The secret of keeping well and healthy is to keep your blood clean and active. These different exercises will do that if you will use them everyday. Someone has said, "If you practise body exercises every morning you will never be ill: and if you also drink a pint of hot water every night you will never die."
The blood thrives on simple good food, plenty of exercise, plenty or fresh air, cleanliness of the body both inside and out, and proper rest of body and mind at intervals.
The Japs are particularly strong and healthy, as was shown in the late war with Russia. There was very little sickness among them and those who were wounded generally very quickly recovered because their skin was clean and their blood was in a healthy, sound condition. They are the best example that we can copy. They keep themselves very clean by having two or three baths every day.
They eat very plain food, chiefly rice and fruit, and not much of it. They drink plenty of water, but no spirits. They take lots of exercise. They make themselves good-tempered and do not worry their brain. They live in fresh air as much as possible day and night. Their particular exercise is "Ju-Jitsu," which is more of a game than drill and is generally played in pairs. And pupils get to like the game so much that they generally go on with it after their course of instruction has finished.
By Ju-Jitsu, the muscles and body are developed in a natural way in the open air as a rule. It requires no apparatus, and once the muscles have been formed by it they do not disappear again when you cease the practices as is the case in ordinary gymnastics.
Admiral Kamimura, the great Admiral of our friends the Japanese, strongly recommends all young men and lads to practise Ju-Jitsu, as it not only makes them strong, but also quick in the mind.
THE NOSE.
A scout must be able to smell well in order to find his enemy by night. If he always breathes through the nose and not through the mouth this helps him considerably. But there are other reasons more important than that for always breathing through the nose. Fifty years ago, Mr. Catlin in America wrote a book called "Shut your mouth and save your life," and he showed how the Red Indians for a long time had adopted that method with their children to the extent of tying up their jaws at night to ensure their only breathing through their nose.
Breathing through the nose prevents germs of disease getting from the air into the throat and stomach, it also prevents a growth in the back of the throat called "adenoids" which are apt to stop the breathing power of the nostrils, and also to cause deafness.
For a scout nose-breathing is also specially useful.