The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 6, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3469, 6 April 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, APRIL 6, 1874.

We see by an advertisement in Saturday s Star that a very much needed class has been opened for ladies by Mr LiONG at the High School gymnasium. Mr Long proposes to give instruction in calisthenics and elementary gymnastics, branches of education much neglected because their importance is but little understood. So long has it been the fashion to imagine that women and girls should be raei’e draw-ing-room companions, that ability to endure fatigue, or to engage in any health - giving exercises, excepting dancing, appears to have become a settled faith. Accordingly, although provision has been made for education in the higher branches of human knowledge and accomplishments, physical education is left out of the question. Maclaren, in his work on physical education,points tothedangerof thissystem. He shows that if mental culture of the highest type is to be secured, it can only be by those who are physically able to endure the requisite strain upon brain and body; and that in proportion as the frame is strong and healthy, the acquisition of learning is easy and pleasant. He says : . For there is no errormore profound, orproductiveofmore evil, than that which views the bodily and mental powers as antithetical and opposed, and that imagines the culture of the one must bo made at the expense of the other, The

truth is precisely the reverse of this. In the acquirement of bodily health, mental occupation is a helpful, indeed, a necessary agent. And so impressively has this been -.proved to me, that in some cases, when the acquisition of bodily health and strength was the all-in-all desired by the parent, and the one thing longed for by the child (and in some cases almost despaired of by myself), I have been careful to allot and mark out a proportion of mental with bodily occupation. Schools, large and small, are yet to he found where the exclusive bookworm is an object of admiration and wonderment, and master and usher unite in holding him up as an example, and point him out with pride to every visitor. But every sensible man feels for him but commiseration and regards him as a warning.

Now what is true of one sex is, allowing for differences of organization, true of the other. There is but one way of securing that greatest blessing, a sound mind in a healthy body, and that is by exercises calculated to develop the whole osseous and muscular systems harmoniously ; which is the end and purpose of calisthenics. The very word is suggestive of what is healthful, graceful, and beautiful. While the office of gymnastics is to impart strength, that of calisthenics is to adopt such exercises as are calculated to improve and adorn. We have not much sympathy with an old lady of a past age who is said to have thanked God she was born before nerves were invented. We fancy such an age would hardly suit the ideas of the present day, and that, although nerves are far too sensitive now, and liable to many very unpleasant derangements, they have contributed

largely to the general refinement of manners that has marked the last fifty years. But, while sensitiveness leads to refinement, it may also very much inconvenience the individual. Oversensitiveness is very distressing ; it is an annoyance to the sufferer, and to those around her. It usually arises from ill-health induced by insufficient or injudicious exertion, or too close attention to sedentary employments. It is almost an exclusive female affliction, find one that should be carefully guarded against. We believe a systematic course of calisthenics one of the most effectual remedies; yet it is strange to hear even young ladies so little desirous of benefitting

by so effectual a remedy, as to be “afraid they cannot stand the necessary fatigue.” Perhaps this may be partly because they are not aware of the pleasure derived from the exertion by those who have had the resolution to master the preliminary difficulties. But one deduction is inevitable from such an objection : the very expression of such a morbid fear proves how necessary a course of calisthenics is to the objector. It is evidence that the nerves are not doing their duty because the body is weak ; and as it is the office of calisthenics to strengthen the body, the sooner one conscious of such weakness applies the remedy the better. The science of calisthenics has now been reduced to such a well-arranged system as to provide remedies against deformities arising from bodily weakness or habits insensibly acquired. It is needless to say that beauty of form depends upon the proportionate development of every part of the body, and that grace of movement is almost impossible where

there is the slightest deformity; and however sages may tell us of the superiority of the mind over the body, and how much more prizeable “ beauty of mind” is than physical beauty, we confess to being so far worldly as to think that even beauty of mind shines the brighter when cased up in a handsome, healthy person. We trust, therefore, that this class which Mr Long has opened will meet with the support it deserves, and that mental and physical education will progress side by side with each other. W.e know of no more benevolent act that could be done by a lady of influence than to induce those to attend the class who look up to her for example. She- would save most of them from years of mental and bodily suffering in after life.