HOW TO GET STRONG
few days he found his stay improving rapidly; that he did not tire half so easily; and, more than that, that there began to come a feeling over him—a most welcome one—of new strength in his arms and across chest; and that, what at first looked almost an impossibility, had now become very possible; and was before long accomplished. Now, what he, by his manliness, found was fast doing so much for his arms and chest, was but a sample of what equally steady, systematic work might have done for his whole body. Indeed, a later experience of this same gentleman will be in place here; for, following Sargent's plan in a gymnasium in New York, in one winter, he, though a middle-aged man, increased the girth of his chest two inches and five-eighths in six weeks! and this working but one hour a day; and he found that he could not only do more work daily afterwards at his profession, but better work as well.
The youth who works daily in a given line at the gymnasium as much expects that, before the year is over, not only will the muscles used decidedly increase in strength, but in size and shapeliness as well, as he does that the year's reading will improve his mind; or a year's labor bring him his salary. It is an every-day expression with him that such a fellow "got his arm up to" fifteen; or his chest to forty-odd inches, and so on. He sees nothing singular in this. He knows this one, who in a short time put half an inch on his forearm, or an inch; that one, whose thigh, or chest, or waist, or calf made equal progress. Group and classify these gains in many cases, and note the amount of work and the time taken in each, and soon one can tell pretty well what can be done in this direction.
The late Professor Maclaren, of the Oxford Univer-
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