Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-26
BENEFIT OF A WALK.
A Prominent Physician Says It Beats
ALI Modern Gymnastics.
MODERATION In ATHLETIC WORK.
Ignite, Distilled on a New Plan, Used
Instead of Coal in Italy.
USE OF COLORS IN CURING INSANE
WRITTEN FOR THE pIsPArcH1

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATCH1
Physical culture is one of the fads Of the
day, and as such stands in danger of being
overdone. 1t has been pointed out that in
rapid development of the recent craze for
athletics in America, two things of grave
Importance have been overlooked by both
men and women. The first is that in
England, where every little boy rides and
runs and plays cricket and tennis, and every
girl, from the Princess daughter down, has
systematically walked and ridden and
played outdoor games in an kinds of weather
from babyhood, there is less danger from
high degree of athletic effort than here,
where entirely unframed and soft muscles
are put to the sharp and often fatal test of
powerful and concentrated effort without
previous discipline. The other is that the
real value of athletic training is its effect
upon the success of all endeavor in life, and
in so far as it becomes the end instead of the
means, 1t is to be condemned.
Many of our masters and teachers forget
that a trained brain, a trained digestion and
trained nerves are the basis of athletic
power and health, and the too common re-
suit is the man with sinewy muscles hard
ened at the expense of impoverished vital
fly, and the woman with q disarranped or
gan1sm, through TOO vigorous exercise.
Americans are naturally keen and irnpetu-
Gus, and they are carrying these qualities
into athletics to their serious ininrv He
would be a true philanthropist, who would
just now urge upon them the necessity OF
moderation and common sense in this mat
ter, and impress on them, that they must
exercise according to their previous train
ing and their actual physical powers of en-
durance, and not according to any arbitrary
athletic standard.
One of the most noted physicians of New
York insists that exercise in the gymna-
sium is so perfect and calls into play SO
many muscles at once as brisk walking in
the open air, in upright easy position and
loose clothing, and with some light burden
in the hands, and it has been wisely said
that five or six years of this sort of safe and
salutary exercise would make an excellent
basis for athletic Improvement, especially
among women, whose gymnastic work is
apt to be erratic rather than regular or
tanned, and taken without regard to dietetio
and hySienic conditions. Thisprinciple has
been recently inculcated with regard to
schoolboys. Many boys are not attracted
by bolsterOus games. and it seems hard that
any sort of compulsion should be used to
compel them to take part in them.
The Rev. t. 4. Preston in writing on this
subject, shows with great force how much
advantage the study of natural history
might, IN some instances, be substituted for
baseball ana football. Boys out for a field
excursion actually take great deal more
exercise than they ever take at baseball
and the exercise is of a nature to give better
permanent results, to say nothing of the
other advantages Of such q form Of recrea-
ton.