EXERCISE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4898, 2 December 1876, Page 3

EXERCISE.

(Fromthe Graphic), . , ’ That teking'exercise in some shape or form, and that for its own, health-giving sakey is' as indispensable to. the 1 closely-packed multitudes of our towns’aS 'even a supply of bread to eat or /oxygen., to,, breathe,. is one, ,ofthe, many modern doctrines which from the venturesome theories- of one generation -have become, the Commonplaces of the next. ‘ .*But on the best , ferm-Cnd : manner ; of. taking exercise opinion; still has .wider.range. ■: The riyer,-the „ cricketfield, the running-path, the evening- drill and volunteer march/out, have each' 'and.’all their ardent apologists. But amongst all the veteran gymnast is most profuse and daring in his, promises. /;Others . may,, talk of . ipleasant evening., hours, of - - braced-.up,'; sinews; and longs that ‘respire evenly-after* the "scorers have notched the fiftieth run. He , alone addresses himself of ‘ choice to the /pallid visage and the,weakly growth with “ Cdmejto me, and I will make you strong, will increase by a tenth your ridiculously light weight, will turn that chest, which no recruiting sergeant in the height of a great war would dare jto pass, into the 38-inch thorax of the' grenadier, and add, in three months, a third at , least to your small muscular force.” Native British sports were a little ..abashed .-at . times -in the presence of this German or rather Swedish ■stranger. They, At' the best, could only promise to keep already vigorous frames in health. There were calumniators even who averred they often took away as'much, at least, as they had ever given; that the, training or hard work required for proficiency in them was ; a draft in advance upon' the ' systeni 4 against which there was no real, set off. . Medicine . looked incredulously askance on an art which professed to do without : drugs what-all the drugs in the world would have been impotent to achieve. ' What wonder, then, if in the dull season a little notice in a French army report has attracted perhaps more attention, than it was worth ? For is the gymnast, too, a charlatan—his work of cure a mere Penelope’s web, three months of wonders and : then three months more in which, as the dynamometer reveals,' the—increased force acquired in the first period oozes away as fast, or nearly so/ as It was gained ? No doubt the secret of the whole matter was that the French gymnast went too fast. The exaggerated rate of progress at the commencement points, .unmistakably to; overexertion leading in natural course of things to equivalent re-actidn; 1 Yet similar 4 errors of judgment can easily, we fear, be paralleled at home. Withall our love of exercise too many of us have still the vaguest notion of the sort of exercise we really want. Quot homines tot ludi-r-no hard and fast line of profitable or profitless exercise for all can, we are sure, be - possibly laid, down; For two classes at least, for him-who wins his bread by muscular exertion, and him—heretical as the assertion may appear to many—who wins his by wear and tear of brain, exercise for exercise sake is always a superfluity,, if not something worse. Each of., these classes in its hour of leisure requires not exercise, but amusement—the one to relieve wearied muscles of a strain, the other to, arrest for a space expenditure of nervous force, and give to the' system time to recover from exhaustion. It is simply-burn-ing the caudle at hotliends for the brain-worker under any pretext of expanding the chest and -oxygenating the lungs; to take a hard hour’s work in the gymnasium, or pull against tha current of the Thames. Open air by all means, as much oxygen as can be got without trouble, a gentle strolllt may be every day, but for the rest of the summer holidays, with perfect cessation for the time of wear and worry, absolute change of scene, and, after the first day br two, as much increasing exercise as falls well within the limits of , fatigue, are all that the brain-worker really wants.. There was some jest, ••but-; much :”more in : "the" bid University M.D.’s advice to students for honors :—“No stiff " constitutionals of an afternoon, but stroll into the fields, and., sit upon a gate.” The reservoir of nervous force has, after all,' its limits,/ .To buildup brain; and.mnscle side by side transcends, we .may be sure, all earthly skill. Boyhood,"-again;'1 at every stage has equally Its own proper sports.: Who but the veriest ■ doctrinaire. could ever have suggested, as did a member of the late Ministry some few years back, that much time would be gained for study if’a daily hour- in the gymnasium were to take the place of the, play-fields and the river? Exercise in early, youth must be no mechanical health-assuring prooessi It is, or shbuld.be/an education in. itself. There are other..;, capacities than, speed: or strength to >be developed in - the hundred games which childhood from,,ini/ memorial ages has given, its whole thought to originate or improve ; —quickness of eye or; hand, presence of mind in' risk and difficulty, aptitude to lead, and readiness'to obey. , .No series of movements, however/, admirable, gone through in. order under the eye of aU instructor, can ever be an equivalent for things like.these. No Waterloo,.we may be, sure, was ever.won in the playground of a ; mere; gymnasium. Those, too,'who have means and leisure to carry on Into, early, manhood the athletic sports, of happy schooldays may easily find worse work for idle hours. Koughly speaking, indeed,'the exercise is almost invariably, the Joest which brings with it the greatest, amount of pleasureable excitement. /-

~i But for a larger class, perhaps, than any of these three—for . men employed in qedentary routine work all day and pent in streets all the year—no better form of' taking ; exercise can well be named than the'ordered movements of the gymnasium., Our public parks, delightful as they are/ are. sadly narrow for 1 games that require almost unlimited space'for/exercise and' practice, ’ The river in . many ‘ cases is too far away; and at the best available for: only half the year. Why; should not public gymnasiums —popular enough here wherever they existr—be’ as numerous in bur . towns as,/in those of Switzerland and Germany?' No doubt gymnastics, like all. sports, have their,dangers —the greatest perhaps, that of abandoning their healthier forms, for;the useless exploits of the acrobat. It is quite conceivable that they may he overdone, .though probably,there is no kind of exercise m ,which, power increases So' surely and so rapidly with practice,.or inwhich one so rarely meets with thbre caSes/ qfc breakdown 4 which' almost/invariably' await :the oars-i man br the runner who goes ,on racing'after youth is past,’ none certainly which; Offers such especial advantages at the critical season when the immature frame has just begun to “ set,” and Nature puts her finishing touches to the regions of the chest and heart. 1 ./ The gymnast, too, is aboyo .time or,/place, can! do. with ten minutes or two hours' exercise, can work alike in open air and covered hall, in perfectly-equipped gymnasiums,'or on simple/apparatus roughly run lip at home. ,Of course, it he is impatient, if he tries toieram Into three months the' work of twelve, ho mfist be prepared for Some little disappointment. With a slower but surer rate -of progress the gain, great as it seems when roughly stated,-would in all probability have been pormanejit- r could at least have been relaihed with but slight subsequent exertion; There are surely ‘not , ihany exercises so easily practised of which half as much could legitimately ,be aßSerted I____ 1 ____ : _ w _