Chapter VIII
Some Results of Brief Systematic Exercise
In a country like ours, where the masses are so intelligent; where so much care is taken to secure what is called a good education; the ignorance as to what can be done to the body by a little systematic physical education is simply marvellous. Few persons seem to be aware that any limb, or any part of it, can be developed from a state of weakness and deficiency to one of fulness, strength, and beauty; and that equal attention to all the limbs, and to the body as well, will work like result throughout. A man spends three or four weeks at the hay and grain harvest, and is surprised at the increased grip of his hands; and the new power of arm and back. He tramps through forests, and paddles up streams and lakes after game; and returns wondering how three or four miles on a level sidewalk could ever have tired him.
An acquaintance of ours, a well-known and able New York journalist, says that he once set out to saw twenty cords of wood. He was a slight, weak youth. He found he had not enough strength or wind to get through one cut of a log—that he had to constantly sit down and rest. People laughed at him; and at his thinking he could go through that mighty pile. But they did not know what was in him; for, sticking gamely to his self-imposed task, he says that in a very
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