Dr. Seneca Egbert says: “As an exercise bicycling is superior to most, if not all, others at our command. It takes one into the outdoor air; it is entirely under control; can be made gentle or vigorous as one desires; is active and not passive; takes the rider outside of himself and the thoughts and cares of his daily work; develops his will, his attention, his courage and independence, and makes pleasant what is otherwise most irksome. Moreover, the exercise is well and equally distributed over almost the whole [56] ]body, and, as Parker says, when all the muscles are exercised no muscle is likely to be over-exercised.”
He advocates cycling as a remedy for dyspepsia, torpid liver, incipient consumption, nervous exhaustion, rheumatism, and melancholia. In regard to the exercise for women he says: “It gets them out of doors, gives them a form of exercise adapted to their needs, that they may enjoy in company with others or alone, and one that goes to the root of their nervous troubles.”
He instances two cases, of girls fourteen and eighteen years of age, where a decided increase in height could be fairly attributed to cycling.
[Illustration: “LET GO—BUT STAND BY.”]
The question is often asked if riding a wheel is not the same as running a sewing-machine. Let the same doctor answer: “Not at all. Women, at least, sit erect on a wheel, and consequently the thighs never make even a right angle with the trunk, and there is no stasis of blood in the lower limbs and [57] ]genitalia. Moreover, the work itself makes the rider breathe in oceans of fresh air; while the woman at the sewing-machine works indoors, stoops over her work, contracting the chest and almost completely checking the flow of blood to and from the lower half of her body, where at the same time she is increasing the demand for it, finally aggravating the whole trouble by the pressure of the lower edge of the corset against the abdomen, so that the customary congestions and displacements have good cause for their existence.”
“The great desideratum in all recreations is pure air, plenty of it, and lungs free to absorb it.” (Dr. Lyman B. Sperry.)
“Let go, but stand by”—this is the golden rule for parent and pastor, teacher and friend; the only rule that at once respects the individuality of another and yet adds one’s own, so far as may be, to another’s momentum in the struggle of life.
How difficult it is for the trainer to judge [58] ]exactly how much force to exercise in helping to steer the wheel and start the wheeler along the macadamized highway! In this the point of view makes all the difference. The trainer is tall, the rider short; the first can poise on the off-treadle while one foot is on the ground, but the last must learn to balance while one foot is in the air. For one of these perfectly to comprehend the other’s relation to the vehicle is practically impossible; the degree to which he may attain this depends upon the amount of imagination to the square inch with which he has been fitted out. The opacity of the mind, its inability to project itself into the realm of another’s personality, goes a long way to explain the friction of life. If we would set down other people’s errors to this rather than to malice prepense we should not only get more good out of life and feel more kindly toward our fellows, but doubtless the rectitude of our intellects would increase, and the justice of our judgments. For instance, it is [59] ]my purpose, so far as I understand myself, to be considerate toward those about me; but my pursuits have been almost purely mental, and to perceive what would seem just to one whose pursuits have been almost purely mechanical would require an act of imagination of which I am wholly incapable. We are so shut away from one another that none tells those about him what he considers ideal treatment on their part toward him. He thinks about it all the same, mumbles about it to himself, mutters about it to those of his own guild, and these mutterings make the discontent that finally breaks out in reforms whose tendency is to distribute the good things of this life more equally among the living. But nothing will probe to the core of this the greatest disadvantage under which we labor—that is, mutual non-comprehension—except a basis of society and government which would make it easy for each to put himself in another’s place because his place is so much like another’s. We shall be [60] ]less imaginative, perhaps, in those days—the critics say this is inevitable; but it will only be because we need less imagination in order to do that which is just and kind to every one about us.