# How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1899)/Chapter 13

Chapter XIII
In Conclusion
"Genius is only protracted patience."—Buffon.
"Long, patient toil fits for emergency."
"Peril breeds power."
"Genius is painstaking."—Longfellow.
"Genius is two per cent.; hard work ninety-eight."
"I never did anything worth doing by accident."—Edison.
"If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it; toil is the law."—Ruskin.
"The King is the man who can."—Carlyle.
"Every great work is the result of vast preparation."
"Thorough mastery of great principles by Patrick Henry, Hamilton, Webster, Lincoln, was the result of years of study of those giant intellects."—President Bashford.
"Know what thou canst work at; and work at it like Hercules! That will be thy better plan."—Carlyle.
"It was by the friction of tremendous difficulties that the bright, gifted young man, David, the son of Jesse, became developed into one of the chiefest men of Old Testament history. His conflicts with King Saul -were worth more to him than millions of gold."
"Many persons owe their good-fortune to some disadvantage under which they have labored, and it is in struggling against it that their best faculties are brought into play."
"Learning in a broken body is like a sword without a handle."—Beecher.
"Mankind mistake difficulties for impossibilities. This is often the chief difference between those who succeed and those who do not."—Franklin.
​We have been spending an hour in illustrious company; among men nearly all great, some of them the greatest in their lines whom this world has known—its real kings—for "the king is the man who can." We have seen several who started, like Cæsar, Cicero, Demosthenes, Gladstone, Webster, with bodies not naturally strong, but who found and persistently used means which brought them abundant helpful vigor, enabling them to use their great abilities to a good, and in Gladstone's case—and, but for the knife of Brutus, doubtless in Cæsar's also—to a great age.
And what wondrous interest clusters about these great names—each in itself a mighty chapter in, and a conspicuous part of, this world's history; conquerors, emperors, soldiers, statesmen, divines, jurists, philosophers, inventors, poets, merchant-princes, explorers—leaders all in all the great activities. Seat them around a festive board. What a feast of reason; what a flow of soul! Who would not travel far for the privilege of once looking on, and listening to these grand minds at play? Yet, rich as they were in gifts of mind, they were scarcely less so in those of person. One of the best tests of human physical speed, power, and endurance yet devised; one palpably fair, yet which, before all eyes, and free from all bad influences, in one short half hour takes the strongest man in all his glorious prime, and tries all that is in him, till he can scarcely go another foot, is a University boat-race. In England, sixty years ago, they fixed on a proper course for it, and have fought their great battle there steadily, and almost annually, ever since. For nearly half a century we in this country have been rowing our University race; yet where is our University race-course to-day? Now at Lake Winnepesaukee; then at Springfield; at Lake ​Quinsigamond; on Saratoga Lake; back again at Springfield; then at New London; then Poughkeepsie; then back to New London. Which is the great American inter-University race-course? Does any one know? Is it not almost time that something definite came; and men each year could look back at previous records on the same track, and compare them; and so approach some clear idea of whether our oarsmen are improving or going back? The famous Putney-to-Mortlake stretch of four miles and three furlongs is far from a good course; straight nowhere after Hammersmith Bridge—in fact, one large letter S; the crew fresh enough to keep the inside for two miles can have the pole all the way; so that the two crews never cover the same distance. Our Poughkeepsie course, while straight, is on such broad water that while national legislation keeps it fairly clear on race-day, it has no control over it during practice; and the broad surface exposed to every breeze, and ceaselessly churned by the swash of passing steam-craft, has proved its unfitness for a contest of such importance; while the race is not, in fact, at Poughkeepsie, but over on the other side of a wide river, where there is scarcely even a village. And at New London, the Thames, so pinched, and full of eel-grass in one portion, that even two crews cannot fairly row abreast, is really an arm of Long Island Sound, close by; and is so affected by every tide that the number of hours for either racing or practice is hardly two in twelve; while every breeze at all southerly is likely to knock up such a sea as to make it unfit for shell-rowing. Men who have made great preparation and sacrifice for the most important athletic contest of their lives might at least be guaranteed a first-class track, a worthy arena for such an arduous struggle.
And happily there is such water—not an S, but almost ​straight—twice as wide as the Putney-to-Mortlake course; undisturbed by tide or passing vessel; near a large railroad centre; and so well sheltered that crews can practise there at any hour they like, with practically a great private track all to themselves—and that is on the Connecticut, a little below Springfield. But an hour and a half from Yale, two and a half from Harvard and from Boston, and three from New York; near the greatest bicycle-racing centre in America; with many railroads, and good accommodations for guests at Springfield and at Hartford, not an hour away. Since the changes in the Enfield Locks, there is water enough for a fleet of eights to battle for the championship of the world. Pick out now from these men of great achievements and renown, not two eights, but four. Give them, of course, the fleetest ships, the most nearly perfect oars and rigging known to the waterman's art. Make the men contemporaries—take each at the best year of his life—when all his powers were at their acme; train them to row—and to row together—not one year—for no really great oarsman was ever made in one year—but for three full years of wise, skilful preparation, till every man came up to the line fit to row for a kingdom;—in as superb condition as were the best men in all Greece when, a nation looking on, they agonized for the mastery. Make the distance five miles. If you like, select two eights from non-college men and two from the Universities—the "Townies" and the "Gownies." You might sort them thus:
| First crew. | First crew. | First crew. | Second crew. | Second crew. | Second crew. |
| Socrates, Bow. | | | Luther, Bow. |
| Jackson, | No. | 2 | Wellington, | No. | 2 |
| Wallace, | {{{1}}}„ | 3 | Chalmers, | {{{1}}}„ | 3 |
| Peter, | {{{1}}}„ | 4 | D. Webster, | {{{1}}}„ | 4 ​ |
| Charlemagne, | No. | 5 | Bismarck, | No. | 5 |
| McCormick, | {{{1}}}„ | 6 | Morgan, | {{{1}}}„ | 6 |
| Gibson, | {{{1}}}„ | 7 | R. Webster, | {{{1}}}„ | 7 |
| Washington, Stroke | Washington, Stroke | Washington, Stroke | Chitty, Stroke. | Chitty, Stroke. | Chitty, Stroke. |
| Third crew. | Third crew. | Third crew. | Fourth crew. | Fourth crew. | Fourth crew. |
| Krueger, Bow. | | | Beecher, Bow. |
| Cæsar, | No. | 2 | Plato, | No. | 2 |
| Bruce, | {{{1}}}„ | 3 | Lord Denman, | {{{1}}}„ | 3 |
| Hannibal, | {{{1}}}„ | 4 | Wilson, | {{{1}}}„ | 4 |
| Lincoln, | {{{1}}}„ | 5 | Johnson, | {{{1}}}„ | 5 |
| Huntington, | {{{1}}}„ | 6 | Fox, | {{{1}}}„ | 6 |
| William, | {{{1}}}„ | 7 | Lord Esher, | {{{1}}}„ | 7 |
| Vanderbilt, Stroke. | Vanderbilt, Stroke. | Vanderbilt, Stroke. | Cromwell, Stroke. | Cromwell, Stroke. | Cromwell, Stroke. |
There is splendid material for coxswains, but it is all "'Varsity." But that would not matter. Put the "Little Lion," Hamilton, in to steer the first crew, Paul the second—for he says himself that he knew just how to fight a good fight, and to finish his course, and to make other men do their utmost. Paul was no quitter. Alexander could steer the third crew; and the "Little Corporal" the fourth. And such steering as that would be! With pretty flags cut the course into one-hundred-and-fifty-foot lanes; and disqualify any crew ever outside of its own water—if any question arose.
Range up alongside of these four crews at the starting-line the best eight watermen England has yet known—Renforth, her greatest oar, at stroke, "Harry" Kelly, "Joe Sadler," Taylor, Winship, and the other famous ones. In another boat let old Ike Ward put any eight of his nine sons—all oarsmen—or any six with John Biglin, the greatest of the Biglins, and Walter Brown; or the best of the three Ten Eycks, till he had it all to suit him. In a seventh boat have the best eight amateur ​oars yet seen in England, other than those above, and make the eighth crew of the best, fastest eight amateurs America has produced.
And now name the winner—if you can. You have more of a problem than you would ever dream of. With all that is said about rowing, and all that is known about it, is it yet an exact science? If it is, which is its exponent—of two of the world's greatest coaches to-day—Mr. Lehmann or Mr. Courtney? Their styles are radically different. Then which is right? But you take those thirty-two mighty minds, let them concentrate on winning that wonderful battle, greater than any peaceful one yet fought on any water; not excluding that between Mnestheus and Cloanthus, and all their famous triremes—get all that intellect, all that force, all that resistless will-power, and fighting-power incarnate, packed into those dainty, glistening racing-shells—thirty-two men with the racing spirit of thirty-two thousand coiled up in their great brains—and name the winner if you can! And would not they love the battle! You could not suit them better. Bismarck on the best horse in Germany, Washington on Ten Broeck, and Andrew Jackson on Lexington, contemporaries in a four-mile dash, would ride like demons. But that section of lightning-rod, Jackson, would win; for, in such a terrible struggle, every ounce of weight would tell on the horse; and Jackson, long as he was, did not weigh much. But in the boats, again, if you can, name the winner. What other men in the world's annals have known, as have these, the countless elements that enter into winning? Especially in winning against masterminds like their own—up to every move on the board, mercilessly exacting of themselves; intuitively knowing the value of discipline, foresight, fortitude; of ​self-denial, of united action; and knowing, too, what weak men seldom know, how to obey—no man of all those thirty-two would need any urging. He would drive himself, and every ounce of himself, with wellnigh superhuman energy, over every inch of all that long five miles till he crossed the finish-line.
Not the least interesting feature in the study of these great men has been, not their inordinate craving and capacity for ceaseless hard work upon problems of serious difficulty; not the courage and tenacity of purpose that held on after all others had given up all hope; so much as good, sane, sound sense, a body that did instantly just what that sense bid it do; and an utter absence of conceit. "Before honor is humility," applies conspicuously to almost every one of them. Cicero may have taken off his hat whenever he heard his name mentioned; and perhaps Napoleon. But who else? It seemed as if they had reached such intellectual heights, and saw with so much wider range of vision how much they did not know, that it bred in them true modesty, and a simplicity that was charming.
And does it not now become more clear how the bodies of these giants helped them in their life-work; and how, without unusual vigor and lasting power, they could never have done what they did? And if these physical resources were so potent a factor in their success; are they not in any man's who much surpasses his fellows?
Every one knows some youth, or young man, of rare promise—many a parent has a son whom he believes to be such—but his body—well, it does not look as if his stay here would be long. No equilibrium between mind and body there.
Is there no help? If only some way could be found to make that body hale, strong, enduring; so that, push ​his intellect—genius even—all that a rational man should, his body would every time respond to the demand; and his physical reserve be ample for many an over-draft as well—what a blessing that would be—the saving even of the man; and the assuring of the good to his fellows, and to all after him, which he might do; but is not going to do now. Clear beyond doubt is it, that educating the mind alone; or the mind and moral nature only; and not educating the body, never—save in rare instances—makes the really great man. Who could tell the value of health so eloquently as the few who have reached greatness without it? Ask William, Prince of Orange; or Alexander H. Stephens; what they would have given—indeed what would they not have given for sound health? Ask John Milton what he would not have given for good eye-sight after he went blind at forty-six; and clear on to the end of his great life! Massachusetts, in front of her lofty State-house, has statues of two whom she loves to honor; the one, the famed teacher of her youth, remodeller of her school-system; the other, teacher of a nation—"the Expounder of the Constitution"—Horace Mann and Daniel Webster.
The one with an uneducated body—the other with a grand one, matching that wonderful mind. Let the former state his own case: "At college I was taught the motion of the heavenly bodies, as if their keeping in their orbits depended upon my knowing them, while I was in profound ignorance of the laws of health of my own body. The rest of my life was, in consequence, one long battle with exhausted energies."
And this from the lips of a scholar; the President of Antioch College; one to whom, "as much as to any person, is due the founding of Normal Schools in the ​United States"; of whom it was truly said, "Rarely have great abilities, unselfish devotion, and brilliant success been so united in the course of a single life."
A startling confession from such a man. "He saved others; himself he 'could' not save." And you and I, and every intelligent man and woman, know some one now who is cutting down a life of rare promise of great usefulness by just such ignorance; and in just such a battle as was fought by Horace Mann. Does it show commonsense to educate a boy or girl as to the heavenly bodies; or any other bodies; but to teach them nothing about their own bodies; and not to so educate those bodies that they shall be their willing and most helpful servants, no matter where is cast their lot in life? Which branch of their mental training approaches this in importance? Yet is not just this being done in a majority of the schools—and colleges too—in these United States to-day? Talking about the body, perhaps; reading about it, perhaps; but training it, strengthening it, toughening it, fitting it for the life-battle—where? At West Point—yes. Always yes, in many good respects, though her sons could in an hour a day be made ten, twenty per cent, better men than they will be by their present system. And scattered here and there, some other institutions, where the pupil's body is getting a treatment abreast of the intelligence in this field; and giving reasonable assurance, if kept up, of a long and useful life for its owner. But you—the hard brain-worker, in or out of college; you, young man or young woman of character and splendid spirit—working extra hours, far into the night, perhaps, and robbing your sleep—ambitious to be somebody, and to do something worthy in the world; you, already so in love with your work, and so absorbed in it that you do not see that bright as you are making the light in ​the light-house, you are slowly, silently, but with fatal certainty, undermining the structure itself; so that, just when you want it, and want it most; and your trained mind would be a beacon-light on some broad, useful sea; and you one of the honor-men of your time; the first storm of privation, hardship, or suffering that comes along will crash it all to pieces—is there not a lesson for you in the examples of these renowned men; mighty accomplishes in their various fields of action—and a lesson of great moment? Never, since the world began, was the art of body-building so well understood as it is now. Your lacks; your weakness; your probable length of life, can be gauged with a certainty well-nigh unerring. You can be told how far you are ahead of your finish; about how long you will last, if you take no more care of your body, and do nothing more to make it a good body, than you are doing now. Able, brilliant, surpassingly useful and great man even as you may make, if your best hopes are realized; you will scarcely claim to have in you the making of a better man than some, at least, of these illustrious ones. Yet they by chance, necessity, or choice, or by some opulence of native outfit, had or got an unusual store of vitality; and they learned how to keep it; and that if they did not use the means they would lose it. And so they used the means. For they were wide awake to the need of it and to their helplessness without it.
And which part of their education was a more paying investment? Cut out of Commodore Vanderbilt's life that training on the farm and on the water; of Cæsar's that ceaseless go-as-you-please race across Gaul, and over the Alps, again and again, back and forth, for ten long years; out of Washington's those priceless years of endless foot-work, all over Virginia ​and Kentucky; of Gladstone's that hour daily, no matter how busy he was, and how exacting even a nation's demands, in his walking-shoes; or, better yet, with his American axe; eliminate from the lives of these men this branch of their preparation for their life's work—its foundation, indeed—and say, if you truthfully can, that their life's work would have ever been heard of. To make a man of bone and muscle alone, and of untutored mind, would give little better than a horse or ox. But to make one whose brain-work so dominates that his body is neglected, and eaten up by it, till at length some vital organ will not longer stand the strain, and the end comes to his usefulness, or to his life, or both—is this so much more sensible than the former plan? It lies in every man's hand and power to educate his own body. Strong men do not much need teachers. They will find a way. How much had teachers to do with the lives of almost any of this distinguished galaxy? Well says one writer: "Every person has two educations—one which he receives from others; and one, more important, which he gives himself."
And so can you get that more valuable one, if you will only look for it, to save your own body.
You who hope to be a professional man—perhaps a lawyer—do you need any louder hint than that already quoted from the lips of a leader of our Bar, who has attained all, and more, in the profession, than you, in your fondest dreams, have ever dared to hope for, when he says: "The sound body is at the bottom of it all. The stomach is indeed the key of all professional eminence. If that goes back on you, you might as well throw up the sponge." You, who are aiming to heal the bodies of others—will you long succeed at your divine art if you do not train and sedulously care for your own body? ​And you, whose interest is higher than either—whose hope is to win souls; valuable as is the pastoral side, is not one-half of your work to be in the pulpit? And, on your present plan, will you ever be a power there?
Do you think he is a power in the pulpit who, indifferent, feeble even, of body and of voice, with eyes glued to his manuscript; and his body half hid, chained and motionless, reading off that which half his hearers could have read as well or better than he—do you think this kind of thing is not crippling the power of the pulpit in our land to-day? Aptly does one writer ask: "Who has not heard a minister whose sermons were packed with facts; whose style was elegance itself; whose logic was without flaw—and yet who went to sleep"? Who knew better than Spurgeon, or had better chance to know, when he said he thought it "less a crime to cause momentary laughter than a half-hour slumber"? Or than Beecher, when he said, "Nothing is more eloquent than the full form of an earnest man!" All over our land to-day is it not the rule that, at the evening service on Sunday, the churches are not a quarter full? In any other field of instruction, benefit, or entertainment, would you call such an attendance a success,—or not? And are you likely to cure it by following the same stiff, formal course which has made it, for every one else, a failure?
Is this the kind of speaking which accomplishes anything in any other field? Try it once before a jury and see. You will not have a chance to again—at least for that client. Try it before a popular assembly on election-eve; when the people's blood is up and party strife is at boiling-point; and just wait a few minutes till your rival or your adversary has his innings; and see how he will retire you. If a man trying to sell you a carpet ​or a ship gets up behind a fence and, half of the time not looking you in the face, reads off page after page in steady monotone—do you buy the carpet, or the ship? Do you think that feeble men go for much in the pulpit? Listen to one who has made wide and careful study, and hear what he says:
"The orator needs therefore a stout bodily frame, especially as his calling is one that rapidly wears nerve and exhausts the vital energy.
"The most potent speakers in all ages have been distinguished for bodily stamina. They have been, with a few remarkable exceptions, men of brawny frames, with powerful digestive organs, and lungs of great aerating capacity. They have been men who, while they had sufficient thought-power to create all their material needed, had pre-eminently the explosive power by which they could thrust their materials out at men.
"They were catapults; and men went down before them.
"Burke and Fox were men of stalwart frame. Mirabeau had the neck of a bull, and a prodigious chest, out of which issued that voice of thunder before which the French Chamber quailed in awe. Brougham had a constitution of lignum-vitae, which stood the wear and tear of ceaseless activity for more than eighty years. Daniel Webster's physique was so extraordinary that it drew all eyes upon him; and Sydney Smith could describe him only as a 'steam-engine in breeches.'
"Even those orators who have not had giant frames have had at least closely knit ones—the bodily activity and quickness of the athlete. It was said of Lord Erskine that his action sometimes reminded one of a blooded horse. When urging a plea with passionate fervor, his eye flashed, the nostrils distended, he threw back ​his head. 'His neck was clothed with thunder!' There was in him the magnificent animal as well as the proud and fiery intellect; and the whole frame quivered with pent-up excitement. The massive frames of O'Connell and John Bright are familiar to all."—Mathews's Oratory and Orators.
Now if, instead, these men had merely read a paper, precisely as most ministers do read their sermons today—would they likely have ever been heard of? Is not oratory as essential in your calling: in the great cause you are to support and urge home upon the hearts and lives of your hearers? And what have you done or are you doing to get and keep "the stout bodily frame"; "the bodily stamina"; "the brawny frame"; "the powerful digestive organs"; "the lungs of great aerating capacity"? Or "the closely knit" frame, and "the bodily activity and quickness of the athlete"—to have in you—and one of your richest possessions—the magnificent animal "as well as the proud and fiery intellect"? Look at those giants of the pulpit—Luther, Spurgeon, Beecher, and Moody—if you want to see exactly that "stout bodily frame" and those "powerful digestive organs, and lungs of great aerating capacity"; or at those nervy, superb men of wire and steel, Paul and Wesley. Study their lives, and see if they were not of this very closely knit type, and had not this very "bodily activity and quickness of the athlete." Ride horseback five thousand miles a year for fifty years with little John Wesley, as he rode; and you would have to be a good man, or you could not have stayed with him the distance—to say nothing of preaching a tithe even of his sermons.
How is it that two sermons a Sabbath—a hundred a year—five thousand in fifty years—wear you out, and you have to be sent every now and then to Europe for ​repairs, when John Wesley—not so big a man perchance as you—preached, not five thousand sermons, but forty-two thousand sermons—and good ones too?
And so charming and delightful a man he was to men of even the highest intellectual equipment that Samuel Johnson said that Wesley's only drawback was that he had so many engagements that you could never see half enough of him. Yet of such perfect nerve and balance, and in such good condition was he that it was said that no one ever saw him in a hurry. Do you not think that that tough, wiry, little, trained English body of his, without "an ounce of superfluous flesh; exceedingly symmetrical and strong; exceedingly muscular and strong," had a good deal to do with his success in the giant battle of a lifetime that he fought so grandly—quite as much, perhaps, at least, as the fighter's good body has to do in any other contest?
If Demosthenes saw the need of these things, and worked for them till he got them; merely to make his guardians disgorge the funds that they had embezzled—is it not worth your while to work at least as hard as he did for the eternal salvation of souls?
Do you think that oratory is no power? That it will not be a mighty aid to you in your chosen life's work? Can you name any other power its equal, except that of a great character behind it? How was it that it could be said of Chalmers: "What ruler of men ever subjugated them more effectually by his sceptre than Chalmers, who gave law from his pulpit for thirty years—who drew tears from Dukes and Duchesses, and made the Princes of the blood and Bishops start to their feet, and break out in rounds of the wildest applause"? Name some city that you know of which has many eloquent men in the pulpit, or out of it; so many that you ​cannot almost count them on your thumbs. Yes, and include the other professions as well as yours. At the very last Presidential election, for instance, how came the New York World to say, not only that "For the best eloquence all the powers of the mind are brought into the service of the orator; reason and imagination are the chief of these powers." But it well asked: "Is there any man of moving or governing eloquence on either side? Is there one who can handle the thunders as they were handled by Daniel Webster; or who can weave a spell around the reason like that which was woven by Henry Clay; or who can stir the fires of the spirit as they were stirred by Wendell Phillips; or who can use our English speech as it was used by Abraham Lincoln?" And it added, suggestively, "The rewards that await eloquence are tempting indeed. No wonder that the gift is so eagerly sought after. No wonder that so few capture it. We would like to see an orator of true eloquence, Democrat or Republican, in the political campaign which has opened here. Surely, the great city of New York ought to produce one. There is fame for any American who can make a great speech during the coming week."
Does this look as if real orators were many, when in a city of millions of inhabitants they seem to be in serious doubt whether there is even one?
Is not real oratory founded on deep convictions and tremendous earnestness of purpose; where a man feels what he says so deeply that it burns the marrow in his bones till he gets it uttered? And do you believe that he who tamely, often listlessly, reads his words has any such feeling?
Do you mean to say that all preachers should drop their notes and only preach—not read? No, not all. But ​nearly all. There are those who, after the fairest and most protracted series of trials, have satisfied themselves and their hearers that they can read more effectively than they can preach. But how many have really made any such trial? Starting next Sunday, give every clergyman in our land who now reads his sermons, in addition to his present salary, a hundred dollars for each sermon he will not read, but preach—with no desk or anything else but his people in front of him—and both pastor and flock, in hundreds of our parishes, would be electrified. He would get that hundred dollars every time. And nearly every time the congregation would get better sermons than it is getting now; and it will begin to look as if, as Mr. Beecher said of getting rich, the same reason exists why most ministers do not preach well; and that is because they are too lazy. And perhaps too timid. Ask the ferry-hands at Fulton Ferry from New York, on a Sunday in his day—no, you did not need to ask them—where all those crowds were going. Hark a minute, and you would hear: "Right up this way to Beecher's church! Second street to the right! Follow the crowd!" And men and women came from all over America and from other lands to hear this giant. No fear of empty benches there. Why, you would stand up outside often fifteen minutes before you could get standing-room even inside. And within, what a sight! Thousands of intent, eager, set faces, in a house where, but for the speaker's voice, you could have heard a pin drop—all determined to lose no word that fell from his lips! And all you saw on that broad platform was no pulpit, no desk, no anything else but a stalwart, magnificent, supremely earnest man, his face radiant with intelligence; with some great fact to tell, and almost bursting to divulge it. Suppose, ​instead, he had crouched in behind a desk, and read from a paper, precisely as half, and more, of our ministers do read to-day—why, that audience would have flowed out of those doors; or, rather, would have never flowed into them; till they would have had to close the church because it did not pay.
And yet had Beecher any better chance—as good a chance as you have to-day—of counting for anything in the pulpit when, his own sexton, he was sweeping out his little church of only nineteen members in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on three hundred dollars a year, half of it paid from the Home Missionary Fund; and the best suit he owned, when he first came East to preach, was so threadbare and shiny that his wife was ashamed of it?
And do you think that he got this power to speak without working for it?—without learning how to speak? On the contrary, Professor Mathews says that he placed himself at college under a skilful teacher; and for three years was drilled incessantly, he says, in posturing, gesture, and voice-culture. Later, at the Theological Seminary, he continued his drill. In a large grove between the Seminary and his father's house he says that he and others used to make the night and even the day hideous by exploding all the vowels from the bottom to the very top of their voices. And what was the result? "The drill I underwent produced, not a rhetorical manner, but a flexible instrument, that accommodated itself readily to every kind of thought, and every shade of feeling, and obeyed the inward will in the outward realization of the results of rules and regulations." Have you put yourself through any such preparation as that? Or as Demosthenes did for three whole months locked up in that subterranean cellar? These men meant to be speakers. Do you mean to be one? Does not knowledge ​conquered by labor secure a greater vividness and permanency of impression? And do you so conquer it when you merely write it and read it; or when you make it a piece of you? And see Mr. Beecher elsewhere; resting all day Saturday, sleeping two hours after dinner; careful of his food, and that nothing prevented a long night's sleep; then an hour and a half after breakfast on Sunday morning of profoundest thought, when only one human being—his devoted wife—could be allowed to see him; and how he got himself in the pink of condition, keyed up to concert-pitch just at the time he wanted to be ready, when the church-bell ceased ringing for service. There was method in his work. And did you ever see good, much less great, work in which there was not great method—and great preparation? Look at the life of this the greatest pulpit orator America ever saw; and of every other really great speaker; and name one who was not unusually strong, unusually athletic, or both? Who ever reached eminence in swaying the minds and actions of others without assiduous and long-continued careful preparation; and a body meeting every demand, no matter how exacting, which its owner made upon it?
But surely you do not want all men to be athletes! We have not urged that. But we have urged, and do urge, that all men—and all women—and all children—be athletic; that they weed out the effeminate, the feeble, the nerveless, the puny, and the weak by turning them, one and all, into strong, healthy, vigorous, robust persons; and many into powerful and stalwart ones.
But do not athletes die young? Some do. Take a man with a feeble heart, or weak muscles; rush him ​through a brief, hurried "training" of a few weeks, under some so-called "trainer," who does not even have him examined to see if his heart and lungs are fit for any hard work at all, much less for such an exhausting ordeal as a race—on a wheel, or afoot, or in a boat; when perhaps there is functional or even organic heart disturbance there; and danger there surely is. But if, as has been pressed, each person is so examined, and, when found all right, then, moderately at first, then for several months gradually, steadily, sensibly, is brought on to more and better work; it is but natural to expect by-and-by improved tone, vigor, power. As one physician says: "Bad valvular action should be regarded as an absolute bar to cycling. Mere weakness of the muscular fibre, on the other hand, will be distinctly benefited by common-sense riding."
Athletes fit to be athletes do not die young—at least from any athletic cause. Undermine one, though, with some form of dissipation, or vice, and you can kill him early (though not as early then as the nerveless, undeveloped wreck who never touched athletics). But which kills—the athletic work or the vice; that which built him up,—or that which wrought his ruin?
Plato—boy-wrestler before his parts had even matured; contending in the great national games for the champion boy-wrestlership of Greece in her best days—stayed till eighty-three, and put in a pretty busy and useful life besides. Did he die young?
Lord Brougham, the fleetest runner of the whole region; as one writer well puts it, with a constitution of lignum-vitæ; yet one of the most prodigious mental workers the world has ever seen, died at eighty-nine. Is that young?
Gladstone, a trained athlete from his cradle to ​eighty-eight; easily as active as any fellow on Eton play-ground—and that is a play-ground (American schools, with rare exceptions, have no real play-grounds)—who could out-walk any man in great, athletic Oxford, that nest of athletes; a slashing axe-man for over half a century—did he die young?
Mr. Morgan, of Oxford, in his University Oars, years ago, asked every one then living of the nearly three hundred men who had till then rowed in the Oxford-Cambridge 'Varsity race; and their friends, as to those who had died; and found that the average length of life of these racers exceeded that of ordinary men. Mr. Rudolph C. Lehmann, the famous English coach, whose disinterested and valuable services to university-rowing, both in his own land and in this country, have won him countless admirers, in his capital book on Rowing, commenting upon Mr. Morgan's report, says:
"And it must be remembered that this inquiry covered a period during which far less care, as a general rule, was exercised both as to the selection and the training of men than is the case at the present day. I may add my own experience. Since I began to row, in 1874, I have rowed and raced with or against hundreds of men in college races and at regattas, and I have watched closely the rowing of very many others in University and in Henley crews. I have kept in touch with rowing-men, both my contemporaries and my successors, and among them all I could not point to one (putting aside for the moment the three special cases I have just discussed) who has been injured by the exercise, or would state himself to have been injured. On the contrary, I can point to scores and scores of men who have been strengthened in limb and health—I say nothing here of any moral effect— by their early races, and the training ​they had to undergo for them. I could at this moment pick a crew composed of men all more than thirty years old who are still, or have been till quite recently, in active rowing, and, though some of them are married men, I would back them to render a good account of themselves in eight or four or pair against any selection of men that could be made.
"Nay more, in any other contests of strength and endurance, I believe they would more than hold their own against any younger athletes; and would overwhelm any similar number of non-athletes of the same or any other age. As contests I should select a hard day's shooting over dogs, cross-country riding, tug-of-war, boxing, long-distance rowing, or, in fact, any contest in which the special element of racing in light ships has no part.
"For such contests I could pick not eight but eighty men well over thirty years old; and, if the limit were extended to twenty-four years of age, I could secure an army. Is there any one who doubts that my rowing-men would knock the non-athletes into a cocked hat? For it must be remembered that the bulk of rowing men are not exclusively devoted to oarsmanship. A very large proportion of those that I have known have been good all-round sportsmen."
Does this testimony of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Lehmann, covering nearly eight hundred famous oarsmen, the most renowned amateur oarsmen England—rowing England—has ever produced; for a 'Varsity oar who does his duty in the battle is forever on an honor-roll, dear to men any way, as we have seen in the case of the Master of the Rolls:—does this say that athletes die young? Have athletics killed Mr. Justice Chitty at seventy? Or Paul Krueger at seventy? Or Lord Esher at seventy-nine? Or Bismarck at eighty-three?
​Had you asked one of the most inventive and valuable minds America has yet known, inventor and patentee in 1836 of the screw-propeller—honor enough for any one man—of the little Monitor which revolutionized the world's naval architecture,—John Ericsson; who worked mentally ten hours a day for over sixty years, yet always had h is half-hour or more every day for sharp gymnastic and athletic work (as it is a serious mistake that Edison has not);—who, on his eightieth birthday in a tug-of-war alone against two young and rather vigorous-looking men, hauled them in like tom-cod; and whose splendid body brought him comfortably through clear up to eighty-four;—had you asked him if athletes need to die young; does it take long to tell what would have been his reply?
Ask William B. Curtis—"Father Bill," as the athletes ​call him—and Harry Buermeyer, founders of the New York Athletic Club more than a generation ago—and Buermeyer is fifty-nine and Curtis sixty-one—who rowed scores of races and took part in other athletic events before this present generation was born; Curtis rowing in more than one hundred and fifty races; in walking, jumping, throwing the hammer, skating, and swimming, taking part in over two hundred events; running more than two hundred and fifty races in all in more than six hundred contests;—let us see Greek or Roman of any age outside of war-time show such a score as that;—who, in a Chicago store, when some boxer was, or rather said he was, going to thrash him; caught him up lovingly in his arms, and threw him through the window into the laughing Chicago river just behind the house,—which closed the entertainment. Buermeyer, a kingly looking six-footer, with sixteen-inch arms, great shoulders, magnificent chest, square sides, and powerful legs; a modest, quiet, unassuming man, but a terror with the gloves—or without them—almost what the English fighter described Sullivan, when he saw him spar,—'a cat and a locomotive combined';—who to-day, each without training, would be very likely, in a glove-fight with either Corbett or Fitzsimmons, to give them the surprise of their lives. Just ask these grayheads—indeed Curtis does not show much gray yet—if athletes die young, and see their eyes light up! Catch hold of either for a fall,—and see if he does not throw you over his head!
"JOSH" WARD (AT 60)
Ex-champion Single Sculler of America
​and lovable as the latter. But a six-footer, broad-shouldered, stringy, enduring beyond most men; long time single-scull champion of America; the most famous member of her most famous crew; defeating England's best two fours in a four-mile race on Saratoga Lake, away back in 1871, for the world's championship, with such men as Harry Kelly, England's renowned champion single-sculler; Thomas Winship, "Bob" Chambers, Joseph H. Sadler, and other men of the "Coaly Tyne" and of the Thames, as well known then to almost every man and boy in England—just ask him, the renowned "Josh" Ward, if athletes die young? Put in a day or a week at his comfortable inn by Cornwall Bay on the Hudson, five miles north of West Point. Go shooting ducks with him; go fishing with him; take one of his many easy-rowing boats, and, with him in the other, pick your own distance, and see if you are the man who first crosses the finish-line. Ask, not champion Edward Hanlan Ten Eyck; but his father, James Ten Eyck the Second—a very fast sculler to-day, if athletes die young. Then ask his father, James Ten Eyck—a lad of seventy summers—to try you for a mile with the sculls—or five, if you like—and if old age does not creep over the finish-line ahead of you, you are a good one. Just ask him if athletes die young, and he will inquire if you wish any further answer—or any more miles. It is getting pretty near time to drop this exploded notion that sensible athletic work by any man not physically defective does him harm, or shortens his days; and to see whether it does not add greatly to the probability that it will lengthen them. Dr. J. Gardner Smith well says: "The man who never makes much physical or mental effort may live to a good old age; but he is never prepared for an emergency, such as injury or disease of a portion of the lung; nor can he enjoy any ​violent effort with safety." But that same body, trained intelligently, steadily, persistently, at length becomes a temple fit for a noble spirit to dwell in; and a valuable helper in about all you undertake in any line, however busy your life may be; and you are then largely prepared to meet emergency, injury, disease, or violent effort almost with impunity.
Most of our boys and girls are through school by twelve, or at latest fourteen, and then they have to work for a living. Vast numbers of them, as already seen, are at the higher mechanic arts, in stores, offices, and elsewhere, bent over type-writers or sewing-machines, or otherwise, where nine-tenths of their muscles have nothing to do, day in and day out, year in and year out—who go a whole week together without once taking a full breath; and many of whom ride, not walk, both to and from work if they can—and they generally can. Now what can they do where there is no gymnasium or athletic track near or cheap? Get the owner of the shop or mill to let you use the largest room he has, which has considerable empty space in it, for an exercising-room evenings. Get a few exercisers, or ask him to get them, and put them up around the room. Paint a track around the room on the floor, with as few laps as you can to the mile. Any carpenter can make you a springboard; and any young girl can in a few minutes, out of two yards of drilling, filled with sawdust, make a good striking-bag, which you can hang by two ropes from the ceiling. That is a good enough gymnasium in which to develop any one. Let the best two or three each evening lead the others in classes, and show them what they know; and do whatever they can do; and by a little reading and inquiry they will soon know much more. In two ​or three months you will be astounded at what that old mill-room will do for you. Get the owner also to take part, and he will, oftener than you imagine, for he does look to your real interests. Saturday evenings have a debate there for mill-hands only, on any timely, stirring topic. The really bright youth in that mill can want no better arena. Nothing will raise him in the estimation of all his neighbors—and especially of his fair neighbors—like good work done there.
A bobbin-boy in Massachusetts, in just such a mill, used often to walk twelve miles to Boston after supper to get a book out of a library; and to walk back home again, so eager was he to know something and to be somebody. And he became somebody, as he deserved to—the Governor of Massachusetts; a Major-General in the war; and one of the greatest Speakers the House of Representatives ever saw! There was racing stuff in that bobbin-boy; and a wonderful long-distance swimmer under water, by-the-way, was that same General Banks. No one appreciates such youth more than their employers. To the credit and lasting honor of New England it is said that she has no town of over eleven hundred inhabitants without a public library. When that can be said, not of New England only, but of the nation, good chance for an education as nearly every youth in our land has to-day, then he can have no one but himself to blame if he remains ignorant. Both here and in Scotland, Mr. Andrew Carnegie has put this and future generations deeply in his debt, in several communities, by his forethought and wise munificence, in supplying them with large working libraries—free. If, in his great hall in the metropolis, he would, every fall and winter, provide the public with the best lecture-talent in the world, as the foresight, kindness, ​and ready purse of John Lowell, Jr., has so provided Boston for nearly sixty years; he will own a warm place in the hearts of a vast multitude of his fellow-countrymen; and will do inestimable good.
"Many are the friends of the golden tongue"; and all enjoy hearing men talk who know what they are talking about, and have learned how to tell it; and by a little thoughtful provision, not only on his part, but by a few men and women who have their city's welfare at heart—in each city—our whole land could, ere long, sit at the feet of the best teachers in their various chosen fields; and could have the never-to-be-forgotten delight of drinking at the fountain-head—while the expense to the donors would never be felt. The ablest professors in all our colleges and universities—provided they know how to talk—could thus edify and benefit, not a mere handful, as now,—but a nation, and so multiply their influence and the good they are now doing a hundredfold; and the press would be their great ally in the work. Indeed, thanks largely to the efforts of one live newspaper—the World—New York has to-day lectures ​annually to half a million of hearers—good lectures too. But these do not include the great men in the field, the Stanleys, and Maclarens, and Nansens; the "Tom" Reeds, Edisons, and Bourke Cockrans, the best of both continents; and men and women in moderate or small circumstances would enjoy and profit by hearing these even more than do the wealthy; and such lectures published afterwards—the Carnegie course—would have a permanent value.
And now what more tools do you want? You have more than Franklin had; more than Washington had; more, far more, than Abraham Lincoln had. How they would have welcomed such a chance for self-improvement as this! Or your running-track can be on the road near by. And one thing more you do want and can all have—a good bit of turf for the best exercise yet discovered to make boys and men strong all over—wrestling. Which, as Milton says (see page 291), is the likeliest means to make men grow large, tall, and to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage. Washington had no time to wrestle during working-hours. That made no difference; he found time afterwards. So did Lincoln;—and so can you. If, as the ancients believed and found, "a well-framed and exercised body assured sound sense and right judgment"—and will you name any man richer in sound sense and right judgment than Washington or Lincoln—if, as Beecher so well put it—and he could put anything well—"learning in a broken body is like artillery without a ​gun-carriage";—you have all the tools with which to educate yours into a good body now ready at hand. Of the five events in the mighty games of ancient Greece—throwing the discus; and the javelin; leaping, running, and wrestling—you have the more important three—the leaping, running, and wrestling. We Americans are generally poor wrestlers; and weak in many parts, where in a few months of half an hours work each evening we could soon become strong. Turn us into a nation of wrestlers, and that mighty increment of vigor would be of incalculable value in our health, effectiveness, comfort, working-power, and self-reliance—not as individuals only, but as a nation. Of two regiments otherwise in all ways alike, but one all wrestlers; the other ignorant of the art; the wrestlers would be liable to win every battle.
And the women in the shop and store and mill should have most of the exercises just as well as the men; care being had to choose those that suit them best. It will not be long till you will find girls there who can out-skate the men, out-swim them, out-row them, and pass them in many another line, as the Spartans found that their maidens often did pass their men when trained, not for health, but for war.
Marked as we think our interest in this country is in athletics, it has scarcely more than begun. Indeed, we are not ready yet for high performance in this field.
As already seen in rowing, so in all other athletic lines, we have no really national meet or track. Will some one name a track in or near a great city where the best men of the year from the whole nation, now meet and prove their superiority? Mention some track where fifty thousand persons even can be comfortably seated and sheltered, so as to view the games. Thirty, forty ​thousand people gather at Springfield, Massachusetts, to view the bicycle contests. But what is that handful in a nation of seventy millions? In or near a great city—say in its golfing links—patterned after the best plans of ancient Greece and Rome—or better ones yet—suppose we had a first-class half-mile oval track, with enough seats around one-half of it to accommodate, not the eighty-three thousand of the Roman Coliseum, which, 615 feet long, was not so much longer than Madison Square Garden, New York, though, 510 feet wide and 150 feet high, with its marble seats, and cushions, it was much higher and wider; not the open plains of Olympia, in Elis, where an entire nation could congregate; but where say one hundred thousand persons could all be comfortable, could all see all of the contests, and could get to and from there safely, swiftly, and with ease. When the demand increased, as it soon would do; seat the whole oval; while the four-in-hands and other turnouts could have the central field. No more charging half a dollar or several dollars to get in. Twenty-five cents for the best seats, and ten for the others, would be ample entrance-fee. Had in the summer months, as the ancients had theirs; or in mild October, when the merchants' associations invite the buyers from all over the land to come to town, and bring their wives and daughters; with car-fares at last a cent a mile, as they should have been years ago; any convenient hill-side holding half of the seats, and a stout though cheap structure on the other side, such as sprung up in a night almost when General Grant's tomb was dedicated; and the cinder-path, the gridiron, and the field would be easy to provide. A cycling race before such a mighty gathering would indeed be an impressive spectacle. The best runners on that track; the best wrestlers on that ​sod; the best players in a great foot-ball match; or the fleetest pedalers on that oval,—with our wonderful press facilities,—such as Greece and Rome in their palmiest days never even dreamed of—would win a national and lasting name in an afternoon—even as to-day we know the names of some of the best men on those ancient plains two thousand years ago; for, as Mr. Thirlwall says in his History of Greece, Chapter X.:
   "The mainspring of emulation was undoubtedly the celebrity of the festival, and the presence of so vast a multitude of spectators, who were soon to spread the fame of the successful athletes to the extremity of the Grecian world." … (Our press would attend to that, and easily beat them at it.) "Thus it happened that sports not essentially different from those of our village-greens gave birth to master-pieces of sculpture, and called forth the sublimest strains of the lyric muse. Viewed merely as a spectacle designed for public amusement, and indicating the taste of the people, the Olympic Games might justly claim to be ranked far above all similar exhibitions of other nations. It could only be for the sake of a contrast, by which their general purity, innocence, and humanity would be placed in the strongest light, that they could be compared with the bloody sports of a Roman or Spanish amphitheatre; and the tournaments of our chivalrous ancestors, examined by their side, would appear little better than barbarous shows."
How roundly such meetings—and larger yet, International ones—would pay the management, the hotels, the railroads, and the varied other interests, will be seen at a glance—especially if the games ran through two or three afternoons. New York is not ready for such an American Derby yet. She would be but for one thing. She has many charming spots in her northern Borough where a grand track could be had and at small cost, for it would need but a few acres of land. But, save for a few trains each day, she has no rapid transit. Upon a stage-coach, such as was driven a century ago, Mr. ​Catlin, or Mr. George R. Read, or Colonel DeLancey Kane will drive you to-day from one end of the city almost the entire fifteen miles to the other, and beat any existing conveyance,—so far behind the age is she in this respect. But whenever at last you can go in or under the city nearly or quite a mile a minute—as you now do ride upon any first-class railroad out of the city—then the problem will be a simple one. But Chicago, with her typical go and genius for achievement—which gave us the grandest Fair the world has ever seen—could soon have such a track. So could Philadelphia or Boston. And it will not be many years till some city will have it. Then athletics—if kept pure, as the University races, for instance, are now— will leap to a place in public and national esteem not yet conceived of.
And, rightly managed, and showing the best men, and methods of development of men of the year; it will make for the welfare of the race. We are steadily, rapidly, substantially improving in almost every line. Why not also in the physique of all our men, women, and children—a far more important matter than the Greek statues and lyrics? The intense, ceaseless energy of commercial and all industrial life to-day demands unusual bodies, or we will burn out—as so many of us are burning out—long before our time. Everything that wise, intelligent direction can do for the athlete, and for the athletic; for the muscleless and for the weak, will be for the common weal. When we once realize how important an educated body is as an aid to sanity and mental power; to self-respect and high purpose; to sound health and vigorous, enduring strength; to genial, attractive good-nature, and to sunny, welcome cheerfulness;—we will spare no pains to insure that education to all. And when we reflect that a mind educated to ​a high degree, with a neglected body, is like an axe with a razor-edge and no back to it,—a rare tool to whittle with, but worthless for felling timber; that the body trained to a high degree, with a neglected mind, is an axe all back, and with its edge as blunt as our finger-ends—fit for neither whittling nor felling, nor for much of anything else worthy of a man—but that, with the two combined,—the keen edge and the splendid back behind it,—you can hew down whole forests till you have cleared a continent; that, with the educated mind and the body also educated, we can do a full, often a great life's work;—then we may see, with an insight and force new to us, how deep a meaning to the ancients lay hidden in their terse and favorite maxim—a sane mind in a sound body.
* ↑ In response to our request for data as to some of his best work, he hands us this: "Running, 50 yards, 5¾ sec.; 60 yards, 6½ sec.; 75 yards, 8 sec.; 100 yards (many times), 10 sec.; 220 yards, 23 sec.; 440 yards, 51½ sec. Walking, 1 mile, 8 min. 51 sec. 120-yard hurdle race, 19 sec. Skating, 1 mile, 3 min. 18 sec. Swimming, 100 yards, 1 min. 40 sec.; 200 yards, 3 min. 39 sec. Rowing, single sculls, 1 mile, 6 min. 49 sec.; 2 miles, 13 min. 57 sec.; 3 miles, 23 min. 13 sec.; double sculls, 1 mile, 6 min. 9 sec.; 2 miles, 12 min. 23 sec.; pair-oared, 3 miles, 22 min. 48 sec.; four-oared, 3 miles, 18 min. 12 sec.; six-oared, 1 mile, 5 min. 38 sec. Running long jump, 19 feet, 4 in.; high jump, 5 feet 1 in. Throwing hammer, 90 feet; 56-pound weight, 24 feet. Putting up one dumb bell of 168 pounds; two dumbbells, 100 pounds each. Lifting, with hands alone, 1323 pounds; with harness, 3239 pounds."
* ↑ And among the voices which have instructed and delighted audiences there are those of Silliman, Sir Charles Lyell, Lovering, Gray, Agassiz, Professor Cooke, Rogers, Ray, Peirce, Tyndall, Goodale, Geikie, Farlow, Wyman, Langley, Cross, Ball, Wallace, Sir William Dawson, Murray, Professor Drummond, Andrew P. Peabody, Richard S. Storrs, Lyman Abbott, Mark Hopkins, Edward Everett, Cornelius C. Felton, Professor Child, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, William Everett, Bishop Huntington, George P. Marsh, Bayard Taylor, James Bryce, President Eliot, Edward Everett Hale, William D. Howells, Professor Shaler, Dr. Brown-Séquard, Richard A. Proctor, Bonamy Price, General Di Cesnola, Francis A. Walker, Horace E. Scudder, Dr. William B. Carpenter, George Kennan, Rodolfo Lanciani, Colonel Theodore A. Dodge, John Fiske, John A. Kasson.
* ↑ A Hand-Book of Wrestling, by Hugh F. Leonard, the accomplished Instructor in Wrestling of the New York Athletic Club—(published by E. R Pelton, New York); and Wrestling, by Professor Hitchcock, of Cornell University, and Mr. Neligan, of Amherst College, will be found helpful in this field.