Games to Develop Strength
Skipping, rowing, fencing, swimming, tennis, and handball are all valuable aids to developing strength.
Use also:—
Staff exercises, to music if possible. Maze and spiral; follow-my-leader, done at a jog-trot in the open air. A musical accompaniment when possible. If done indoors, all the windows in the room must be kept open top and bottom. Sing the tune.
Flags.—Choose sides; each player lays down a flag or a handkerchief at her own goal, and each side tries to capture the flags of the other; once she touches the opponent's flag she cannot be taken prisoner, but goes back with the flag to her side.
Players can rescue a prisoner by touching her in prison. Players should keep moving as much as possible all the time, and try to evade being captured.
Practice throwing at a mark. Put a pebble on the top of a staff and stand at a certain line so many paces off.
Morris dances (old English country dances) and the folk-songs.
Endurance is Useful
Have you not often heard of accidents on the ice? In the winter of 1895 some schoolgirls were sliding on a frozen canal, when one girl twelve years old ventured into the middle. Then there was an ominous cracking, and in a moment she was struggling in water many feet deep.
Miss Alice White, a teacher, happened to witness the accident. Notwithstanding the warnings of several persons standing on the towing-path, who assured her it was most dangerous, she at once went on the ice and approached as close to the hole as she dared with safety. She then lay down at full length, so as to more equally distribute her weight, and tried to seize the struggling child. But under her weight the ice broke, and the brave girl was precipitated into the cold water. The bystanders shouted to her to forsake the child, and at least save her own life, but she did nothing of the kind. She held on to her precious burden, and literally fought her way out. Piece after piece of the ice broke off, but she at length reached the bank in a state of great exhaustion. Her hands were cut in many places by the sharp ice, but they were wounds of which any one might well have been proud. Miss White was only sixteen years old, and it was the second time she had saved a life.
Laying a pole or a branch across the hole is a good plan.