In the New-road, lessons are given on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, from six to eight o’clock, A. M., or on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, from six to eight o’clock, P. M. Young pupils are instructed every day from eight to nine o’clock, A. M.
At Worship-street, the lessons are given on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, from seven to nine o’clock in the evening.
The [drawing] for this article was made by Mr. George Cruikshank, after his personal observation of Mr. Voelker’s gymnasium in the New-road: it was engraved by Mr. H. White.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
Sir,
You, who have so long and so ably instructed us in the amusements of our ancestors, will not, I hope, neglect to give publicity to a new species of amusement which is not only pleasant in itself, but absolutely necessary in this overgrown metropolis. I allude to the gymnastic exercises which have lately been introduced from Germany into this country. They are as yet but little known, and some portion of that prejudice exists against them which invariably attends a new discovery: fortunately, however, it is in the power of the Editor of the Every-Day Book to combat the former by a simple notice, while the latter will be much shaken if it be known that these exercises are approved by him.
An inhabitant of London need only look out of his own window to see practical illustrations of the necessity of these exercises. How often do we see a young man with an intelligent but very pale countenance, whose legs have hardly strength to support the weight of his bent and emaciated body. He once probably was a strong and active boy, but he came to London, shut himself up in an office, took no exercise because he was not obliged to take any; grew nervous and bilious; took a great deal of medical advice and physic; took every thing in fact but the true remedy, exercise; and may probably still linger out a few years of wretched existence, when death will be welcomed as his best friend. This, though an extreme case, is a very common one, and the unfortunate beings who approximate to it in a considerable degree are still more numerous. Many of the miseries and diseases of young and old, male and female, in this city, may be traced eventually to want of exercise. Give us pure air, and we can exist with comparatively little exercise; but bad air and no exercise at all, are poisons of a very active description.
These exercises are so contrived that they exert equally every part of the body without straining or tiring any; and I speak from my own experience, when I say that after two hours’ practice in professor Voelker’s gymnasium, opposite Mary-le-bone church in the new Paddington-road, I am not more fatigued than when I entered it, and feel an agreeable glow of body, and flow of spirits, which walking or riding does not create. I, as well as some other pupils, have two or three miles to walk to the gymnasium; we have the option of going morning or evening, and we do not find the walk and two hours of the exercises before breakfast, fatigue us or incapacitate us in the slightest degree from going through our customary avocations. I should also add that in bodily strength I am under, rather than above, par.