Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-02-27
BAD HEALTH AND BODILY FRAGILITY
OF AMERICANS.
From The London Times, Jan. 20.

From The London Times, Jan. 70.
What is to be the future destiny of the great
race which inhabits the opposite shores OF the
Atlantic? Spriuging from the old English stocks
and engrafting on itself shoots from every Euro.
pean people, it is advancing with unprecedented
rapidity to power and wealth. We ourselves are
Of the optimists we cannot believe shat nature
OF the course of human events should recede,
and that the American people should be other
than what its institutions, its natural advantages,
and the singular energy OF its character seem to
promise. But there arc not wanted prophets on
the other side, and. strange to say, they usually
make their appearance among the Americans
themselves. OF course, it is to be expected that
the North should depreciate the South and the
defendants Of Virginia Cavaliers affect to look
wish scorR upon the defendants of Massachusetts,
Puritans. But something more than this sectional
rivalry has lately become the fashion. Indeed,
our Republican friends, who are in many respects
only exaggeratiuns Of ourselves, are accustomed
TO mingle selt.depreclation with boasting after the
most approved customs Of the old county
Whether they believe what they say against them.
selves as much as what they say in their own
praise is another question. Now within the last
lew years there seems to have arisen a feeling that
the American physically is not what be or she
ought 80 be.
Whether the doctors have set the idea in mo.
ton. or whether Mr.. Kingsley's works and the
example Of the English public schools have had
an effect On the lTdlsltiuulic mn I, certain IL Is
that one cannot take 40 an American magazine
or newspaper without finding a lameutation or
the muscular degeneracy of the New World
Parents aud school masters and school mistresses
are ezhorted to take caie Of the youth Of both
sexes who are growing up under their charge, and
To see that they do not turn cut mere intellectual
~prod,gies without any bodily stamina. To believe
tbere writers, the new race Of Americans is a
kind OF artificial growth, in which all the sub.
stance and vigor which should go to make arms,
legs, loins, cheeks, teeth and hair, have been
concentrated in the bIain. In the last century
Button and the naturalists Of that time started a
theory that since the animals found in the rev
Wurlc were of n smaller and weaker type than
those of the Old, therefore the European race o.
men must necessarily degenerate, aud, after a
century or two, be as far inferior to English.
Frenchmen and Spauiards. as the puma is to the
Barbary lion. This speculation used to cause
great anger among the Americans of the old
school, who, after reeitiag their exploits against
the English, were accustomed to explain that even
their savages were the finest OF all possible
savages, and that no Asiatic or African tribe
could possibly compare with the red men of the
New World. But the reaction against this self
complacent estimate has recently been carried So
far that We should not be surprised to see some
American naturalist resucitating the old theory.