So great an authority in philosophy and psychology as William James has given the sanction of his use to Mr. Fletcher’s phrases; and has also named him as a shining example of those exceptional men who find in some mental idea a key to unlock reservoirs of hidden and unsuspected energy. While there is no doubting the fact that Horace Fletcher is decidedly an exceptional man, yet the records prove that his key is not merely for the use of exceptional people, but that it is one susceptible of being used by everybody possessing willpower enough to enable them to say “yes” when offered something good.
Like other great discoveries, Mr. Fletcher’s discovery of the right way to eat came partly as an accident. Happening to be in Chicago at a time when his friends were all away, and being forced to stay in the city, he took to lingering over his meals in order to pass away the time. He began to taste every spoonful of soup, to sip every mouthful of anything liquid, with great deliberation, noting the different tastes and searching out new flavors.
He chewed each morsel of meat or bread or fruit or vegetable until, instead of being gulped down, it was drawn in easily by the throat. And in this manner did he stumble upon his pathway to deliverance. He had not been “toying” with his food—as he then considered he was doing—for more than a few weeks before he noticed that he was losing a great deal of superfluous fat, that he was eating less, but with far greater enjoyment, than ever before in his life, that his taste for simpler foods increased as his taste for highly seasoned and complex dishes decreased, and that he was feeling better both physically and mentally than he had felt in many years.
THE MAGIC OF MASTICATION
What did these things mean? Some hidden virtue in the food he was eating? Some hitherto quite unsuspected tonic in the smoke of Chicago? Or a lesson in health furnished by the “how” of his eating? At this point there flashed through Mr. Fletcher’s memory the story of Gladstone’s advice to his children to chew each morsel of food thirty-two times (once for each tooth in their heads) if they would preserve their health. In that moment, Mr. Fletcher began his investigation of the many processes that go to make up the simple act of mastication, an investigation which has now been going on for more than ten years, and which has resulted in directing public attention to the supremely important subject of nutrition with more emphasis, and in the arousing of more general interest and the production of more telling effect than any other circumstance or event has done in the history of physiologic science. The word “Fletcherizing” was first applied by Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, after the analogy of “pasteurizing,” in describing the act of mastication as recommended by Mr. Fletcher. “Fletcherism,” as Mr. Fletcher’s system of mental science and of physical culture through mastication has come to be known, after first being for years a stock jest of the newspaper funnyman, has now been recognized, even by those scientists who detest all “isms,” as a most valuable bridge from the land of bad food habits and disease to the land of good food habits and health.
The bridge certainly afforded its builder a passage from one region to the other. Following a constant improvement in his general condition, beginning almost simultaneously with the adoption of his new way of life, Mr. Fletcher is to-day one of the strongest and most enduring men alive. Tests of his strength and endurance made at the Yale gymnasium at different times prove beyond a doubt that this is so. The following is a quotation from the report of Dr. William G. Anderson, director of the Yale Gymnasium:
DR. ANDERSON’S REPORT
“In February, 1903, I gave to Mr. Horace Fletcher the exercises used by the ‘Varsity’ crew. He went through these movements with ease and showed no ill effects afterwards. At that time Mr. Fletcher weighed 157½ pounds, and was in his fifty-fifth year. On June 11, 1907, Mr. Fletcher again visited the Yale Gymnasium and underwent a test on Professor Fisher’s dynamometer. This device is made to test the endurance of the calf muscles.
“The subject makes a dead lift of a prescribed weight as many times as possible. In order to select a definite weight, the subject first ascertains his strength on the Kellogg mercurial dynamometer by one strong, steady contraction of the muscles named—and then he finds his endurance by lifting three-fourths of this weight on the Fisher dynamometer as many times as possible at two or three second intervals. One leg only is used in the lift, and as indicated, the right is usually chosen.
“Mr. Fletcher’s actual strength as indicated on the Kellogg machine was not quite four hundred pounds, ascertained by three trials. In his endurance test on the Fisher machine he raised three hundred pounds three hundred and fifty times and then did not reach the limit of his power.