The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-05-10
SYSTEM OF EXERCISE,

ing those respectable old gentlemen. Her
odicus, Hippocrates, Galen, and the rest
without some reference to whom no ESSAY
on gymnastics, however crude, could by
any possibility be written; notwithstand
ing their practice and teaching of medica
or sanative Exercises, the gymnasium, hav
ing its origin in the necessities of time
when physical strength and endurance
. were among the highest qualities of the
citizen, has continued to flourish through
our innate respect and admiration for those
Notwithstanding savage instincts out
Of which we have not yet developed. And
though the gymnasium Of modern times is
but feeble representative of the ancient
palestra, yet within dozen years one OF
its most intelligent supporters sounds the
old-time cry in a modern phrase: Strength
is Health.
AS an illustration of the results of the
empirical, but time honored, modes of train.
ing of the gymnasium, based on this pro-
| position, let us take its author himself, DR..
George B. Windship, of Boston. A puny
and diminutive youth, the subject of in
tense nervousness, head ache, indigestion,
rush of blood to the head, and weak cir
culation, he was driven to the cultivation
of his "muscle' by the petty tyranny of
one of his college-mates,-m on one
occasion, after unusual abuse, the follow
ing promise to a sympathizing chum
{" Wait two years, and l promise you 1
will either make my tormentor apologize
or give him such a thrashing as he will
remember for the rest of his life. Tardy
revenge; but young Windship was as sure
as he was slow, and at the end of the two
years, with broadened shoulders and devel-
oped muscles, the young athlete sought
his old enemy; and-received his apology
In his Autobiographical Sketches Of Strength
Seeker he says:
81 have only to add that we parted with
out collision, and that, in my heart,
could not help thanking him for the SER
vice he had rendered in melting me to the
regimen which had resulted so beneficially
to my health.
"The impetus given to my gymnastic
education by the little incident have just
related was continued without abatement
through my whole college life. Gradually
L acquired the reputation of being the
strongest man in my class. l discovered
that, with every days development of my
strength, there was an increase of my abil-
ity to resist and overcome all f1eshly all
ments, pains and inirmities; discovery
which subsequent experience has so amply
confirmed, that, if 1 were called on to con-
dense the proposition which sums it up
into a formula, it would be in these words:
Strength is Health"
Notwithstanding his reputation as "the
strongest man in his class" Windship
found that, with the fullest and most severe
training the gymnasium afforded, he was
unsymmetricaly developed; being, as he
says, "perilously weak in the sides, be-
tween the shoulders, and at the back of
the head "a discovery that thousands
had made before him; but these thousands,
having eyes, saw not wherein the ordinary
gymnastic systems fell short.
The primary and vital defect of ordinary
gymnastics is that they train the extremi-
ties while they neglect the trunk. They
produce ponderous masses of muscle in
arms or legs-rarely in both of the same
subject-but ignore the loins, abdomen,
and trunk in general. They develop "mag.
nificent Shells of muscle on the surface,
but draw away vitality and power from the
interior To epitomise the matter: The
gymnasium strengthens the extreme links of
the Chain, but leaoes the centre 10 rust and
1reakness.
AS a chain is no stronger than its weak
est link, SO the body is no healthier than its
weakest part; and if Strength is Health the
gymnasium fails as a health agency in neg
lectlng the citadel itself-the body-while
legs. And even this defective training,
with its unsymmetrical development, is
only attainable through an expenditure of
time which renders it impracticable for the
great majority.
Next in order to the gymnasium comes
Baron Ling's system of Movement Cure,
which consists, essentially, of the passive
and active use of local muscles, under the
advice and care of physician, who pre-
seribes the dOss of Exercise in each individ-
ual cases. This is of inestimable value in
a large class of diseases, for which no 9TH
er form of Exercise is at all available; and
in its accuracy of prescription it avoids one
grave objection to the gymnasium.
These two modes of Exercise embraced
all the systems of which anything was
known until within the past few years. 1t
is true there have been, in this country,
various notifications of the gymnasium,
under various titles-as Free Gymnastics,
Musical Gymnastics, Calisthenics, ETC.
But they are all open to the objections
above noted, of training the limbs at the
expense of the body "a training which, from
it's unsymmetrical character, strengthens
the strong muscles, but neglects the weak.
and SO is fraught with danger3 and of
consuming time in throwing beam bags,
running for pins, or swaying wands to soft
music. which no useful member of the
community can afford.
To these two objections, of imperfect
development and of great outlay of time,
may be added third, which, if the ordin-
airy gymnastic system were open to no 9TH
er, would be fatal one, namely: that
there is no mode of adjusting, with any
practical accuracy, its exercises o the vary
ing conditions and requirements of its
patrons. The strong and the weak, the
STRIPPING and the giant, are turned loose
amongst wilderness of apparatus, and
the sole guide for their tanning is, gensr-
ally, their own caprice, or discretion, occa-
sionally the supervision of a teacher who.
not unfrequently, has reversed in himself,
the condition of his pupils, that is, devel-
oped by disproportiorate use, his MUSCLES
at the expense Of his brain. A spirit OF
rivalry and emulation continually urges
the pupil toward an excess which is often