CHAPTER III.
PHYSICAL EXERCISE. MENTAL CULTURE. SLEEP. CLEANLINESS.
A well-developed physical organization is essential to perfect health. Among the Greeks, beauty ranked next to virtue, and an eminent author has said that "the nearer we approach Divinity, the more we reflect His eternal beauty." The perfect expression of thought requires the physical accompaniments of language, gesture, etc. The human form is pliable, and, with proper culture, can be made replete with expression, grace and beauty. The cultivation of the intellectual powers has been allowed to supplant physical training to a great extent. The results are abnormally developed brains, delicate forms, sensitive nerves and shortened lives. That the physical and mental systems should be collaterally developed, is a fact generally overlooked by educators. The fullness of a great intellect is generally impaired when united with a weak and frail body. We have sought perfection in animals and plants. To the former we have given all the degree of strength and grace requisite to their peculiar duties; to the latter we have imparted all the delicate tints and shadings that fancy could picture. We have studied the laws of their existence, until we are familiar with every phase of their production; yet it remains for man to learn those laws of his own being, by a knowledge of which he may promote and preserve the beauty of the human form, and thus render it, indeed, an image of its Maker. When the body is tenanted by a cultivated intellect, the result is a unity which is unique, commanding the respect of humanity, and insuring a successful life to the possessor. Students are as a rule pale and emaciated. Mental application is generally the cause assigned when, in reality, it is the result of insufficient exercise, impure air, and dietetic errors. An intelligent journalist has remarked that "many of our ministers weigh too little in the pulpit, because they weigh too little on the scales." The Greek Gymnasium and Olympian Games were the sure foundations of that education from which arose that subtle philosophy, poetry, and military skill which have won the admiration of nineteen centuries. The laurel crown of the Olympian victor was far more precious to the Grecian youth than the gilded prize is to our modern genius. A popular lecturer has truly remarked, that "we make brilliant mathematicians and miserable dyspeptics; fine linguists with bronchial throats; good writers with narrow chests and pale complexions; smart scholars, but not that union, which the ancients prized, of a sound mind in a sound body. The brain becomes the chief working muscle of the system. We refine and re-refine the intellectual powers down to a diamond point and brilliancy, as if they were the sole or reigning faculties, and we had not a physical nature binding us to earth, and a spiritual nature binding us to the great heavens and the greater God who inhabits them. Thus the university becomes a sort of splendid hospital with this difference, that the hospital cures, while the university creates disease. Most of them are indicted at the bar of public opinion for taking the finest young brain and blood of the country, and, after working upon them for four years, returning them to their homes skilled indeed to perform certain linguistic and mathematical dexterities, but very much below par in health and endurance, and, in short, seriously damaged and physically demoralized." We read with reverence the sublime teachings of Aristotle and Plato; we mark the grandeur of Homer and the delicate beauties of Virgil; but we do not seek to reproduce in our modern institutions the gymnasium, which was the real foundation of their genius. Colleges which are now entering upon their career, should make ample provision for those exercises which develop the physical man. This lack of bodily training is common with all classes, and its effects are written in indelible characters on the faces and forms of old and young. Constrained positions in sitting restrict the movements of the diaphragm and ribs and often cause diseases of the spine, or unnatural curvatures, which prove disastrous to health and happiness. The head should be held erect and the shoulders thrown backward, so that at each inspiration the lungs may be fully expanded.
Physical exercise should never be too violent or too prolonged. Severe physical labor, and athletic sports, if indulged in to an extreme degree, produce undue excitability of the heart, and sometimes cause it to become enlarged. There is a form of heart disease induced by undue exertion which may be called a wearing out or wasting away of that organ. It is common in those persons whose occupations expose them to excessive physical labor for too many hours together. This feebleness of heart is felt but little by vigorous persons under forty years of age, but in those who have passed this age it becomes manifest. However, when any person so affected is attacked by any acute disease, the heart is more liable to fail, and thus cause a fatal termination.
Aneurism of the aorta or the large arteries branching off from it, which is a dilatation of the walls of these vessels, caused by the rupture of one or two of their coats, is generally induced by excessive physical strain, such as lifting heavy weights, or carrying weights up long flights of stairs, violent horseback exercise, or hurrying to catch a train or street car.
An Erect Carriage is not only essential to health, but adds grace and beauty to every movement. Although man was made to stand erect, thus indicating his superiority over all other animals, yet custom has done much to curve that magnificent central column, upon the summit of which rests the "grand dome of thought." Many young persons unconsciously acquire the habit of throwing the shoulders forward. The spinal column is weakened by this unnatural posture, its vertebræ become so sensitive and distorted that they cannot easily support the weight of the body or sustain its equilibrium. It is generally believed that persons of sedentary habits are more liable to become round-shouldered than any other class of individuals. Observation shows, on the contrary, that the manual laborer, or even the idler, often acquires this stooping posture. It can be remedied, not by artificial braces, but by habitually throwing the shoulders backwards. Deformed trunks and crooked spines, although sometimes the effects of disease are more frequently the results of carelessness. Jacques has remarked that "one's standing among his fellow-men is quite as important a matter in a physiological, as in a social sense." Walking is one of the most efficient means of physical culture, as it calls all the muscles into action and produces the amount of tension requisite for their tonicity. Long walks or protracted physical exercise of any kind should never be undertaken immediately after meals. The first essential to a healthful walk is a pleasurable object. Beautiful scenery, rambles in meadows rich with fragrant grasses, or along the flowery banks of water-courses, affords an agreeable stimulus, which sends the blood through the vital channels with unwonted force, and imparts to the cheeks the ruddy glow of health. Our poets acknowledge the silent influence of nature. Wordsworth has expressed this thought in his own sublime way:
"The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her: for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see,
E'en in the motions of the storm
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form
By silent sympathy.
The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her: and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place,
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face."
Base Ball, Cricket, Boxing, and Fencing, are all manly exercises when practiced solely with a view to their hygienic advantages and as such have our approval.