Preface
Millions of our people pass their lives in cities and towns; and at work which keeps them nearly all day in-doors. Many hours for days and years, under careful teachers; and many millions of dollars are spent annually, in educating the mind and moral nature. But the body grows up all uneducated; indeed, often such a weak, shaky affair that it gets out of order, especially in middle and later life, and its owner is not equal to tasks which would have been easy had it had a tithe of the care given to the rest of the man. Not a few, to be sure, have in youth years of active out-door life on a farm; and so lay up a store of vigor which stands them in good stead throughout a lifetime. But many, and especially those born and reared in towns and cities, have had no such training, or any equivalent; and so never have the developed lungs and muscles; the strong heart and vigorous digestion, in short, the improved tone and strength in all their vital organs—which any sensible plan of body-culture, followed up daily, would have secured. It matters little whether we get vigor on the farm, the dock, the river, the athletic field, or in the gymnasium; if we only get it. Fortunately, if not gotten in youth, when we are plastic and easily shaped, it may still be had, even far on in middle life; by judicious and systematic exercise, aimed
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