The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-05-30
Our Bodics-Neod the English Have
Botters

Botters
The ancient Greeks, noticing that the body
usually ceased growing by twenty and devei-
oping by twenty five, are said to have given
much time between seventeen and tweniy-one
to careful physical culture For martial
people, constantly called to test their strength
and endurance, this culture was almost an es-
sential; and yet its benefits are SO great that
no nation can long do without it. The Ger
mans get it by their military drill; the Eng
lish, from passion born and bred in them
for outdoor sports; and now we as a people,
are at last beginning to bestir ourselves TO
similar end. Like the Germans, we do not
put our recruit in stiff collar, pronged, per-
haps. in 'front.' and force him to shorten his
step, get the SLOUGH out of it and walk erect
in spite of himself. Nor do we know much
about tennis, fox hunting or hare and hounds.
and very little Of cricket, while we are too
busy to find more than day or two in a year
for hunting and fishing. The masculine game
of billiards, to be sure, we have long liked,
and we freely pay our money for chance to
indulge in it, with its pure air and company
and vigorous and ennobling exercise. At
hanging to horse car strap, too, we are
gradually getting skilful.
But from the word now coming in from
our colleges, we are glad 10 note the great in
terest gathering in kind Of work which, if
not overdone, win confer solid and lasting
benefit and that on the class which, above all
others among us, most needs it, and will also
tend to save us from the slur which is flung
at us almost daily, and too truly, that,
physically. we are dying out.
Among our well grown boys and young men
the popular forms of exercise are mainly,
two-baseball playing and rowing. Either,
pursued judiciously, brings great good and
yet both effect but partial and one-sided de-
velopment The former calls into play the
legs and one arm. the fingers of the other
hand to be sure, getting fine chance of
having swollen joints, but the other arm has
really nothing to do. Rowing develops the
back and legs, the arms hardly any and the
chest none at all. Look not at the college
oarsnan, who, seeing how small, rowing leaves
many of his muscles, develops them by other
work Though often he does not), but at
him who rows because it pays, or he
thinks it does-who cares nothing for
its result on his person, and who
simply rows to win-the professional. Of the
famous four brothers, the champions of the
world, not one has well developed chest,
most have Indifferent looking arms and not
one walks nearly erect Among the English
professionals who came here in such
numbers in 1871, but who have stayed
at home 80 we'll since, there were
many surprisingly small arms, and row.
ing men know that large arms are very likely
to injure mans style by making him pull his
body up to his oar at the end of his stroke,
instead of the oar up to his body. Let our
youth, then, give as much time as they will to
either or both of these pastimes, and from
them alone he will never attain regular and
complete physical development
Suppose, now, that such system of bodily
culture were established at one of our princi-
pal seats of learning and so we'll kept up that
every student, no matter what his degree of
weakness on entering, unless seriously de-
symmetrical and enduring, fair gymnast,
good boxer, stout swimmer, strong of arm,
erect in carriage, swift and sure of foot,
having every organ in his trunk in good
order, because the casing of that trunk was
developed as God meant it should be know
ing how he got these good things, just what
work will give them to another, and trained,
too, to impart that knowledge. Scatter such
men broadcast over this land, and in every
corner of it there would soon be rising fami-
lies of whom, if the Rev. Stephen II. Tying,
Jr., repeated what he said but the other day
in the pulpit-namely, ''We are race OF
shadows; we ore Ratchet faced,
sunken checked, pallid of complexion, wear
ing o perpetually tatigued look exciting
everybody's sympathy when they see
us. do not think it false witness
when declare that the Americans, as such,
are dying out''-then the reverend gentleman
would lie. And is it impossible to so train
menu Ask them up at West Point. They
have not done it all, but they have effected
enough to know that the rest is as easy, at
least, as Euclid or the 'Shorter Catechism"
We ask no extreme work /; nothing mourning
danger nothing nearly SO hazardous as the
last two or three minutes rowing of
every faithful man of the fifty-four who, on
Thursday afternoon not many weeks from
now, will do what lies in him, and little
more If he can, to push his boats nose in first
over the finish line of Moons, and make the
name Of his alma mater fairest, and, for the
year, first among American colleges. Every
one of these rowers be he trained never
80 well, will be Juggling and straining furiously
long after he ought to stop. But to bring
sturdy lasting health, that will take man
cheerily through life, even to his round four