miles a day, and thinks nothing of it. One such effort would be positively dangerous to very many, indeed probably to the majority of our women, while nearly all of them would not get over its effects for several days. Yet many English and Canadian ladies take that much exercise daily from choice, and, finding the exhilaration, strength, and health it brings, and the general feeling of efficiency which it produces, would not give it up. No regular exercise is common among the great majority of the women of this country which makes them use both their hands alike, and is yet vigorous enough to add to the size and strength of their shoulders, chests, and arms. Ordinary house-work brings the hands of those who indulge in it a good deal to do, even though the washing and ironing are left to hired help. The care of children adds materially to the exertion called for in a day. But far too often both the house-work and the looking after the children are sources of great exertion. Were the woman strong and full of vigor, she would turn each off lightly, and still be fresh and hearty at the end of the day.

With the father, as with the mother, the conclusion arrived at seems to be as follows: now that the day's work is done, no matter whether it brings with it strength or weakness, let us be perfectly contented with things as they are. If it makes us one-handed, so be it. If it stoops the back over, so be it. If it does little or nothing for the lower limbs, or cramps the chest, or never half fills the lungs, or aids digestion not a whit, so be it. If it keeps some persons thin and tired-looking, and does not prevent others from growing too fleshy, it never occurs to most of them that a very small amount of knowledge and effort in the right direction would work wonders, and in a way which would be not only valuable but attractive.

Most of us get, then, from our parents a one-sided and partial development, and are contented with it. Unless we ourselves take steps to better our condition, unless we single out the weak spots, prescribe the work and the amount of it, and then do that work, we shall not remedy the evil. More than this, if we do not cure these defects, we will not only go through life with limited and cramped physical resources, with their accompanying disorders and ailments, but we will cruelly entail on our children defects and tendencies which might have readily been spared them, and for which they can fairly blame us. A little attention to the subject will show that the remedy is quite within our reach; and so plain is this, that a generation later, if the interest now awakening in this direction becomes, as it promises to, very general among us, our descendants will understand far better than we do that the body can be educated, as well as the mind or the moral nature; that, instead of interfering with the workings of these, the body will, when properly trained, directly and materially aid them; and, further, that there is no stand-point from which the matter can be viewed which will not show that such training will pay, and most handsomely at that.

CHAPTER II.
HALF-BUILT BOYS.

But, whatever our inherited lacks and strong points, few who have looked into the matter can have failed to notice that the popular sports and pastimes, both of our boyhood and youth, good as they are, as far as they go, are not in themselves vigorous enough, or well enough chosen to remedy the lack. The top, the marble, and the jack-knife of the boy are wielded with one hand, and for all the strength that wielding brings, it might as well have been confined to one. Flying kites is not likely to overdo the muscles. Yet top-time, marble-time, and kite-time generally cover all the available play hours of each day for a large portion of the year.

But he has more vigorous work than these bring. Well, what? Why, ball-playing and playing tag, and foot-ball, and skating, and coasting, and some croquet, and occasional archery, while he is a painfully accurate shot with a bean-shooter.

Well, in ball-playing he learns to pitch, to catch, to bat, to field, and to run bases. How many boys can pitch with either hand? Not one in a hundred, at least well enough to be of any use in a game. Observe the pitching arm and shoulder of some famous pitcher, and see how much larger they are than their mates. Dr. Sargent, for many years instructor in physical culture in Yale College, says that he has seen a well-known pitcher whose right shoulder was some two inches larger than the left; indeed, his whole right side seemed out of proportion with his left. The catcher draws both hands in toward him as the ball enters them, and passes it back to the pitcher almost always with the same hand. He has, in addition, to spring about on his feet, unless the balls come very uniformly, and to do much twisting and turning. The batter bats, not from either shoulder, but from one shoulder, to such an extent that those used to his batting know pretty well where he will knock the ball, though, did he bat from the other shoulder, the general direction of the knocking would be quite different. Some of the fielders have considerable running and some catching to do, and then to throw the ball in to pitcher, or baseman, or catcher. But that throw is always with the stronger hand, never with the other. Many of the fielders often have not one solitary thing to do but to walk to their stations, remain there while their side is out, and then walk back again, hardly getting work enough, in a cold day, to keep them warm. Running bases is sharp, jerky work, and a wretched substitute for steady, sensible running over a long distance. Nor is the fielder's running much better; and neither would ever teach a boy what he ought to know about distributing his strength in running, and how to get out of it what he readily might, and, more important yet, how to make himself an enduring long-distance runner. For all the work the former brings, ordinary, and even less than ordinary, strength of leg and lung will suffice, but for the latter it needs both good legs and good lungs.

Run most American boys of twelve or fourteen six or eight miles, or, rather, start them at it—let them all belong to the ball-nine if you will, too—and how many would cover half the distance, even at any pace worth calling a run? The English are, and have long been, ahead of us in this direction. To most readers the above distance seems far too long to let any boy of that age run. But, had he been always used to running—not fast, but steady running—it would not seem so. Tom Brown of Rugby, in the hares-and-hounds game, of which he gives us so graphic an account, makes both the hares and hounds cover a distance of nine miles without being much the worse for it, and yet they were simply school-boys, of all ages from twelve to eighteen.

Let him who thinks that the average American boy of the same age would have fared as well, go down to the public bath-house, and look carefully at a hundred or two of them as they tumble about in the water. He will see more big heads and slim necks, more poor legs and skinny arms, and lanky, half-built bodies than he would have ever imagined the whole neighborhood could produce. Or he need not see them stripped. One of our leading metropolitan journals, in an editorial recently, headed, "Give the boy a chance," said:

"About one in ten of all the boys in the Union are living in New York and the large cities immediately adjacent; and there are even more within the limits of Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and the other American cities whose population exceeds a hundred thousand. The wits of these millions of boys