PHYSICAL CULTURE FOR CHILDREN
cal education in the schools. Prompt and vigorous steps should be taken to acquaint every school-teacher in this country with such exercises as would quickly restore the misshapen; insure an erect carriage; encourage habits of full breathing; and strengthen the entire trunk and every limb, and bring them to their full size at every girth. If the teachers have not the requisite knowledge now, let it at once be acquired. They, of all persons, are expected to know how to acquire knowledge; and to aid others in doing the same; and fortunately this knowledge is not hard to learn. As soon as they have gained even partial knowledge of how to effect these things; let them lose no time in imparting that knowledge to the pupil.
And they reach an audience vast almost beyond belief. A hundred thousand persons in our land go to college each year. Of another hundred thousand, members of gymnastic and athletic clubs, perhaps fifty thousand take systematic and effective exercise for a part of each year. But fourteen million children go to school!
Lycurgus had every man and woman trained for war. Is it not about time that an enlightened nation like ours had every man's and woman's body intelligently educated; and so made ready for whatever they may be called on to do, bear, or suffer?
Happily, in the gigantic strides our country has made in the last twenty years, there has come up a class of men and women, who, rightly used, can render our children and their teachers service of inestimable value.
In the former edition of this book (in 1879) we urged, that unless the famous Hemenway Gymnasium, then just erected at Harvard, had more intelligent management than its predecessor had had; or than many of the gymnasiums of the land had; it might as well be a highly polished stationary-engine without steam. It
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