Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/570

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HOW TO GET STRONG

a high degree, with a neglected body, is like an axe with a razor-edge and no back to it,—a rare tool to whittle with, but worthless for felling timber; that the body trained to a high degree, with a neglected mind, is an axe all back, and with its edge as blunt as our finger-ends—fit for neither whittling nor felling, nor for much of anything else worthy of a man—but that, with the two combined,—the keen edge and the splendid back behind it,—you can hew down whole forests till you have cleared a continent; that, with the educated mind and the body also educated, we can do a full, often a great life's work;—then we may see, with an insight and force new to us, how deep a meaning to the ancients lay hidden in their terse and favorite maxim—a sane mind in a sound body.