Sacramento daily record-union., 1883-11-03
nouR cHILpREk,s BODIES. /,

William Blake, who mas obtained con-
siderable celebrity as writer on physical
culture, and who is a practical gymnast,
has an article in Harper's" on the care of
the bodies of our children. There can be
no doubt that the Americans, as rule
sadly neglect their duty in attending to
the physical culture of their offspring. The
trouble is that we run away with the idea
chat if boy is allowed to romp and play,
he secures all the exercise needed to the
proper development of his body. Mr..
Blake denounces this popularity entertained
belief. If we ask him whether we do not
do our duty, then, if we fit up gymnasi
nm with turning bars, swings, ladders,
ropes, dumbbells, ETC., and send our boys
and girls in to exercise with approved i'm.
plements, he responds mo" We do not
provide books, maps, school-rooms and
blackboards, and turn our children loose in
the school-house to acquire an education as
best they nay. What is needed, therefore,
is direction. In this respect our German
citizens are far ahead of us in their theory
and practice. The lad who has gymnastic
appliances at hand without a teacher to
direct him is apt to strain and injure him
self, and will attempt in a single day, with.
out growth to the ability, all the difficult
feats he has ever seen trained gymnast
accomplish. Neither can strength be
built up, nor the muscular system
be developed by misdirected exercise,
however patiently adhered to. Blake
is an enthusiast he draws some disagree.
able pictures of modern physical degener-
acy that are unquestionably over-oolored-
nevertheless there is much truth in what he
says, and much food for serious reflection.
Not one boy in FIVE, he alleges, is well built
or properly developed, or developed as he
may be by proper culture Of his body.
With girls the case is much worse. Those
who can wear Jersey are very few,
because it becomes only a fine figure and
Shis few have because the gifts of nature
have not been developed. Running is
lost art among girls. Yet there live those
to-day, our author might well have added,
who remember the hefieet-footed strong .limbed
girls of halt a century ago. There are not
probably ten girls out Of fifty, nor twenty
boys out Of the same number, who can
possibly run mile without danger of ruin
ing themselves for life. But almost any
school boy or school girl should be able to
run a mile no: only without distress, but
with pleasure and benefit. We all know
that Mr.. Blake is correct when he answers
that the majority, and, let us add, the vast
majority, of girls have weak arms. Set
them task of lifting and note how much
they can accomplish. The teachers at
West Point, the New York Gymnasium,
Harvard, Oxford, and other places where
physical culture is attended to, have no
difficulty in adding an inch to the fore
arm, and more to the upper arm, and from
three to five inches to the girth OF the
chest of their pupil in a single year
by only the simplest forms of gymnasti C
exercises-such as even the weakest may
engage in. With strength comes the
ability to endure, to resist disease,
and to embrace that priceless boon,
good health. Blake quotes to us a
long list of eminent authorities TO
establish the proofs that our women are in
most cases too weak for the ordinary duties
and demands OF womsnhood, and that def.
cient physique is the bane of American
women generally. He quotes largely from
teachers, also, to show how large proper
zion of our children are detained from
school by reason of sickness, the result OF
weakness. He protests warmly against SO