Nothing is so beneficial as the combination of muscular exercise with social enjoyment. “What does that mean?” some may ask.—“Dancing? Running races? Hunting? These are not at command, or are incompatible with a day’s study.”
Certainly they are. But we now have means of physical training in which exercise of the most exhilarating kind may be taken in company with comrades. I do not mean volunteer rifle-corps—in the first place—though they are admirable for the purpose. Some preparation for that drill is necessary, if not for all the members, for those of them whose employments are sedentary, and especially for students. A student, accustomed to a daily constitutional walk, joins a corps with all possible willingness, with good walking power, perhaps, and intelligence which gives him quickness and readiness; but his arms fail him altogether. Having wielded nothing but the pen (except his knife and fork) he is confounded by the impossibility of handling his rifle. He does not see what he can do but give it up altogether. There is a remedy, however, if he lives within reach of a gymnasium such as several of our towns are now supplied with. We ought to have one in every place where any sort of education is provided for: for physical education is of at least as much consequence as anything that is taught in our schools. Under the instruction of a master of physical exercise, the weak part of any man’s anatomy may be brought up to an equality with the rest in a very short time.
The blessing to Oxford men of the great gymnasium there—the best in the kingdom, if not in Europe—is altogether inestimable. It is a resource which has restored health to many a man too old to begin learning the sports of the undergraduates. It has made the middle-aged man feel his youth renewed by giving him the full use of his muscles again—perhaps a fuller use than he ever had in his life.
One of the most striking evidences of Mr. McLaren’s science and skill in physical-training is the benefit he renders to children, on the one hand, and elderly men on the other. Many boys at our public schools are injured by the violent exercises to which they are tempted there,—the long and desperate running especially. In the holidays they are taken to Oxford, and put under Mr. McLaren, who at once discovers the seat of the mischief, and soon and infallibly redresses the balance of the muscular action. And so also with his oldest pupils. He measures the chest, he detects the enfeebled muscle, and by gentle and appropriate exercises strengthens the weak part, till the spindle-arms become muscular, the chest expands, the back becomes straight, with the head properly set on the top of it; there is an end of the need of easy-chair and sofa after meals; nothing comes amiss at dinner, and there is no indigestion to make it remembered afterwards.
Mr. McLaren’s pupils have lately expressed their gratitude to him by a splendid gift of plate, and words of strong acknowledgment. His best services of all will have been the establishment of scientific physical training among us, if his Oxford pupils will exert themselves in their respective future homes to promote the opening of a gymnasium in every place where men have not the full natural training of diversified country sports.
So much for the physical life of the student. But the completest prudence in regard to daily habits of food, sleep, exercise, and study, may be baffled by deficient discipline in another direction. It is commonly observed and agreed upon that the most amiable, equable, cheerful-tempered class of men in society are the scientific men, and especially the naturalists; while, on the other hand, the most irritable and uncertain are first the artists, and next the literary people. If this is true, more or less, the reasons are sufficiently obvious. Scientific men, whose business lies among the tangible facts of the universe, have the combined advantages of intellectual exercise and a constant grasp of realities; whereas the artists—though they partly share the same advantage—are under special liabilities from the exercise of the imagination for purposes of mere representation, and from tho inevitable mingling of self-regards with their labours. The literary men have to deal with words, and with the abstractions of things, instead of with things themselves; and there is easy opportunity and strong temptation to implicate egotism with their work.
When naturalists get into controversy they arc sometimes as irritable as literary men: and when men of letters are engaged on great questions, and pass beyond considerations of self, they may be as gay and placid as the happiest savant. It is unnecessary to say more; for it is clear enough to all eyes that a candid, unselfish temper and well-amused mind tend to good sleep at night, and healthful moods during the hours of study and sociability. If the case is a higher one than this, and the studies are of the lofty kind which relate to the welfare of mankind, or the development of human intellect by the extension of abstract science, the daily life is not only amused but blessed in a very high degree; and the temper and spirits should be so disciplined as to correspond with the privilege. If the half-dwarfed, morbid, egotistical student is one of the most pitiable members of the human family, the well-developed, lofty-minded, calm-tempered enthusiast in the pursuit and propagation of true knowledge, and high literary art, is surely one of the supreme order of men. It can do no harm to any of us, of any class of workers, to mark the extent of the difference between the two.
WHITE CATS.
Albinism in man and in the inferior animals has been always attended by peculiar traits of character and constitution; but in no animal, except the cat, has it been accompanied with deafness.
Dr. Sichel, a French naturalist, communicated the fact some years ago, that, after many observations and experiments, he had found that cats with perfectly white coats and blue eyes are invariably deaf! Make any sound you will near