The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-05-03
RULES OF EXERCISE.
First Requisite Of Success is ia
Be Z Good Animal.
s,RmoRElL MAckEnzlE.swews.
ChfArsa + tAs Cisass VIE Dsn't Knsu
Msv to Rlsy-Ths sserss Of
Perpetual Yeath.


BY Sir NoreiI Mackenzie.
In the child the physiological craving
Tor movement shows itself with the unre-
strained freedom Of the natural animal.
II healthy baby IL allowed to have free
play for its limbs it viii 90 through .
series Of improvised, acrobatic perform
asces, twisting its limbs and turning
them into knots that might excite the
envy Of professional contortionist. Il il
an excellent plan to give IN infant perfect
muscular freedom for some time every
day; It should be discumbered of any
superduOus clothing and laid on rug or
some soft material on the floor and
allowed 70 kick and throw itself about to
its hearts content. On the general prin-
ciple apparently that every natural ten
dency 10 . prompting of the evil spirit it
used to be the universal custom to restrain
the movements Of infants limbs by swath-
ing them in innumerable bandases as
If they were diminutive mummies.
With the eager life within them thus
"cabin'd. cribbed, confined. !" the poor lit
tie things must have been mere bundles Of
helpless misery, and in many cases must
have been dwarfed in their growth, il not
deformed. The more enlightened among
the doctors Illuminated against the practice
for centuries. but in that as IN most other
things medical wisdom cried in the street
and no man regarded it. It needed the
genius Of Rosseau to persuade the more
civilized part of the world of the senseless
cruelty Of tight swaddling 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 schoolmaster is not
abroad 40 regards infantile hygiene. One
effect Of the "trussing" Of the limbs
In infancy may b observed in the crowds
Of cripples and mishappen creatures that
one sees around the doors of churches in
the South. Nothing strikes the .sintelli-
gent foreigner" in England more than
the high standard of physical develop
ment and the comparative rarity of de-
formity in the bulk of our population.
When staying at hotels abroad / have
often noticed the admiration aroused
among the natives by the superior size and
strength of my juvenile countrymen. One
reason OF this excellence of physique un-
douhtedly Is that the British baby is from
the first allowed an amount of liberty in
the use Of his limbs betting the future
citizen Of free country.
As the child grows older the boisterous-
ness with which it romps may be taken a.
. pretty sure index of its state of health.
Mr.. Herbert Spencer speaks with Q sym.
pathetic insight which was hardly to be
expected from = philosopher-and.m more
over, / believe / may add . bachelor-of
the torture which it is to healthy child
to s'sit STILL" Wordsworth is . physolog-
Isl rs well a. poet when he says that q
child feels its life in every limb" But
by long continued confinement and re-
sfrasnt-that Is, by being made to live
under totally unnatural conditions-this
wholesome exnberance Of vitality may be
lost and give place to lstlessness ana even
positive dislike Of play. DR.. Fernand
Lagrange. who has written q valu-
able 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, ssbe-
cause children have lost the taste for exer-
else" This he attributes entirely TO the
sinister performance 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 circumstances leading 10 a
ioyless childhood. q fiabby, languid youth,
stunted, stagnant maturity, and pre-.
mature old age. N the French lycees the
bad effects. moral and physical, Of INSULT
Gent exercise are writ large 40 "a To
strike the most indifferent eye. It would
be wonderful If it were otherwise. seeing
that the only playground the poor boys
have to disport themselves in is an en-
closure about as cheerful as the yard of
prison, and in this for few minutes in the
day they toll through set gymnastic task
as enlivening as the treadmill.
In English schools Of q corresponding
class things are very different, but as re-
CARDS the lower couches sociales is not the
schoolmaster too much with US also? In
our devouring zeal for the gospel of the
three Rs We are apt TO forget that, as
Mr.. Herbert Spencer puts il, "the first
requisite for success in life Is TO be q good
animal" This is much more important
matter both Tor the present rising genera
ton and for the future of our race than
the precocious passing of Standards" and
the earning OF capitation grants for teach
ers. To my mind the physical education
OF our children is one Of the most urgent
questions of the day, and il is one which
might well engage the attention of our leg
islators IL they could spare little time from
their exciting game of "I'm the King of
the Castle" II a small fraction of the at
tention that is given to the rearing of cat
tie were given 10 the bringing up of child
rem Walt Nhitman's prophetic vision of a
nation Of '.forty millions of magnificent
persons" would be in a fair way of being
realized. We have minister of agricul-
ture whose duty IL is 20 see that the four
footed commonwealth sustains no detri-
ment: why should there not be minister
of honinicuiture charged with the devel-
opnient OF the national resources In re-
spect Of that not altogether valueless pro-
duct, man? The 'perfectihilityn of the
human race depends much more on physi-
cal than on mental culture, for intellect
energy of viii and strength of moral fibre
are Largely dependent on sound bodily
health.
How then are children TO be made ssgood
animals?" By the fullest possible devei-
opsnent of their bodily powers. How is
this development to be comprised 7?
Adapting Danton's famous saving. l an
swer. by exercise, by exercise, and vet
again ~ exercise. There can be no dis
pufe about this: the only question is as 20
the form and amount of the exercise
The period of childhood may be taken as
extending from the age of ? or 3
years up 10 puberty. Now what is wanted
at this stage is not so much the acauisi-
ton Of muscular strength or skill
as q solid foundation of general health.
In childhood exercise should be almost ex-
ciusiveiy general or hygenic: indeed, | am
inclined 10 think that the less purely local
or athletic exercise a growing child
has the better il viii be, not only
for its constitution bat for its future mus
cular development. Very young children