AIR AND EXERCISE.
338. Have you any remarks to make on fresh air and exercise for boys and girls?
Girls and boys, especially the former, are too much confined within doors. It is imperatively necessary, if you wish them to be strong and healthy, that they should have plenty of fresh air and exercise; remember, I mean fresh air—country air, not the close air of a town. By exercise, I mean the free unrestrained use of their limbs. Girls, in this respect, are unfortunately worse off than boys, although they have similar muscles to develop, similar lungs that require fresh air, and similar nerves to be braced and strengthened. It is not considered lady-like to be natural—all then: movements must be measured by rule and compass!
The reason why so many young girls of the present day are so sallow, under-sized, and ill-shaped, is for the want of air and exercise. After a time the want of air and exercise, by causing ill health, makes them slothful and indolent-it is a trouble for them to move from their chairs!
Respiration, digestion, and a proper action of the bowels, imperatively demand fresh air and exercise. Ill health will inevitably ensue if boys and girls are cooped up a great part of the day in a close room. A distinguished writer of the present day says: "The children of the very poor are always out and about. In this respect they are an example to those careful mammas who keep their children, the whole day long, in their chairs, reading, writing, ciphering, drawing, practising music lessons, doing crotchet work, or anything, in fact, except running about in spite of the sunshine always peeping in and inviting them out of doors; and who, in the due course of time, are surprised to find their children growing up with incurable heart, head, lung, or stomach complaints."
339. What is the lest exercise for a youth?
Walking or running: provided either of them be not carried to fatigue,—the slightest approach to it should warn a youth to desist from carrying it further. Walking exercise is not sufficiently insisted upon. A boy or a girl, to be in the enjoyment of good health, ought to walk at least ten miles every day. I do not mean ten miles at a stretch, but at different times of the day. Some young ladies think it an awfully long walk if they manage a couple of miles! How can they, with such exercise, expect to be well? How can their muscles be developed? How can their nerves be braced? How can their spines be strengthened and be straight? How can their blood course merrily through their blood-vessels? How can their chests expand and be strong? Why, it is impossible! Ill health must be the penalty of such indolence, for Nature will not be trifled with! Walking exercise, then, is the finest exercise that can be taken, and must be taken, and that without stint, if boys and girls are to be strong and well! The advantage of our climate is, that there is not a day in the whole year that walking exercise cannot be enjoyed. I use the term enjoyed advisedly. The roads may, of course, be dirty; but what of that A good thick pair of boots will be the remedy.
Do then, let me entreat you, insist upon your—girls and boys taking plenty of exercise; let them almost live in the open air! Do not coddle them; this is a rough; world of ours, and they must rough it; they must be knocked about a great deal, and the knocks will do them, good. Poor youths who are, as it were, tied to their mother's apron strings, are much to be pitied; they are usually puny and delicate, and effeminate, and utterly deficient of self-reliance.
340. Do you approve of—horse or pony exercise for boys and girls?
Most certainly I do; but still it ought not to supersede walking. Horse or pony exercise is very beneficial, and cannot be too strongly recommended. One great advantage for those living in towns, which it has over walking, is, that a person may go further into the country, and thus be enabled to breathe a purer and more healthy atmosphere. Again, it is a much more amusing exercise than walking, and this, for the young, is a great consideration indeed.
Horse exercise is for both boys and girls a splendid exercise; it improves the figure, it gives grace to the movements, it strengthens the chest, it braces the muscles, and gives to the character energy and courage. Both boys and girls ought to be early taught to ride. There is nothing that gives more pleasure to the young than riding either on a pony or on a horse, and for younger children, even on that despised, although useful animal, a donkey. Exercise, taken with pleasure, is doubly beneficial.
If girls were to ride more on horseback than they now do, we should hear less of crooked spines and of round shoulders, of chlorosis and of hysteria, and of other numerous diseases of that class, owing, generally, to debility and to mismanagement.
Those ladies who "affect the saddle" are usually much healthier, stronger, and straighter than those who either never or but seldom ride on horseback.
Siding on horseback is both an exercise and an amusement, and is peculiarly suitable for the fair sex, more especially as their modes of exercise are somewhat limited, ladies being excluded from following many games, such as cricket, and foot-ball, both of which are practised, with such zest and benefit, by the rougher sex.
341. Do you approve of carriage exercise?
There is no muscular exertion in carriage exercise; its principal advantage is, that it enables a person to have a change of air, which may be purer than the one he is in the habit of breathing. But, whether it be so or not, change of air frequently does good, even, if the air be not so pure. Carriage exercise, therefore, does only partial good, and ought never to supersede either walking or horse exercise.
342. What is the best time of the day, for the taking of exercise?
In the summer time, early in the morning and before breakfast, as "cool morning air exhilarates young blood like wine." If a boy cannot take exercise upon an empty stomach, let him have a slice of bread and a draught of milk. When he returns home he will be able to do justice to his breakfast. In fine weather he cannot take too much exercise, provided it be not carried to fatigue.
343. What is the best time for him to keep quiet?
He ought not to take exercise immediately after—say for half an hour after—a hearty meal, or it will be likely to interfere with his digestion.