The New era. [volume] ([Portsmouth, Va.]) 1845-1847, 1846-01-31
PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

honors and riches so highly priced by man. what
Is actually more valuable than health What
contributes more directly to happiness The
silngS OF guilty conscience, ii is true, inflct
more keen felt misery than the pangs of rickety
constitution, and inca appellate one more efTectually
Tor the enjoyment of every pleasure but, after
that, what distinction man in his senses
more anXiOusly covct than body uniformly free
from disease When nature feels the flow of its
blood pure and unmpeded what unntterable plad-
ness bathes the spirit in that feeling Of
health? God created the earth and the mir beau.
tIIul through the senses; and at the uplifting of
little lid. whole food of imagery is let in upon
the spirit, all of which becomes part of its very
self and the mere consciousness of existence is
like that emotion Of which Milton speaks as
breathed from the bowers of Paradise,
Yernoi delight and JOY, able to drive
All sadness but despair!
1t is 10 us Il matter of deep surprise that so lit
tie importance is attached to these considerations
that people do not reflect, not only that by n
just attention to them, they would experience one
ct the few glowing delights which are nnaccoml-
panied with danger or remorse, but that it is
their duty, as mortal beings, not TO give their
souls wholly 10 amassing wealth or acquiring
fame. Through all our schools, colleges, and
other seminaries of learning, physical education.
we fear, is woiuIly neglected. What compensa-
ton are Greek, Latin, and Metaphysics TO a
Is destroyed? He brings into the arena of life,
to meet lis fierce conests-io bear its hard shocks
to perSevere in its long continued, lah0rious
enterprlses-and to subdue its impetuuus OPPOSE
tions-a shrivelled, punY body limbs trembling
with weakness, and pasied with pain His fee
bic system is born down to the bed of sickness
even by the operations of his own over-culivat-
ed mind. The spirit is TOO strong for lis tene-
ment.
The sword has worn through its scabbard He
hears The trumpet sound, and the busy hum of
preparation, but he cannot arise and arm himself
for the battle. Opportunities Of usefulness, and
OF creating an honorable reputation, crowd thick
araund hun, but he feels prOStraling weakness,
which like invisible enemy, creeps through
his veins, and drinks the life blood from his
hear! and he languishes in pain and wreDched-
ness, like lvanhoe in the castle Front de Boeui,
unable TO perform a solitary act in the fray on
whose result hang all his most cherished hopes
He is a g drone IN the hive Of lite''-a stranded
bark, rottng in the wind and sun, while others
are dancing on The blue waves, and eXultinp in
their t0amy path. We can with difficulty i'm
agne spectacle more deserving of the sympathy
OF men and angels, than human being whose
heart is overlooking with philanthropc feelings,
and whose mind teens with gOdIike schemes for
making others wiser and better, thus doomed TO
dreafy inactivity, and perpetually compelled TO
think of himself by sharp enforcement of physical
pain, or the nervous despOndence and inability
produced by bodily weakness. But why speak
of literary and professional men alone ?-d0 not
the sons of Mammon fling away the precious
blessing Of health with equal carelessness p
Thousands of our fellow citizens, who are sur
rounded with all the elegances Of life, are at this
moment cnvying the obscure ploughbov. whose
pure breast has conceived cankered longings
either Of Gyarlce or ambition, whose feelings are
overloaded by no complication Of diseases and
Oh, L. t.