mind, its first effort to make acquaintance with the outward world. The child, indeed, recognizes no purpose in it, sees not the end that is to be reached; but it expresses its own nature, and that is human nature in its playful activity."

In the German schools, children are systematically trained to gymnastics, and the result is a national taste for athletic sports. English schools are noted for football and cricket, and Englishmen are famous for pluck. But in our own country, we must confess there is some truth in the remark made by a foreigner, "that the only popular recreation of the American is business."

Moreover, it is a first principle in the science of education that the best results in intellectual training can be secured only by a correlative physical development. Childhood is the season of animal growth. Playfulness is as much an instinct of children as of kittens or puppies. Even in the icy winters of the Arctic regions, Dr. Kane found the hardy little Esquimaux boys playing ball on the frosty snow-fields. It is a mistaken notion of some pedagogues that the chief end of children is to go to school and study lessons from books. It is painful to witness, in many schools, how the plastic, growing bodies are cramped, how natural impulses are repressed, how the laws of nature are systematically violated. Not many children, perhaps, are killed outright by mental high-pressure; but, now and then, some delicately organized boy, brilliant and ambitious, whose vitality all tends to brain instead of body, drops out of school into the grave, and his death is attributed to Providence instead of to schoolmasters. Highschool diplomas, not a few, are gained at the expense of sound health, and girls, not a few, are annually made life

long invalids by over-stimulated ambition, long lessons, short hours of sleep, and a lack of healthful amusements.

Physicians know this, though teachers and parents shut their eyes to the painful facts. Not all the girls in public schools or private seminaries have round shoulders, crooked spines, and dyspepsia; but how much greater might be their physical stamina if physical training received a small share of the attention given to music and mathematics? If these girls need mental culture in order to make their future homes pleasant and attractive, do they not also need bodily culture to enable them to bear the burdens of domestic life? In the struggle for existence, it is generally the strong, active, vigorous boys that come out ahead, and it is the healthy and beautiful girls that win the prizes of life.

After admitting all this, it is often urged that systematic drill soon becomes irksome to children; that boys dislike the gymnasium, and that girls find calisthenics wearisome; that it is not natural for children to use wands and dumb-bells; and that boys and girls should be left to follow their own inclinations and impulses about exercise and amusement.

But school drill is designed not to supersede, but to supplement, the natural games and plays of children. If we leave physical culture wholly to natural impulse, why not leave mental culture to take care of itself? In mental training, we recognize the principle that intellectual development is attained only by repeated, long-continued, and systematic exercises. Mental school gymnastics are rigidly enforced for many years. The same law holds true in physical development; yet children are too often crowded into small rooms, and cramped in hard seats

their muscles weak and relaxed, and their vital energies all concentrated on an overworked brain.

Would not the physique of a class of boys under judicious gymnastic training for ten years be superior to that of a class left to run wild? And would not their accumulated stock of trained muscular power be quite as serviceable to them through life as a great deal of what is called mental discipline? Business men, mechanics, artisans, and farmers know that success depends, not upon intellectual attainments so much as upon sound health and power of endurance. Sinewy frames as well as trained minds are essential to the sons of workingmen who must make their own way in the world. For them muscular power means food, clothing, and a living. Their only capital in the struggle for existence is an elementary education and a sound body. "Health is the first wealth," says Emerson. The plain truth is that no education is worth having at the expense of health and physical vigor. "I am a poor man," said a friend to me, "because in a business crisis I was sick, and did the wrong thing; and I was sick because of neglected physical training at school."

II. WAYS AND MEANS.

Admitting the importance of physical training in school, how shall we set about it? Doubtless, in some schools nothing whatever can be done. In city schools the need is more pressing than in country schools. After many years of experience in directing physical exercises, I am inclined to think that the possibility of doing something depends in a great measure on the interest, enthusiasm, and tact of the teacher. The pleasantest recollections of my earlier years of teaching are connected with gymnastic

classes of active boys who could, with me, kick foot-ball, play base-ball, lift dumb-bells, swing clubs, climb ladders, vault bars, walk twenty miles on Saturday, and roast a beefsteak on a pointed stick over an improvised camp-fire. As I meet those boys, now grown up into rugged manhood, I know by the way they grip my hand and speak of the "splendid times we used to have," that they think of me, not as a mere schoolmaster, but as the friend who shared their sports and entered into the spirit of their boyhood.

My later experience in a girls' high-school, numbering eight hundred pupils, has convinced me of the very great value for girls of systematic calisthenic drill. In his Boston report so long ago as 1860, Superintendent Philbrick said, "The principal remedy which I would suggest is the introduction into all grades of our schools of a thorough system of physical training as a part of school culture." "Gymnastic exercises," says Secretary Dickinson, "give grace and beauty to the body, and good training to the mind."

III. PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS.

In every school, whether in city or country, there should be given a daily drill of five or ten minutes in free gymnastics. Without apparatus and without music, a skilful teacher can secure very good results from what may be termed "free-arm movements," executed by counting in time. To these there may be added "breathing exercises," and concert exercises in vocal culture or in singing.

Both wands and dumb-bells can be used in any schoolroom. Wands will cost about ten cents apiece, and light wooden dumb-bells about twenty-five cents a pair. If

there is a piano in the schoolroom, the light gymnastic drill can be made quite varied and thorough with no other appliances. If there is a hall, wooden rings should be added for girls.

For the larger boys, there should be some inexpensive gymnastic appliances in the yard. A movable horizontal bar, a circular swing, hanging rings, parallel bars, iron dumb-bells, and Indian clubs can all be obtained for a small expenditure.

Any young lady, even if not previously trained in calisthenics, ought to be able to lead a class after a few weeks' study of any one of several good manuals on the subject. Any man, unless superannuated, ought to be able to lead, or at least direct, gymnastic exercises in the yard, at recess, intermission, or after school.

The man who understands boys will either join with them or will encourage and direct them in their games of ball and foot-ball; in skating, coasting, and snow-balling; and will take an interest in their games of marbles, in kite-flying, and top-spinning. On pleasant Saturdays, or after school in the long summer days, he will head excursion parties to the fields, woods, or hills after collections for the cabinet, or to see nature, or merely to have a good time.

The woman who understands little children will invite them to pleasant walks with her for the same purpose. The games of the primary children must not be forgotten. By a little attention to the playground, their sports may be regulated and made delightful. Marbles, tops, kites, balls, and hoops are all a part of educational apparatus.

A visit to a kindergarten and a careful study of some kindergarten manual will be very suggestive in the direc