HOW TO GET STRONG
to face the privations, anxieties, and troubles of life in the most successful way.
Nor is the rule at all hard to follow. Little by little the boy's mind is led along, until the difficult problem in arithmetic seems no harder to him than did the adding of two and two at first. For hundreds of years the mental training of youth has been a matter of careful thought and study; and no effort is spared to secure the best advantages of all the teaching of the past. But with that past before him; with its many great men—not always, to be sure, but so often—men whose bodies were sturdy, and equal to the tremendous tasks which their great activity of mind led them willingly to assume; he is encouraged and urged to keep his mind under continual pressure for many hours daily; and every incentive is brought to make the most of him in this direction. And yet that which would have helped him in almost every stop he took; which would have fitted him to stand with ease what now in a few years so often breaks him down; is totally ignored, and left quite out of sight.
It is plainly no fault of his. He does not know his needs. The blame lies with the system which, for generations together, has gone along so blindly. The life a farmer's son leads, if he really works, makes him strong and hearty; and when his school-clays are over, his work is of such a sort as to maintain all his vigor. The city lad who plays on the brick sidewalks, born often of half-developed parents, has no daily tasks which bring his muscles into play, strengthening his digestion. Is there any reason why the city lad should be favored physically like the country boy? The first has many incentives for daily exercise; the latter none at all.
There ought to be no more delay in this matter of physi-
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