Many books have been written on gymnastics, but I am not acquainted with one which treats of the gymnastical exercise of the fingers. Why these important members of the human body should until now have been so much overlooked and neglected, it is difficult to understand. For, as Professor Richter in Dresden says, “Next to the more powerful development of the brain, it is almost exclusively the structure and skill of the fingers and hand which raises man above the brute, and has made him ruler of the earth.”
In order, therefore, to heighten the capacities of the human hand, the joints of the hand and fingers should, from early youth, be exercised gymnastically, as much and in as many various ways as possible, partly by free exercises, partly by means of mechanical appliances.
Gymnastics, according to anatomists and physicians, is the stretching, extending, pressing, and training of the muscles, the ligaments, and the limbs of the body.[5]
Flexibility, agility, and strength can be acquired only by means of a regular exercise of the muscles of the body.
Strength and power impart agility and quickness. This every physician and every sensible man knows.
A soldier only becomes fit for his work after the muscles of his body have been gymnastically attended to and developed. Any man, having to perform hard physical labour, must exercise his muscles gymnastically, and every one ought to exercise those particular limbs the use of which is most necessary for his profession.
And more than any one else, the teachers of music have to experience the consequences of a want of skill and strength in the hands of many learners, and they know how greatly a systematic educational training of the fingers and hands for the execution of the more delicate movements is needed at all times.
Nevertheless, there are many arts besides music for which the hand ought to be also trained from early youth, in order to be able permanently to accomplish, in later years, what is excellent, e. g., many kinds of handicraft, machine-work, needle-work, anatomy, and surgery, writing and drawing, and all fine manipulations.
An untrained hand will either remain clumsy in these branches of work, or it will soon fail through over-exertion, which causes a peculiar kind of paralysis, connected with cramp, and well known to writers (the so-called writers’ cramp), but which also affects musicians, artists, shoemakers, tailors, sempstresses, and other working people. Certain it is, that if this matter had been inquired into before, and public attention directed to it, a great deal of trouble and vexation in learning music might have been saved; the labour of many working people of all classes, who chiefly have to use their fingers, have been greatly facilitated; and, moreover, many diseases of the joints of the fingers and hand might have have been prevented.
[5] The following quotations from the works of some of the leading authorities may be of interest to the reader:—
“Methodical gymnastic exercises of the hands and fingers afford the very best means of overcoming the technical difficulties.”—Schmidt’s “Annals of Medicine.”
“Technical difficulties will most safely and quickly be conquered by proper gymnastic exercises of the hand and fingers.”—Dr Dietz, Member of the Royal Council of Medicine.
“To obtain technical skill and muscular steadiness, a gymnastic education is the best means.”—P. M. Link. The gymnast exercises his limbs through preparatory exercises; how, therefore, is it possible for the player of the piano and violin to dispense with this gymnastic preparation of the joints of the hand and fingers?”—Prof. Rector v. Schmidt, President of the Royal Gymnasium. “La souplesse et l’étendue des poignets dépendent du développement gymnastique des forces. La gymnastique développe l’aisance et la grâce.”—Dr M. Bally. “For so great an art as piano or violin playing, the muscles of the fingers are weak; they ought to be prepared by proper gymnastic exercises.”—Ferguson.