than their right had left-handed work only until they were equalized up; that weak thighs, calves, abdominal muscles, chests, and backs had special work given them, bringing the desired parts directly into play, lightly as each needed at first, and then gradually working upward, the stronger parts, meanwhile, being at rest. Suppose this were continued until, at the end of the year, or often long before it, it is found that one arm is now as strong as the other, that the gain in girth at almost every measurement is nearly or all of an inch, and at some even two or more inches.
Suppose a series of exercises, aimed directly to enlarge and strengthen the respiratory power, were given to all, and every one, also, had a few minutes each day of "setting up," and other work aimed not so much to add size and strength as to make the crooked straight, to point out and insist on a proper carriage of the head, the neck, the shoulders, the arms, the whole trunk, and the knees, and to show each pupil what length of step best suited him, and which he ought to take.
Suppose that the director showed at once that he not only knew what to do all through, but how to do it, and so promptly won the confidence of those he sought to instruct and benefit.
Is there any question in which of these two institutions the young man would make the most desirable progress? The first building and apparatus might be grand, fitted up with nearly all that could be desired, but the gymnasium lacked a masterhead who should show its possibilities. Gymnasium and apparatus were like an engine without steam. The second building was not of much account as a building, but quite all that was needed for the real end in view. The London Rowing-club boat-houses were for a long time mere sheds, not to be named in the same day with the tasteful stone boat-houses along the Schuylkill, for instance; but those same plain sheds have for many years turned out amateur oarsmen who could row down any in the world.
And what a benefit a gymnasium conducted on some plan similar to that above suggested would be to any college or university! And yet almost any college, even of limited means, could afford it. Change the plan a little, and make the attendance by all students just as it is in other branches—just as it is at West Point in horseback practice—compulsory. Give the director a salary adequate to secure a first-class man in his calling—not merely an accomplished gymnast, acrobat, boxer, or fencer, but an educated physician, the peer of any of his brother-members of the faculty, fond of his calling, fond of the field before him, thoroughly acquainted with the plainer kinds of gymnastics and of acrobatic work, and a good boxer, an instructor especially quick in detecting the physical defects in his pupil, in knowing what exercise will cure them, zealous in interesting him, in encouraging him on, what incalculable good he could do! Every student in that college would practically have to be made over. Long before the four years, or even one of them, were through, that instructor would have made all the men erect (as is daily being done with the West Pointer). But his pupils, instead of being like the latter, developed simply in those muscles which his business called into play, would each be well developed all over, would each be up to what a well-built man of his years and size ought to be in the way of strength, and skill, and staying powers, and—a most important thing—would know what he could do, and what he could not; and so would not, as is now every day the case with many, attempt physical efforts long before he was fitted for them.
If he wanted to go into racing, the director would be his best friend, and would point out to him that the only safe way to get one's heart and lungs used to the violent action which they must undergo in racing, especially after the racer gets tired, would be by gradually increasing his speed from slow up to the desired pace, instead of, as too often happens, getting up to racing pace before he is half fit for it.
But he would also show him how one-sided it would make him, developing some parts, and letting others remain idle and fall behind in development, and—more important still—how brief and ephemeral was the fame which he was working for, and the risks of overdoing which it entailed.
Let one college in this land graduate each year a class of which every man has an erect carriage and mien, has the legs and arms, the back and chest, not of a Hercules, not of a prize racer or fighter, but of a hale, comely, strong, and well-proportioned man, and see how well it would pay. Bear in mind that an hour a day put in in the right way and at the right work will effect all this in far less time than four years of trying. The hardest-reading man can readily spare the time for it, especially if he must. What! would it take him from the thin, cadaverous fellow he too often is, and do all that for him? Beyond all doubt it would. Such vigorous work would soon sharpen his appetite, and he would find that, eat all he liked, he could digest it promptly, and would feel all the better for his generous living. The generous living has fed muscles now vigorously used; they have been enlarged and strengthened: the legs, which never used to try to jump a cubit high, even, once in the whole year, now carry their owner safely over a four-rail fence, and perhaps another rail, or even two of them. The lungs, which were scarcely half expanded, now have every air-cell thoroughly filled for at least one entire hour daily—an excellent thing for weak lungs. Correct positions of standing, sitting, walking, and running being now well known and understood, the lungs get more air into them than formerly, even when their owner is at rest. Another effect of it all is shown in a decidedly more vigorous circulation, and the consequent exhilaration and buoyancy of spirits, no matter whether the work in hand is mental or physical.
But will not this hour's work dull him mentally? It may be proper to digress for a moment and see if it will. Of men who have done just this kind and amount of work, this work aimed at every part of the body, we find no record, simply because, as we have already shown, considerable as the increased interest is in physical culture and development, this plan of reaching all the parts and being just to all, has scarcely been tried. But abundant proof that some physical exercise will not dull the man, but even brighten him, can be had without difficulty. A moment's reflection will show that a mind ever on the stretch must, like a bow so kept, be the worse for it, and that the strain must be occasionally slacked. There are two ways of slacking it. Both the physician and experience tell us that nothing rests a tired brain like sensible, physical exercise, except, of course, sleep.
"When in active use," says Mitchell, "the thinking organs become full of blood, and, as Dr. Lombard has shown, rise in temperature, while the feet and hands become cold. Nature meant that for their work they should be, in the first place, supplied with food; next, that they should have certain intervals of rest to rid themselves of the excess of blood accumulated during their periods of activity; and this is to be done by sleep, and also by bringing into play the physical machinery of the body, such as the muscles—that is to say, by exercise which flushes the parts engaged in it, and so depletes the brain."[H]
Here, then, some physical exercise will rest his brain, and fit it for more and better work. But this does not necessarily imply so much as is called for in the hour. Happily, however, there is no lack of instances where work, quite as vigorous, though not as well directed, has accompanied mental work of a very high order, and to all appearances has been a help rather than a hinderance. Instead of one hour a day, Napoleon for years was in the saddle several hours almost daily, but we never heard that it clogged his mind. Charles O'Conor, always fond of long walks, is good at them to-day, and noticeably erect and quick of movement, though for weeks he once lay at death's door, and though he was born in 1804. James Russell Lowell, sturdy, broad, and ruddy, is said to never ride when he can walk, and he is nearly sixty. Gladstone's reputation as an axeman among the Hawarden oaks has reached our shores. Indeed, it is doubtful if there are many better fellers of his age in Europe, and he was born in 1809. Mr. M.H. Beebee, the present senior tutor at Cambridge University in England, who rowed at number two in the "'Varsity" eight against Oxford in '65, not only took the very highest university honor—a double-first—but a much higher double-first than even Gladstone had taken years before. The fencing, duelling, and hard riding of Bismarck's youth do not seem to have perceptibly dimmed his intellect, or to have unfitted it for enormous and very important work in later life.
And while the in-door work equalizes the strength, and takes care of the arms and chest, the hour's "constitutional" daily out-of-doors has an especial advantage, in that it insures at least that much out-of-door life and air. Dr. Mitchell says, "When exposure to out-of-door air is associated with a fair share of physical exertion, it is an immense safeguard against the ills of anxiety and too much brain-work. I presume that very few of our generals could have gone through with their terrible task if it had not been that they lived in the open air and exercised freely. For these reasons I do not doubt that the effects of our great contest were far more severely felt by the Secretary of War and the late President than by Grant or Sherman."
A recent, interesting, and wonderfully apt instance, more so than any of these, one going straight to the point, and as nearly as possible the equivalent of what we propose to urge later on all sedentary men, one where the proof comes directly from the gentleman's own pen, is that of the late Mr. Bryant, whose letter on the subject, written to a friend in 1871, will be found on page 169. With characteristic sturdiness, with no one to aid or guide him, he hit on a plan of work to be done, partly in his little home-gymnasium, and partly on the road, and stuck faithfully to it till well over fourscore, and at eighty-two he told the writer that he continued his exercise simply because it paid. His aim was to keep all his machinery in working order, and to prolong his life; and when he did die, at eighty-four, it was not from old age, not because his functions were worn out. With his usual vigor and energy when any writing was to be done, he had thrown himself into his work of preparing his address at the Mazzini celebration, till, tired and exhausted, the undue exposure to the hot sun and the resulting fall were too much for him, and these were what took him away.
But the plan here suggested will not only cover all he did, but more. Bryant does not seem to have cared for erectness, nor for a harmonious development of all the muscles. But had the amount of work he took been so directed, he might in youth have attained that harmony, and maintained it through life, as Vanderbilt maintained his erectness.
There need be little fear, then, that a right use of the gymnasium will overdo. No better safeguard against that could be had than a wise director, familiar with the capacities of his pupil, watching him daily, instilling sound principles, and giving him the very work he needs. Under such a tutor a young man who went to college, on receiving his degree, would, if his moral and mental duties were attended to, be graduated, not with an educated mind alone, but an educated body as well; not with merely a bright head, and a body and legs like a pair of tongs. If the history of brave, independent, earnest, pure men goes for anything, it will be found that as the body was healthy and strong, it has in many a pass in life directly aided moral culture and strength, and has kept the man from defiling that body which was meant to be kept sacred.
In a country like ours, where the masses are so intelligent, where so much care is taken to secure what is called a good education, the ignorance as to what can be done to the body by a little systematic physical education is simply marvellous. Few persons seem to be aware that any limb, or any part of it, can be developed from a state of weakness and deficiency to one of fulness, strength, and beauty, and that equal attention to all the limbs, and to the body as well, will work like result throughout. A man spends three or four weeks at the hay and grain harvest, and is surprised at the increased grip of his hands, and the new power of arm and back. He tramps through forests, and paddles up streams and lakes after game, and returns wondering how three or four miles on a level sidewalk could ever have tired him.
An acquaintance of ours, an active and skilled journalist, says that he once set out to saw twenty cords of wood, he was a slight, weak youth. He found he had not enough strength or wind to get through one cut of a log—that he had to constantly sit down and rest. People laughed at him, and at his thinking he could go through that mighty pile. But they did not know what was in him; for, sticking gamely to his self-imposed task, he says that in a very few days he found his stay improving rapidly, that he did not tire half so easily, and, more than that, that there began to come a feeling over him—a most welcome one—of new strength in his arms and across his chest; and that what had at first looked almost an impossibility had now become very possible, and was before long accomplished. Now, what he, by his manliness, found was fast doing so much for his arms and chest, was but a sample of what equally steady, systematic work might have done for his whole body. Indeed, a later experience of this same gentleman will be in place here; for at Dr. Sargent's gymnasium in New York, in the winter of 1878-'79, he, though a middle-aged man, increased the girth of his chest two inches and five-eighths in six weeks! and this working but one hour a day; and he found that he could not only do more work daily afterward at his profession, but better work as well.
The youth who works daily in a given line at the gymnasium as much expects that, before the year is over, not only will the muscles used decidedly increase in strength, but in size and shapeliness as well, as he does that the year's reading will improve his mind, or a year's labor bring him his salary. It is an every-day expression with him that such a fellow "got his arm up to" fifteen, or his chest to forty-odd inches, and so on. He sees nothing singular in this. He knows this one, who in a short time put half an inch on his forearm, or an inch; that one, whose thigh, or chest, or waist, or calf made equal progress. Group and classify these gains in many cases, and note the amount of work and the time taken in each, and soon one can tell pretty well what can be done in this direction. Few of our gymnasiums are so kept that their records will aid much in this inquiry, simply because the instructor either has no conception of the field before him, or, if he has, for some reason fails to improve the opportunity.
Look at what Maclaren effected (as described by him in his admirable "Physical Education"), not with here and there an isolated case, but with both boys and men turned in on him by the hundred, and in all stages of imperfect development! Take it first among the boys. Under systematic exercise, W——, a boy at Radley College, ten years old in June, 1861, had, seven years later, increased in height from 4 feet 6¾ inches to 5 feet 10¾ inches, or a gain of 16 inches in all; in weight from 66 pounds—light weight for a ten-year-old boy—to 156 pounds; far heavier than most boys at seventeen; showing an advance of 90 pounds. His forearm went from 7¼ to 11¾ inches—very large for a boy of seventeen, and decidedly above the average of that of most men; his upper arm from 7½ inches to 133/8—also far above the average at that age; while his chest had actually increased in girth from 26 inches—which was almost slender, even for a ten-year-old—to 39½ inches, which is all of two inches larger than the average man's.
His description of this boy was: "Height above average; other measurements average. From commencement, growth rapid, and sustained with regular and uniform development. The whole frame advancing to great physical power."
Another boy, H——, starting in June, 1860, when ten years old, 4 feet 6¼ inches high, and weighing 73 pounds—much heavier than the other at the start—in eight years gained 13½ inches, making him 5 feet 7¾ inches—of medium height for that age. He gained 71 pounds in the eight years, and at 144 pounds was better built than W—— at 156; for, though his forearm, starting at 8 inches, had become 11½, a quarter of an inch less than W——'s, yet his upper arm had gone from 8¾ to 13½ inches, or one-eighth of an inch larger, while his chest rose from 28¼ to 39 inches—within half an inch of the other's, though the latter was 3 inches taller.
He is described: "Height slightly above average; other measurements considerably above average. From commencement, growth and development regular and continuous. The whole frame perfectly developed for this period of life."
S——'s case is far more remarkable. He was evidently very small and undersized. "Height and all other measurements greatly below average; the whole frame stunted and dwarfish. Advancement at first slight, and very irregular. Afterward rapid, and comparatively regular."
He only gained in height three-quarters of an inch from thirteen to fourteen, where W—— had gained 35/8 inches, and H—— 31/8 inches. Yet, from fifteen to sixteen, where W—— only went ahead half an inch, and H—— five-eighths of an inch, S—— actually gained 4 inches, which must have been most gratifying. His weight changes were even more noticeable. From twelve to fifteen W—— gained 58 pounds, and H—— 39, while all S—— could show was 12. But from fifteen to sixteen see how he caught up! Where W——made 11 pounds, and H—— 10, S—— made 22. Where W——'s chest went up 1 inch, and H——'s 1½ inches, S——'s went up 3 inches.
Now, how long did these boys work? As Maclaren says "Just one hour per week!"
What parent believes that any hour in that week was better spent—better for the comfort, for the welfare of the boy, or better in fitting him for future usefulness—or what nearly so well? Most boys waste that much time nearly every day.
Look, too, at the benefit to the boy in all his after-life. Indeed, does not this hour a week, in some instances, insure an after-life, and snatch not a few from an early grave? Had every slim, thin-chested man in America, and every slim, thin-chested boy who never lived to be a man, spent an hour weekly under such tutoring, from the age of ten to eighteen, would not the benefit to our land in working-power, in vigor and force, and comfort as well, have been incalculable? And had it, instead of one hour a week, been two or three, or even an hour a day, might not the results have been even more gratifying?
Professor Maclaren may well congratulate himself on such good results among the boys. But what has he done with men? Some years ago twelve non-commissioned officers, selected from all branches of the service, were sent to him to qualify as instructors for the British army. He says:
"They ranged between nineteen and twenty-nine years of age, between five feet five inches and six feet in height, between nine stone two [128] pounds and twelve stone six [174] pounds in weight, and had seen from ten to twelve years' service."
He carefully registered the measurements of each at the start, and at different times throughout their progress. He says:
"The muscular additions to the arms and shoulders, and the expansion of the chest, were so great as to have absolutely a ludicrous and embarrassing result, for, before the fourth month, several of the men could not get into their uniforms, jackets, and tunics, without assistance, and when they had got them on they could not get them to meet down the middle by a hand's-breadth. In a month more they could not get into them at all, and new clothing had to be procured, pending the arrival of which the men had to go to and from the gymnasium in their great-coats. One of these men gained five inches in actual girth of chest."
And he well adds: "Now who shall tell the value of these five inches of chest, five inches of additional space for the heart and lungs to work in?" Hardly five inches more of heart and lung room, though part of the gain must have been of course from the enlargement of the muscles on the side of the chest.
He also hit upon another plan of showing the change; for he says he had them "photographed, stripped to the waist", both at first and when the four months were over, and the change even in these portraits was very distinct, and most notably in the youngest, who was nineteen, for, besides the acquisition of muscle, there was in his case "a readjustment and expansion of the osseous framework upon which the muscles are distributed." Now let us look a little at the measurements and the actual changes wrought.
In the first place, this last instance settles conclusively one matter most important to flat-chested youth, namely, whether the shape of the chest itself can be changed; for here it was done, and in a very short time at that. Again, of these twelve men, in less than eight months every one gained perceptibly in height; indeed, there was an average gain of five-twelfths of an inch in height, though all, save one, were over twenty; and one man who gained half an inch was twenty-eight years old, while one twenty-six gained five-eighths of an inch! (Most people suppose they can get no taller after twenty-one.) All increased decidedly in weight—the smallest gain being 5 pounds, the average 10 pounds; and one, and he twenty-eight, and a five-feet-eleven man, actually went up from 149 pounds at the beginning, to 165 pounds in less than four months. It is not likely there was much fat about them, as they had so much vigorous muscular exercise. Every man's chest enlarged decidedly, the smallest gain being a whole inch in the four months, the average being 27/8 inches, and one, though twenty-four years old, actually gaining 5 inches, or over an inch a month. Every upper arm increased 1 inch, most of them more than that, and one 1¾ inches. As the work was aimed to develop the whole body, there is little doubt that there was a proportional increase in the girth of hips and thigh and calf.
Again, from the Royal Academy at Woolwich, Professor Maclaren took twenty-one youths whose average age was about eighteen, and in the brief period of four months and a half obtained an average advance of 1¾ pounds in weight, of 2½ inches in chest, and of 1 inch on the upper arm; while one fellow, nineteen, and slender at that, gained 8 pounds in weight, and 5¼ inches about the chest! Think what a difference that would make in the chest of any man, and a difference all in the right direction at that!
But the most satisfactory statistics offered were those of two articled pupils, one sixteen, the other twenty. In exactly one year's work the younger grew from 5 feet 2¾ inches in height to 5 feet 4¾ inches. He weighed 108 pounds on his sixteenth birthday; on his seventeenth, 129! At the start his chest girthed 31 inches; twelve months later, just 36! His forearm went up from 8 inches to 10 inches, and his upper arm from 9¼ inches to 11¼.