The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. X, NO. LVIII--AUGUST, 1862

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

THE NEW GYMNASTICS.

Physical culture is on the top of the wave. But the movement is as yet
in the talk stage. Millions praise the gymnasium; hundreds seek its
blessings. Similar incongruities make up the story of human life. But
in this case inconsistency is consistent.

Evidences of physical deterioration crowd upon us. Fathers and mothers
regard their children with painful solicitude. Not even parental
partiality can close the eye to decaying teeth, distorted forms,
pallid faces, and the unseemly gait. The husband would gladly give his
fortune to purchase roses for the cheeks of the loved one, while
thousands dare not venture upon marriage, for they see in it only
protracted invalidism. Brothers look into the languishing eyes of
sisters with sad forebodings, and sisters tenderly watch for the
return of brothers, once the strength and hope of the fatherless
group, now waiting for death. The evil is immense. _What can be
done?_ Few questions have been repeated with such intense anxiety.

My object is to submit, for the consideration of the readers of the
"Atlantic," a new system of physical training, adapted to both sexes,
and to persons of all ages and degrees of strength. I have an ardent
faith that in it many will find an answer to the important question.

The common remark, that parents are too much absorbed in the
_accomplishments_ of their daughters to give any attention to
their health, is absurd. Mothers know that the happiness of their
girls, as well as the character of their settlement in life, turns
more upon health and exuberance of spirits than upon French and
music. To suppose, that, while thousands are freely given for
accomplishments, hundreds would be refused for bodily health and
bloom, is to doubt the parents' sanity. If the father were fully
satisfied that Miss Mary could exchange her stooping form, pale face,
and lassitude for erectness, freshness, and elasticity, does anybody
suppose he would hesitate? Fathers give their daughters Italian and
drawing, not because they regard these as the best of the good things
of life, but because they form a part of the established course of
education. Only let the means for a complete physical development be
organized, and announced as an integral part of our system of
education, and parents would be filled with grateful satisfaction. The
people are ready and waiting. No want is so universal, none so deeply
felt. But how shall symmetry and vigor be reached? What are the
means? Where is the school? During the heat of the summer our
city-girls go into the country, perhaps to the mountains: this is
good. When in town, they skate or walk or visit the riding-school:
all good. But still they are stooping and weak. The father, conscious
that their bodies, like their minds, are susceptible of indefinite
development, in his anxiety takes them to the gymnasium. They find a
large room furnished with bars, ladders, and swings. They witness the
wonderful performances of accomplished gymnasts and acrobates, admire
the brilliant feats; but the girls see no opportunity for themselves.
They are nearly right. The ordinary gymnasium offers little chance for
_girls_, none for _old_ people, but little for _fat_ people of any age,
and very little for small children of either sex.

Are not these the classes which most require artificial training? It
is claimed that the common gymnasium is admirable for young men. I
think there are other modes of training far more fascinating and
profitable; but suppose it were true that for young men it is the best
of all possible modes. These young men we need in the gymnasium where
young women exercise. If young women are left by themselves, they will
soon lose interest. A gymnasium with either sex alone is like a
ball-room with one sex excluded. To earn a living, men and women will
labor when separated; but in the department of recreation, if there be
lack of social stimulus, they will soon fall off. No gymnasium,
however well managed, with either sex excluded, has ever achieved a
large and enduring success. I know some of them have long lists of
subscribers; but the daily attendance is very small. Indeed, the only
gymnasium which never lacks patronage is the ball-room. Dancing is
undeniably one of the most fascinating exercises; but the places where
even this is practised would soon be forsaken, were the sexes
separated.

Some lady-reader suggests that ladies of delicate sensibilities would
scarcely be willing to join gentlemen in climbing about on ladders. I
presume not; but are such exercises the best, even for men?

I do not doubt that walking with the hands, on a ladder, or upon the
floor, head down, is a good exercise; but I think the common prejudice
in favor of the feet as a means of locomotion is well founded. Man's
anatomy contemplates the use of the legs in supporting the weight of
the body. His physical powers are most naturally and advantageously
brought into play while using the feet as the point of support. It is
around and from this centre of support that the upper part of the body
achieves its free and vigorous performances.

The deformities of gymnasts, to which Dr. Dixon and many others have
called attention, are produced in great part by substituting arms for
legs. I need scarcely say that ring, dumb-bell, club, and many other
similar exercises, with cane and sword practice, boxing, etc., are all
infinitely superior to the ladder and bar performances. In the new
system there is opportunity for all the strength, flexibility, and
skill which the most advanced gymnasts possess, with the priceless
advantage that the two sexes may mingle in the scene with equal
pleasure and profit.

I can but regard the common gymnasium as an institution of organized
selfishness. In its very structure it practically ignores woman. As I
have intimated, it provides for young men alone, who of all classes
least need a gymnasium. They have most out-door life; the active
games and sports are theirs; the instinct for motion compels them to a
great variety of active exercises, which no other class enjoys. Is it
not a strange mistake to provide a gymnasium for these alone?

But it is said, if you introduce women into the gymnasium, men will
have no opportunity for those difficult, daring feats which constitute
the charm of the place. If by this is meant that there can be no
competition between the sexes in lifting heavy weights, or turning
somersets, the objection holds good. But are not games of skill as
attractive as lifting kegs of nails? Women need not fall behind men in
those exercises which require grace, flexibility, and skill. In the
Normal Institute for Physical Education, where we are preparing
teachers of the new gymnastics, females succeed better than
males. Although not so strong, they are more flexible. There are in my
gymnasium at this time a good many ladies with whom the most ambitious
young man need not be ashamed to compete, unless the shame come from
his being defeated. Gentlemen will sacrifice nothing by joining their
lady-friends in the gymnasium. But suppose it costs them something; I
greatly mistake the meaning of their protestations of devotion, if
they are not quite willing to make the sacrifice.

Before proceeding farther, I desire to answer a question which wise
educators have asked:--"Do children require special gymnastic
training?" An eminent writer has recently declared his conviction that
boys need no studied muscle-culture. "Give them," he says, "the
unrestrained use of the grove, the field, the yard, the street, with
the various sorts of apparatus for boys' games and sports, and they
can well dispense with the scientific gymnasium."

With all our lectures, conversations, newspapers, and other similar
means of mental culture, we are not willing to trust the intellect
without scientific training. The poorest man in the State demands for
his children the culture of the organized school; and he is right. An
education left to chance and the street would be but a disjointed
product. To insure strength, patience, and consistency, there must be
methodical cultivation and symmetrical growth. But there is no need of
argument on this point. In regard to mental training, there is,
fortunately, among Americans, no difference of opinion.
Discriminating, systematic, scientific culture is our demand. No man
doubts that chess and the newspaper furnish exercise and growth; but
we hold that exercise and growth without qualification are not our
desire. We require that the growth shall be of a peculiar kind,--what
we call scientific and symmetrical. This is vital. The education of
chance would prove unbalanced, morbid, profitless.

_Is not this equally true of the body?_ Is the body one single
organ, which, if exercised, is sure to grow in the right way? On the
contrary, is it not an exceedingly complicated machine, the
symmetrical development of which requires discriminating, studied
management? With the thoughtful mind, argument and illustration are
scarcely necessary; but I may perhaps be excused by the intelligent
reader for one simple illustration. A boy has round or stooping
shoulders: hereby the organs of the chest and abdomen are all
displaced. Give him the freedom of the yard and street,--give him
marbles, a ball, the skates! Does anybody suppose he will become
erect? Must he not, for this, and a hundred other defects, have
special training?

Before our system of education can claim an approach to perfection, we
must have attached to each school a professor who thoroughly
comprehends the wants of the body, and knows practically the means by
which it may be made symmetrical, flexible, vigorous, and enduring.

Since we have, unhappily, become a military people, the soldier's
special training has been much considered as a means of general
physical culture. Numberless schools, public and private, have already
introduced the drill, and make it a part of each day's exercises.

But this mode of exercise can never furnish the muscle-culture which
we Americans so much need. Nearly all our exercise is of the lower
half of the body: we walk, we run up and down stairs, and thus
cultivate hips and legs, which, as compared with the upper half of the
body, are muscular. But our arms, shoulders, and chests are ill-formed
and weak. Whatever artificial muscular training is employed should be
specially adapted to the development of the upper half of the body.

Need I say that the military drill fails to bring into varied and
vigorous play the chest and shoulders? Indeed, in almost the entire
drill, are not these parts held immovably in one constrained position?
In all but the cultivation of erectness, the military drill is
singularly deficient in the requisites of a system of muscle-training
adapted to a weak-chested people.

Dancing, to say nothing of its almost inevitably mischievous
concomitants, brings into play chiefly that part of the body which is
already in comparative vigor, and which, besides, has little to do
directly with the size, position, and vigor of the vital organs.

Horseback exercise is admirable, and has many peculiar advantages
which can be claimed for no other training; but may it not be much
indulged while the chest and shoulders are left drooping and weak?

Skating is graceful and exhilarating; but, to say nothing of the
injury which not unfrequently attends the sudden change from the
stagnant heat of our furnaced dwellings to the bleak winds of the icy
lake, is it not true that the chest-muscles are so little moved that
the finest skating may be done with the arms folded?

I should be sorry to have any of these exercises abandoned. While some
of them demand reform, they are all, on the whole, exceedingly useful.

What I would urge is this: As bodily _symmetry_ is vital to the
highest physiological conditions, and as departure from symmetry is
the rule among all classes, but especially with Young America, we
must, to secure this symmetry, introduce into our system of physical
education a variety of special, studied means.

The new gymnastics are all adapted to music. A party may dance without
music. I have seen it done. But the exercise is a little dull.

Exercises with the upper extremities are as much improved by music as
those with the lower extremities. Indeed, with the former there is
much more need of music, as the arms make no noise, such as might
secure concert in exercises with the lower extremities.

A small drum, costing perhaps five dollars, which may be used as a
bass-drum, with one beating-stick, with which any one may keep time,
is, I suppose, the sort of music most classes in gymnastics will use
at first. And it has advantages. While it is less pleasing than some
other instruments, it secures more perfect concert than any other. The
violin and piano are excellent, but on some accounts the hand-organ is
the best of all.

Feeble and apathetic people, who have little courage to undertake
gymnastic training, accomplish wonders under the inspiration of
music. I believe three times as much muscle can be coaxed out, with
this delightful stimulus, as without it.

DUMB-BELL EXERCISES.

I have selected the dumb-bell as perhaps the happiest means by which
to illustrate the mischievous consequences of "heavy weights."
Thoughtful physiologists deeply regret the _lifting_ mania. In
every possible case, _lifting_ is an inferior means of physical
training, and for women and children, in short for nine-tenths of the
people, it is positively mischievous. I introduce the dumb-bell
exercises to illustrate and enforce this doctrine.

Heretofore dumb-bells have been made of metal. The weight in this
country has usually been considerable. The general policy at present
is to employ those as heavy as the health-seeker can "put up." In the
great German gymnastic institutes dumb-bells were formerly employed
weighing from fifty to one hundred pounds; but now Kloss and other
distinguished authors condemn such weights, and advocate those
weighing from two to five pounds. I think those weighing two pounds
are heavy enough for any man; and as it is important that they be of
considerable size, I introduced, some years ago, dumb-bells made of
wood. Every year my faith grows stronger in their superiority.

Some years since, before I had seen the work of Professor Kloss on the
Dumb-Bell, I published a paper upon the use of this piece of
apparatus, in which I stated the best weight for men as from two to
five pounds, and gave at length the reasons for the employment of such
light weights, and the objections to heavy ones. I was filled, not
with pride, but with profound satisfaction, while engaged in
translating Kloss's work recently, to find, as fundamental with this
great author, identically the same weights and reasons.

In my early experience as a teacher of gymnastics I advocated the use
of heavy dumb-bells, prescribing those weighing one hundred pounds for
persons who could put up that weight. As my success had always been
with heavy weights, pride led me to continue their use long after I
had begun to doubt the wisdom of such a course.

I know it will be said that dumb-bells of two pounds' weight will do
for women and children, but cannot answer the requirements of strong
men.

The weight of the dumb-bell is to be determined entirely by the manner
in which it is used. If only lifted over the head, one or two pounds
would be absurdly light; but if used as we employ them, then one
weighing ten pounds is beyond the strength of the strongest. No man
can enter one of my classes of little girls even, and go through the
exercises with dumb-bells weighing ten pounds each.

We had a good opportunity to laugh at a class of young men, last year,
who, upon entering the gymnasium, organized an insurrection against
the wooden dumb-bells, and through a committee asked me to procure
iron ones; I ordered a quantity, weighing three pounds each; they used
them part of one evening, and when asked the following evening which
they would have, replied, "The wooden ones will do."

A just statement of the issue is this: If you only lift the dumb-bell
from the floor, put it up, and then put it down again, of course it
should be heavy, or there is no exercise; but if you would use it in a
great variety of ways, assuming a hundred graceful attitudes, and
bringing the muscles into exercise in every direction, requiring skill
and followed by an harmonious development, the dumb-bell must be
light.

There need be no controversy between the light-weight and the
heavy-weight party on this point. We of the light-weight party agree,
that, if the dumb-bell is to be used as the heavy-weight party uses
it, it must be heavy; but if as we use it, then it must be light. If
they of the heavy-weight party think not, we ask them to try it.

The only remaining question is that which lies between all heavy and
light gymnastics, namely, whether strength or flexibility is to be
preferred. Without entering upon a discussion of the physiological
principles underlying this subject, I will simply say that I prefer
the latter. The Hanlon brothers and Heenan are, physiologically
considered, greatly superior to heavy-lifters.

But here I ought to say that no man can be flexible without a good
degree of strength. It is not, however, the kind of strength involved
in heavy-lifting. Heenan is a very strong man, can strike a blow
twice as hard as Windship, but cannot lift seven hundred pounds nor
put up a ninety-pound dumb-bell. William Hanlon, who is probably the
finest gymnast, with the exception of Blondin, ever seen on this
continent, cannot lift six hundred pounds. Such men have a great fear
of lifting. They know, almost by instinct, that it spoils the muscles.

One of the finest gymnasts in the country told me that in several
attempts to lift five hundred pounds he failed, and that he should
never try it again. This same gymnast owns a fine horse. Ask him to
lend that horse to draw before a cart and he will refuse, because such
labor would make the animal stiff, and unfit him for light, graceful
movements before the carriage.

The same physiological law holds true of man: lifting great weights
affects him as drawing heavy loads affects the horse. So far from
man's body being an exception to this law, it bears with peculiar
force upon him. Moving great weights through small spaces produces a
slow, inelastic, inflexible man. No matter how flexible a young man
may be, let him join a circus-company, and lift the cannon twice a day
for two or three years, and he will become as inflexible as a
cart-horse. No matter how elastic the colt is when first harnessed to
the cart, he will soon become so inelastic as to be unfit to serve
before the carriage.

If it be suspected that I have any personal feeling against
Dr. Windship or other heavy-lifters, I will say that I regard all
personal motives in a work of such magnitude and beneficence as simply
contemptible. On the contrary, I am exceedingly grateful to this class
of gymnasts for their noble illustration of the possibilities in one
department of physical development.

Men, women, and children should be strong, but it should be the
strength of grace, flexibility, agility, and endurance; it should not
be the strength of a great lifter. I have alluded to the gymnastics of
the circus. Let all who are curious in regard to the point I am
discussing visit it. Permit me to call special attention to three
performers,--to the man who lifts the cannon, to the India-rubber man,
and to the general performer. The lifter and the India-rubber man
constitute the two mischievous extremes. It is impossible that in
either there should be the highest physiological conditions; but in
the persons of the Hanlon brothers, who are general performers, are
found the model gymnasts. They can neither lift great weights nor tie
themselves into knots, but they occupy a position between these two
extremes. They possess both strength and flexibility, and resemble
fine, active, agile, vigorous carriage-horses, which stand
intermediate between the slow cart-horse and the long-legged,
loose-jointed animal.

"Strength is health" has become a favorite phrase. But, like many
common saws, it is an error. Visit the first half-dozen circuses that
may come to town, and ask the managers whether the cannon-lifter or
the general performer has the better health. You will find in every
case it is the latter. Ask the doctors whether the cartmen, who are
the strongest men in the city, have better health than other classes,
who, like them, work in the open air, but with light and varied
labor. You will not find that the measure of strength is the measure
of health. Flexibility has far more to do with it.

Suppose we undertake the training of two persons, of average
condition. They have equal strength,--can lift four hundred
pounds. Each has the usual stiff shoulders, back, and limbs. One lifts
heavy weights until he can raise eight hundred pounds. Inevitably he
has become still more inflexible. The other engages in such exercises
as will remove all stiffness from every part of the body, attaining
not only the greatest flexibility, but the most complete
activity. Does any intelligent physiologist doubt that the latter will
have done most for the promotion of his health? that he will have
secured the most equable and complete circulation of the fluids, which
is essentially what we mean by health, and have added most to the
beauty and effectiveness of his physical action?

With heavy dumb-bells the extent of motion is very limited, and of
course the range and freedom of action will be correspondingly
so. This is a point of great importance. The limbs, and indeed the
entire body, should have the widest and freest range of motion. It is
only thus that our performances in the business or pleasures of life
become most effective.

A complete, equable circulation of the blood is thereby most perfectly
secured. And this, I may remark, is in one aspect the physiological
purpose of all exercise. The race-horse has a much more vigorous
circulation than the cart-horse. It is a fact not unfamiliar to
horsemen, that, when a horse is transferred from slow, heavy work to
the carriage, the surface-veins about the neck and legs begin at once
to enlarge; when the change is made from the carriage to the cart, the
reverse is the result.

And when we consider that the principal object of all physical
training is an elastic, vigorous condition of the nervous system, the
superiority of light gymnastics becomes still more obvious. The
nervous system is the fundamental fact of our earthly life. All other
parts of the organism exist and work for it. It controls all, and is
the seat of pain and pleasure. The impressions upon the stomach, for
example, resulting in a better or worse digestion, must be made
through the nerves. This supreme control of the nervous system is
forcibly illustrated in the change made by joyful or sad tidings. The
overdue ship is believed to have gone down with her valuable,
uninsured cargo. Her owner paces the wharf, sallow and wan,--appetite
and digestion gone. She heaves in sight! She lies at the wharf! The
happy man goes aboard, hears all is safe, and, taking the officers to
a hotel, devours with them a dozen monstrous compounds, with the
keenest appetite, and without a subsequent pang.

I am confident that the loyal people of this country have eaten and
digested, since Roanoke and Donelson, as they had not before since
Sumter.

Could we have an unbroken succession of good news, we should all have
good digestion without a gymnasium. But in a world of vexation and
disappointment, we are driven to the necessity of studied and unusual
muscle-culture, and other hygienic expedients, to give the nervous
system that support and vitality which our fitful surroundings deny.

If we would make our muscle-training contributive in the highest
degree to the healthful elasticity of our nerves, the exercises must
be such as will bring into varied combinations and play all our
muscles and nerves. Those exercises which require great accuracy,
skill, and dash are just those which secure this happy and complete
intermarriage of nerve and muscle. If any one doubts that boxing and
small-sword will do more to give elasticity and tone to the nervous
system than lifting kegs of nails, then I will give him over to the
heavy-lifters.

Another point I take the liberty to urge. Without _accuracy_ in
the performance of the feats, the interest must be transient. This
principle is strikingly exemplified in military training. Those who
have studied our infantry drill have been struck with its simplicity,
and have wondered that men could go through with its details every day
for years without disgust. If the drill-master permit carelessness,
then, authority alone can force the men through the evolutions; but if
he insist on the greatest precision, they return to their task every
morning, for twenty years, with fresh and increasing interest.

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