The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2721, 6 November 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1871.

It is rather a strange fact t tbat in a community like ours, the members of which take such an interest in most matters connected with education, there is no attention whatever paid to what is, in reality, one of its most important branches—viz., physical education. No greater proof of its importance could be desired than the fact that by the most polished nation of antiquity, it was considered to be the most necessary part of the training of a good citizen that he should go through a complete course of exercises—in short, that he should learn to be a skilful gymnast. If, indeed, a good system of education is to be defined as one which educes or draws out all the faculties and powers possessed by those who are subjected to its influence, then must any system which provides merely for the culture of the moral and intellectual

powers be extremely defective. But J further, it is a great mistake to suppose that even these can be properly developed unless due attention be also paid to the more solid and substantial part of the man—the body. Mens sana in corpore sano is an old and oft-repeated proverb, but it ought to bo written in letters of gold over the porch of every educational institution in the Province. The mind can never do its best unless the body also be in its best condition. A sluggish, flabby state of the muscles is an almost infallible proof that the mental powers are in an analogus state. Unfortunately there is a notion prevalent amongst us—though it is for the most part a sort of indistinct and inindefinite notion—that though the mind requires the most careful and assiduous culture, in order that it may be capable of doing the work that it is likely to meet with, the body is able to care for itself ; that if it be only provided with a sufficiency of food along with exercise of some sort, all will be well with it. But a moment’s consideration ought to convince us that this is not the case. Of the almost numberless muscles which cover the osseous frame of the human body, we venture to assert that not one fourth ever have occasion to do the work they are intended to do, unless special exercises be gone through in order to bring them into play. Of course this is only true with reference to civilized life. A savage or halfcivilized man does work of various

kinds in hunting, climbing trees, and numberless other things, which the necessities of his position compel him to do j and these operations without doubt train satisfactorily every muscle in his body ; and in this particular respect he is beyond question in a for better position than those who live in civilized society. It is certain that all animals or plants that arc brought from a natural to an artificial condition of any kind, require new means to be devised in order to supply as far as possible the stimuli of which they have been deprived by their removal. Without something of the kind, it is impossible to keep them in health. Deprived of this freedom, and brought under a new set of circumstances, they either gradually pine way, or at any rate become unhealthy, and in some way or other more or less deformed, and transmit more or less completely their defects to their offspring. It is to this that we must

undoubtedly attribute the fact that the children of parents following certain sedentary occupations, are seldom so robust and hearty as those whose parents are more favourably situated in this respect ; while it is hardly necessary to allude to the particular deformities, sometimes very slight, but often patent to the most casual observer, which characterise the persons who actually follow the professions alluded to. The evil is that such persons appear to be quite contented with their lot, look upon it as perfectly inevitable, and never for a moment dream of even trying to cure themselves, But it is certain that there is a remedy to be obtained, and one of the simplest kind. If a shoemaker who has been all day bending over his last would, when his work is over, take a few minutes’ exercise on a horizontal bar, he would certainly undo all the evil which he has been doing to himself in the course of the day ; a clerk, a watchmaker, or a tailor, who had been all day stooping over his work and contracting his chest, might certainly expand it again by ten minutes’ hard work with the dumb-bells; and so forth. In short, there is scarcely a trade or profession, the evil effects resulting from the practice of which might not be almost entirely obviated by a suitable counteracting gymnastic exercise. Unfortunately, gymnastic excrcise, like Greek, is mere caviare to the uninitiated ; a man must be more or less an adept at it to appreciate it thoroughly. It is therefore, we fear, idle to hope that much good will be done by lecturing adults. We must look to the young for any good results that we may expect to gain in this direction. It is of the very first importance that steps should be taken to give the boys and girls in the Province a liking for gymnastic exercises ; for if they once get this liking they will never lose it. A gymnasium, more or less complete, should bo established in connection with every public school, and every schoolmaster should learn enough of the science of gymnastics, for a science it is, to be able to put a class of boys through a satisfactory course of it. In the large towns it might be possible to get a qualified professor to give occasional lessons in it, and this would be very desirable. Of course we do not advocate the erection of expensive buildings, with costly apparatus; this would necessarily be impossible ; but, for a very small sum, a horizontal bar, a hand swing, and dumb-bells might be procured, and, with this apparatus alone, all sorts of useful and agreeable exercises might be gone through. It must not bo supposed that we wish to gain the credit of having suggested anything new—on the contrary, what we propose is a very old affair indeed.

There is probably not a school of an pretensions whatever, in any of th more enlightened countries on th Continent of Europe, whose authoritie would npt laugh to scorn the idea tha any establishment could bo worthy to be called a school at all unless it ivas provided with a good gymnasium.