The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-04-23

in physical training by New York
Herald reporter and printed in the
Sunday Herald.
We have long ago abandoned the de-
lusion that big muscles make strong and
enduring men. or that one man by a
process Of training can develop himself
into as big and strong chap
as his fellow whom nature has
more abundantly equipped with
frame aud sinewy meat. Gymnasium
work is now availed of to conditioning
the individual for enjoying long life, to
tone him up, and bring his weak parts
up to standard rather than to make his
strong and well conditioned parts still
stronger, and in general to put him in
shape to feel first rate. to attend to
business with clear head, sound nerves
and good stomach. aud to last out his
full term of years, if he escapes aeci-
dents aud epidemics. The contrary to
| this idea is today resorted TO in the train
log OF athletes aud this emphasizes the
point that our up 10 date professors OF
| physical culture now make. In former
! days, prize fighters, oarsmcn, ball play
ers, wrestlers used To go through
common process If :raining to become
strong In recent years, however, such
athletes have learned that 20 achieve the
best results in particular lines OF work
| it is necessary 10 develop abnormally the
particular muscles more useful in
those respective lines, and not
waste rimo and strength 10 secure
an even distrib button OF Development
all over tho boly. Tae pugjiis., whose
blow from tue shoulder may have
the impulse of hnndrel and fittv
pound dumb bell, only inlerferes with
his physical education rs ihumper If
he develops the muscles that enable
lifters 10 play toss VITA hundred and
fifty pound DUMB bell. The oarsman
would concentrate all his strength for
| pulling on an oar with an elasticity IL
his arms and legs that a SANDow, for
instance, would have no use for. AID
so the man vino does not aim for supre-
macy in any line of sport, but wants
only to possess a sound body of an even
DEVELOPMENT is trained today under
very different system from what he was,
even few years ego.
Mr.. CHECKLEY ideas, though, 60
little farther than any we have noted
among the reformers OF the athletic
idea. Mr.. CHECKI.Ey insists fatty
that all exercise should be play and
never work. He is against training
and dieting not altogether because they
are but a temporary method of living
that are usually uncomfortable and are
| pretty sure to be oyerdone, that even
when they are engaged in with moder-
alton are sooner or later abandoned,
and so can be of very little permanent
benefit, bus he believes that, on general
! principles, a cheerful habit of laziness is
! preferable and more conducive to long
lie and permanent strength, and cites
4 me lion and the animals Of splendid
| strength, who take no exercise at all,
who are lazy beyond measure.
He does not cry down athletics. He only
insists that hey shall always be play, and
not work. The boy who pays at leap frog,
who climbs trees, who ruas and jumls
and turns cart wheels because of the ex-
uberance of his spirits, is pursuing a
method of physical culture that is to be
enulated. But the man who undertakes
to go through system Of training. in
volving even SO little as an hour q day
of ever so attractive "work, is, to Prof.
CHEcKLEY's mind, simply laying out
line of physical culture that is bound to
become sooner or later monotonous, dis
tasteful, and which Is going to do him very
little permanent good. Aud Professor
CHEcKLEY would apply this protest alike
to the man who takes system to ''re-
duce flesh" and to the man who takes
another one to build up his flesh. He finds
in daily attainment OF physical comfort
the best exercise and the best assurance
of healthful bodies and long lives.
Professor CHEcKLEy's system, as ex-
pressed In this interview, contemplates
only one thing as of importance and
that is fresh air. and the psrmeating Of
the body with fresh air. He would have
young and old folk learn how to breathe
aud how to fill themselves with fresh
air by way of the lungs and then. what
ever his occupation, to stand right and
| sit right as well as breathe right.
Healthy breathing" observe, the pro-
! fessor, "and lots of it, and little exer-
else, will make the skin healthy and
clear, do away with that muddy look
and make it fresh and rosy. The finest
cosmetic in the world is to take a few
long breaths in proper style in the
morning aud again at night, and as often
during the day as one happens to think
| Of it,"