Still, with these few defects, this parlor rowing apparatus is an excellent contrivance, and, used intelligently and assiduously, ought to bring almost any development a person might reasonably hope for, though its range is hardly as wide as that of these few bits of house apparatus before named, when taken together. There is nothing novel about the latter, excepting Dr. Sargent's apparatus for the chest. All have been known for a generation or more. But the many uses of them are but little known, and their introduction into our homes and schools has hardly yet begun. Yet, so wide is the range of exercise one can have with them, and of exercise of the very sort so many people need; and so simple is the method of working them, so free, too, from danger or anything which induces one to overwork, and so inexpensive are they and easy to make, that they ought to be as common in our homes as are warm carpets and bright firesides. Every member of the family, both old and young, should use them daily, enough to keep both the home-gymnasium and its users in good working order.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE SCHOOL THE TRUE PLACE FOR CHILDREN'S PHYSICAL CULTURE.
But, well adapted as our homes are in many ways for the proper care and development of the body, there is one place which, in almost every particular, surpasses them in this direction, if its advantages are understood and fully appreciated, and that is the school. A father may so arrange his time that a brief portion of it daily can be regularly allotted to the physical improvement of the children, as John Stuart Mill's father did his for his son's mental improvement, and with such remarkable results. But most fathers, from never having formed the habit, will be slow to learn it, and their time is already so taken up that it will seem impossible to spare any. The mother, being more with the child, feels its needs and lacks the more keenly, and would gladly deny herself much could she assure her children ruddy health. But her day is also by no means an idle one, and, just when she could best spare half an hour, it is hardest to have them with her. Besides, in too many instances she is herself far from strong, and needs some one to point out to her the way to physical improvement more, even, than do her children.
There is a feeling that the child is sent to school to be educated, and that certain trained persons are paid to devote their time to that education. As they are supposed to bring the children forward in certain directions, this leads easily to the conclusion that they would be the proper persons to care for other parts of that education as well. Nor is this view so wide of the mark. The teacher has always a considerable number of scholars. He can encourage the slower by the example of the quicker; he can arouse the emulation, he can get work easily out of a number together, where one or two would be hard to move. If he rightly understood his power; if he knew how easy it is, by a little judicious daily work, to prevent or remove incipient deformity, to strengthen the weak, to form in the pupil the habit of sitting and standing erect, to add to the general strength, to freshen the spirits, and do good in other ways, he would gladly give whatever time daily would be necessary to the work, while, like most persons who try to benefit others, he would find that he himself would gain much by it as well. He has not a class of pupils stiffened by long years of hard overwork of some muscles, and with others dormant and undeveloped. The time when children are with him is almost the best time in their whole lives to shape them as he chooses, not morally or mentally only, but physically as well. The one shoulder, a little higher than its mate, will not be half so hard to restore to place now as when confirmed in its position by long years of a bad habit, which should never have been tolerated a day. If the chest is weak and flat, or pigeon-breasted, now is the time to remove the defect. Build up the arms to be strong and comely now; accustom the chest and shoulders to their proper place, whatever their owner is at; cover the back with full and shapely muscles; get the feet used to the work which comes so easy and natural to them, once they are trained aright; and the same boy who would have grown up half-built, ungraceful, and far from strong, will now ripen into a manly, vigorous, well-knit man, of sound mind and body, familiar with the possibilities of that body, with what is the right use and what the abuse of it, and knowing well how to keep it in that condition which shall enable him to accomplish the best day's mental labor. And he will be far fitter to face the privations, anxieties, and troubles of life in the most successful way.
Nor is the rule at all difficult to follow. Little by little the boy's mind is led along, until the difficult problem in arithmetic seems no harder to him than did the adding of two and two at first. For hundreds of years the mental training of youth has been a matter of careful thought and study, and no effort is spared to secure the best advantages of all the teaching of the past. But with that past before him; with its many great men—not always, to be sure, but so often—men whose bodies were sturdy, and equal to the tremendous tasks which their great activity of mind led them willingly to assume, he is encouraged and urged to keep his mind under continual pressure for many hours daily, and every incentive is brought to make the most of him in this direction. And yet that which would have helped him in almost every step he took, which would have fitted him to stand with ease what now in a few years so often breaks him down, is totally ignored and left quite out of sight.
It is plainly no fault of his. The blame lies with the system which, for generations together, has gone along so blindly. The life a farmer's son leads makes him strong and hearty, and when his school-days are over his work is of such a sort as to maintain all his vigor. The city lad who plays on the brick sidewalks, born often of half-developed parents, has no daily tasks which bring his muscles into vigorous play, strengthening his digestion. Is there any possible reason why the city lad should be favored physically like the country boy? The first has every incentive for daily exercise, the latter none at all.
There ought to be no more delay in this matter of physical education in the schools. Prompt and vigorous steps should be taken to acquaint every school-teacher in this country with such exercises as would quickly restore the misshapen, insure an erect carriage, encourage habits of full breathing, and strengthen the entire trunk and every limb. If the teachers have not the requisite knowledge now, let it at once be acquired. They, of all persons, are expected to know how to acquire knowledge, and to aid others in doing the same. As soon as they have gained even partial knowledge of how to effect these things, let them lose no time in imparting that knowledge to the pupil.
Physical education ought to be made compulsory in every school in this land. Have it directly under the eye and guidance of the teacher, and have that teacher know that, at the quarterly or semi-annual examinations, reasonable progress will be expected in this department just as certainly as in any other, and if he is not up to his work, that some one who is will be put in his place. Then that progress will surely come. It has come already, where the means have been understood and used, as witness Maclaren abroad and Sargent here; and it brings such a benefit to the pupil that no pains should be spared to insure it.
Scarcely a week passes but the press of our larger cities repeats the story of some overworked man or woman breaking completely down with general debility, the body not only a wreck, but too often the mind as well. Had that body been early shaped, and hardened, and made vigorous—as, for instance, Chief-justice Marshall's father looked to it that his great son's was—and the habit formed of taking daily work, and of the right sort to keep it so, and had the importance of that care been impressed on the mind till it had fixed itself as firmly as the sense of decency or the need of being clean, is it likely that the person would have allowed himself to get so run down, or, if he did, to remain so?
The trouble usually is that the man does not know what to do to tone himself up and keep himself equal to his tasks, or that it needs but a little to effect this. He will spend money like water; he will travel fast and far; he will do almost anything, but he knows no certain cure. Is it not as important to have good health and strength as to figure or write correctly, to read the Æneids or Homer, to pick up a smattering of French or German? Who is the more likely, if his life be in-door and sedentary, not to live half his days—he who has never learned to build and strengthen his body, and keep it regulated and healthy, and to know the value of that health, or he who has?