Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children

by Pye Henry Chavasse

AMUSEMENTS.

344. What amusements do you recommend for a boy as being most beneficial to health?

Manly games—such as rowing, skating, cricket, quoits, foot-ball, rackets, single-stick, bandy, bowls, skittles, and all gymnastic exercises. Such games bring the muscles into proper action, and thus cause them to be fully developed. They expand and strengthen the chest; they cause a due circulation of the blood, making it to bound merrily through the blood-vessels, and thus to diffuse health and happiness in its course. Another excellent amusement for boys, is the brandishing of clubs. They ought to be made in the form of a constable's staff, but should be much larger and heavier. The manner of handling them is so graphically described by Addison that I cannot do better than transcribe it—"When I was some years younger than I am at present, I used to employ myself in a more laborious diversion, which I learned from a Latin treatise of exercises that is written with great erudition; it is there called the [Greek: skiomachia] or the fighting with a man's own shadow, and consists in the brandishing of two short sticks grasped in each hand, and loaded with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing without the blows. I could wish that several learned men would lay out that time which they employ in controversies and disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with their own shadows. It might conduce very much to evaporate the spleen which makes them uneasy to the public as well as to themselves."

Another capital, healthful game is single-stick, which makes a boy "to gain an upright and elastic carriage, and to learn the use of his limbs."—H. Kingsley. Single-stick may be taught by any drill-sergeant in the neighbourhood. Do everything to make a boy strong. Remember, "the glory of young men is their strength."

If games were more patronised in youth, so many miserable, nervous, useless creatures would not abound. Let a boy or girl, then, have plenty of play; let half of his or her time be spent in play.

There ought to be a gymnasium established in every town of the kingdom. The gymnasium, the cricket ground, and the swimming bath, are among our finest establishments, and should be patronised accordingly.

First of all, by an abundance of exercise and fresh air make your boys and girls strong, and then, in due time, they will be ready and be able to have their minds properly cultivated. Unfortunately, in this enlightened age, we commence at the wrong end—we put the cart before the horse—we begin by cultivating the mind, and we leave the body to be taken care of afterwards; the results are, broken health, precocious, stunted, crooked, and deformed youths, and premature decay.

One great advantage of gymnastic exercise is, it makes the chest expand, it fills the lungs with air, and by doing so strengthens them amazingly, and wards off many diseases. The lungs are not sufficiently exercised and expanded; boys and girls, girls especially, do not as a rule half fill their lungs with air; now air to the lungs is food to the lungs, and portions of the lungs have not half their proper food, and in consequence suffer.

It is very desirable that every boy and girl should, every day of his or her life, and for a quarter of an hour at least each time, go through a regular breathing exercise—that is to say, should be made to stand upright, throw back the shoulders, and the while alternately and regularly fully fill and fully empty the lungs of air. If this plan were daily followed, the chest and lungs would be wonderfully invigorated, and the whole body benefited.

345. Is playing the flute, blowing the bugle, or any other wind instrument, injurious to health?