HALF-BUILT BOYS
dows. But helpful as are playgrounds and gymnasiums; yet both together will never make strong, fully developed boys and girls, men and women. They need good teachers as much as the schools themselves do.
Again, outside of a boy's ball-playing, scarce one of his other pastimes does much to build him up. Swimming is excellent; but is confined to a very few months in the year; and is seldom gone at, as it should be, with any regularity; or with a teacher, fit to lead the boy on to its higher possibilities. Skating is equally desultory, because, in many of our cities, winters pass with scarcely a week of good ice. Coasting brings nerve and judgment; and some up-hill walking, good for the legs; but does practically nothing for the arms. Cycling, as we shall see presently, partly fills the bill.
So boyhood slips along, until the lad is well on in his teens; and still, in nine cases out of ten, he has had nothing yet of any account in the way of that systematic, rigorous, daily exercise which looks directly to his weak points; and aims to weed them out, and to build up his general health and strength as well. He gets no help where of all places he might so easily get it—the school. Save in a few cases, no system of exercise has been introduced into any school or college in this land, unless it is at the Military Academy at West Point, which begins to do for each pupil, not alone what might easily be done; but what actually ought to be done. It will probably not be many years before all of us will wonder why the proper steps in this direction have been put off so long. Calisthenics are here and there resorted to. At some schools and colleges enough has been accomplished to tell favorably on the present health of the student; but not nearly enough to make him strong and vigorous all over, so as
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