Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-05-03
RULES OF EXERCISE,
Sir MoreII Mackenzie Tells
What the Body Demands
in Its Seven Stages.
THE BABY NEEDS FREEDOM
And the Youth Should Have the EI.
citement of the Games.
THE VENUS THE TYPE FOR WOMAN.
Her Training Should Not Make Her the
Masculine Amazon.
THE BABY NEEDS FREEDOM
TIE VENUS THE TYPE FOR WOMAN.
Her Training Should Not Make Her the
Masculine Amazon.
SYSTEM IN MIDDLE LIFE AEB OLD AGE
rwR1rrEN roR THE DIsPATcH.1


freedom of the natural animal. Ii a
healthy baby is allowed to have free play
for its limbs it will GO through series Of
improyised acrobatic performances, twisting
its limbs and turning them into knots that
might excite the envy of professional "con-
tortionist." 1t is an excellent plan to give an
infant perfect muscular freedom for some
time every day; it should be disc of
any superfuous clothing and laid on rug
or some so # material on the floor and al
lowed to kick nd throw itself about to its
hearts consent.
On the general principle apparently that
every natural tendency is a prompting OF
the evil spirit it used to be the universal
custom to restrain the movements OF infants
limbs by swathing them in innumerable
bandages as if they were diminutiVe num-
mics. With The eager life within them thus
''cabin'd, cribbed confined" the poor little
thiprs must have been mere bundles of
helpless misery and in many cases m ust
have been dwarfed in their growth if not
deformed.
Didn't Listen to the Doctors.
The more enlightened among the doctors
illuminated against the practice for centur-
les. bur in that as in most other things med
ical wisdom cried in the street and no man
regarded it. 1t needed the genius of Rous-
seau to persuade the more civilized part of
the world of the senseless cruelty of tight
Ewaddiing clothes, and even at this day his
teaching has not entirely prevailed even in
his own country. Any traveller in Italy
and Spain can see for himself that the
scnoolmaster is not abroad as regards in
fantie hygiene.
One effect of the "trussing" of the limbs
in infancy NAV be observed in the crowds o f
cripples and misshapeu creatures that one
sees round the doors of churches in the
South. Nothing strikes the intelligent
foreigner" in England more than the high
standard of physical development and the
comparative rarity of deformity in the bulk
of our population. When staying at hotels
abroad L have often noticed the admiration
aroused among the natives by the superior
size and strength of my Juvenile country
men. One reason of this excellence of ply
siQue undoubtedly is that the British baby
is from the first allowed IN amount of lib
erty in the use of his limbs BETTING the
future citizen of a free country.
Romps as an Index of III ealth.
As the child grows older the boisterous-
ness with which it romps may be taken as
pretty sure index of its state OF health. Mr..
Herbert Spencer speaks with sympathetic
insight which was hardly to be expected
from a phllosopher-and, moreover, l be-
iIeve l may add a bachelor-o the torture
which it is to healthy child to "sit still. !"
Wordsworth is a physiologist as we'll as a
poet when he saws that child "ieels its life
in every limb" But by long continued con-
fnement and restraint-that is, bv being
made to live under totally unnatural con-
ditions-this wholesome exuberance of wi
tality may be lost and give place to listless-
ness aud even positive dislike of play.
DR.. FernanG Lagrange, who has written a
valuable work on exercise in childhood, says
that for years past alarm has been felt by
those charged with the education of the
young in France, "because children have
lost the taste for exercise" This he at
tributes entirely to the sinister predomin-
snce of the schoolmaster in modern child
life. The denial of natures rights in respect
to play is followed by an unfailing Nemesis
in the form of ill health, or what is perhaps
still worse, by gradual adaptation to cir
cumstances leading to a joyless childhood, a
habby, languid youth. stunted, stagnant
maturity, and premature old age. In the
French Ivcees the bad effects, moral and
physical, of insufficient exercise are writ
large so to strike the most Indifferent eye.
1t would be wonderful ifit were otherwise,
seeing thai the only playground the poor
bows have to Gisport themselves IN is an in
closure about as cheerful as the yard of a
prison, and in this for few minutes in the
day they toll through set gynmastic task
as enlivenng as the treadmill.
We Pay More Attention to Cattle.
To NV mind the physical education of
our children is one of the most urgent ques-
tions of the dav, and it is one which might
well engage the attention of our Legislators
if they could spare little time from their
exciting game of "I'm the King of the Cas-
tie" If small fraction of the attention
Il
given to the bringing up of children Walt
Whitman's prophetic vision of a nation of
$40, 000,0 900 OF magnificent persons" would
be in fair way of being realized. We have
Minister of Agriculture whose duty it is
10 see that the four-looted commonwealth
sustaIns no Getriment; why should there
not be a minister of hominiculture charged
with the development of the national re-
sources in respect of that not altogether
valueIess product, man? The "per ectibil-
ity'' of the human race depends much more
on physical than on mental culture, for In
tellect energy of will and strength of moral
fiber are largely dependent on sound bodily
health.
How then are children to be made "good
animals?" By the fullest possible develop
ment OF their bodily powers. How is this
development to be compassed? Adapting
Danton's famous saying, l answer, by exer-
else, by exercise, and yet again by exercise.
There can be no dispute about this; the only
question is as to the form and amount of
exercise,
Exercise in the Period of Childhood.
The period of childhood may be taken as
extending from the age of 2 or years up to
puberty. Now, what is wanted at this stage
is not so much the acquisition of muscular
strength or skill solid foundation of
general health. in childhood exercise
should be almost exclusively general or
hygieuic; indeed 1 am inclined to think
that the less purely local or athletic exercise
q growing child has the better it will be,
not only for its constitution, but for its
future muscular development Very young
children should be encouraged to run about,
to trundle hoops, or, if at the seaside, to
build castles, etc., on the sand--iD short, to
play and romp instead of dawdIing. Walk
ing about with nursemaid who possibly
takes more interest in infantry than in in
fants can hardly be amusing and may be
extremely fatiguing to her little charges.
In the way of systematic exercise for
young children there is nothing better than
the kindergarten movements; the fact that
they are done in company with other chill
dren and often to the accompaniment of
song assimilates these little drills to games
and lessons the danger of their being looked
upon as tasks. For older children no
methodicsl exercise, however scientifically
arranged, can compare with the boisterous
outdoor games which bring every muscle
into play, lash the heart into gallop and
make the vital bellows-the lungs-blow the
fire Of life into glow.
The Excftem ene Of the Game