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 are being forced to their extreme capacity, whether they are taught in the school, the shop, or the street. But what is being done for their bodies? The answer may be obtained by standing at the door of almost any public or private school or academy at the hour of dismissal. _The inquirer will see a crowd of undersized, listless, thin-faced children, with scarcely any promise of manhood about them._"

Take a tape-measure and get the girth of chest, upper and forearm, of waist, hips, thighs, and calves of these little fellows, likewise their heights and ages. Now send to England and get the statistics of the boys of the same age who are good at hares-and-hounds, at foot-ball, and see the difference. In every solitary measurement, save height, there is little doubt which would show the better figures. Even in height, it is more than probable that the article just quoted would find abundant foundation for calling our boys "undersized."

Next cross to Germany, and go to the schools where boys and their masters together, in vacation days, sometimes walk two or even three hundred miles, in that land where the far-famed German Turners, by long training, show a strength and agility combined which are astounding, and try the tape-measure there. Is there any question what the result would be? When the sweeping work the Germans made of it in their late war with France is called to mind, does it not look as if there was good ground for the assumption so freely made, that it was the superior physique of the Germans which did the business?

Where work is chosen that only sturdy limbs can do, and that work is gradually approached, and persistently stuck to, by-and-by the sturdy limbs come. But when all that these limbs are called on to do is light, spasmodic work, and there is none of the spur which youthful emulation and pride in superior strength bring, what wonder is it if the result is a weakly article?

Another and natural consequence many parents must have noticed. Often, in a city neighborhood, there is not one strong, efficient boy to lead on the rest, and show them the development which they might have and should have. Boys, like men, are fond of doing whatever they can do well, and of letting others see them do it, and, like their elders, they gladly follow a capable and self-reliant leader. But if no one of their number is equal to tasks which call for first-class strength and staying powers, when no one will lead the rest up to a higher physical plane, they never will get there.

It is not a good sign, or one that bodes well for our future, to see the play-grounds of our cities and towns so much neglected. You may stand on many of them for weeks together and not see one sharp, hot game of ball, or of anything else, where each contestant goes in with might and main, and the spectator becomes so interested as to hate to leave the fun. Foot-ball is a game as yet not at all general among us. Excellent is it for developing intrepidity and other manly qualities. The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said that her foot-ball fields were where England's soldiers were made. The short, hasty school recess in the crowded school-yard, or play snatched in the streets--these will never make robust and vigorous men. Yet these are too often all that our boys get, their cramped facilities for amusement soon bringing their natural result in small vital organs and half-developed limbs.

Many of our large cities are wretchedly off for play-grounds. Such open spaces as we have are fenced around, and have signs nailed all over them saying, "Keep off the grass!" at the same time forbidding games on the paths. One part of Boston Common used to be a famous play-ground; and many hard-fought battles has it seen at foot-ball, base-ball, hockey, and cricket. Many an active school-boy there has more than once temporarily bit the dust. But now rows of street lamps run through that part of the Common, and the precious grass must be protected at all hazards. New York city is scarcely better off. Central Park, miles away from the great majority of the boys in the city, is elegant enough when they get to it; but let them once set their bounds and start a game of ball, or hares-and-hounds, or try a little jumping or running, on any one of those hundreds of beautiful acres, save in one solitary field, and see how soon the gray-coats will be upon them. The Battery, City Hall Park, Washington Square, Union Park, Stuyvesant Square, and Madison Square are well located, and would make capital play-grounds, but the grass there is altogether too well combed to be ruffled by unruly boys. If a boy's cousin comes in from the country, and he wishes to try conclusions with him, he must confine his efforts to the flagged sidewalk or the cobble-stoned street, while a brass-buttoned referee is likely at any moment to interfere, and take them both into custody for disorderly conduct.

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 competent teacher to gradually 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 some up-hill walking, good for the legs, but does practically nothing for the arms.

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, vigorous, daily exercise which looks directly to his weak points, and aims not only to eradicate them, but to build up his general health and strength as well. He gets no help in the one place of all where he might so easily get it--the school. So far as we can learn, 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. In some schools a rubber strap has been introduced, the pupil taking one end of it in each hand, and working it in a few different directions, but in a mild sort of way. At Amherst College 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 to build him up against ill health in the future. At another college certain exercises, excellent in their way, admirable for suppling the joints and improving the carriage, have for some time been practised. But this physical work does not go nearly far enough, nor is it aimed sufficiently at each pupil's peculiar weak spot. It also neither reaches all the students, nor is it practised but a small part of the year. In the great majority of our schools and colleges, little or no idea is given the pupil as to the good results he will derive from exercise. The teacher's own experience in physical development is often more limited than that of some of his scholars.

The evil does not end here. Take the son of the man of means and refinement, a boy who is having given him as liberal an education as money can buy and his parents' best judgment can select, one who spends a third or more of his life in fitting himself to get on successfully in the remainder of it. That boy certainly ought to come out ready for his life's work, with not only a thoroughly-trained mind and a strong moral nature, but with a well-developed, vigorous physique, and a knowledge of how to maintain it, so that he may make the most of all his advantages.

But how often does this happen? Stand by the gate as the senior class of almost any college in this country files out from its last examination before graduation, and look the men carefully over. Ask your physician to join you in the scrutiny. If, between you two, you can arrive at the conclusion that one-half, or even one-third of them, have that vitality and stamina which make it probable that they will live till seventy, it will be indeed most surprising. A few of these young men, the athletes, will be well-developed, better really than they need be. But this over-development may be far from the safest or wisest course. Even though physically improved by it, it is not certain that this marked development will carry them onward through life to a ripe old age. But, with others indifferently developed, there will be many more positively weak. Such men may have bright, uncommon heads. Yes; but a bright and uncommon head on a broken down, or nearly broken down, body is not going to make half as effective a man in the life-race as a little duller head and a good deal better body.

But have these graduates had a competent instructor at college to look after them in this respect? Will some one name a college where they have such an instructor? or a school where, instead of building the pupil up for the future, more has been done than to insure his present health? One or two such there may be, but scarcely more than one or two.

Take even the student who has devoted the most time to severe muscular exercise--the rowing-man, not the beginner, but the veteran of a score or more of races, who has been rowing all his four college years as regularly and almost as often as he dined. Certainly it will not be claimed that his is not a well-developed body, or that his permanent health is not insured. Let us look a little at him and see. What has he done? He entered college at eighteen, and is the son, say, of a journalist or of a professional man. Finding, when he came to be fourteen or fifteen, that he was not strong, that somehow he did not fill out his clothes, he put in daily an hour or more at the gymnasium, walked much at intervals, took sparring lessons, did some rowing, and perhaps, by the time he entered college, got his upper arm to be a foot or even thirteen inches in circumference, with considerable muscle on his chest. Now this young man hears daily, almost hourly, of the wonderful Freshman crew--an embryotic affair as yet, to be sure, but of exalted expectations--and into that crew he must go at all hazards. He is tried and accepted. Now, for four years, if a faithful oar, he will row all of a thousand miles a year. As each year has, off and on, not over two hundred rowing-days in all, he will generally, for the greater part of the remaining time, pull nearly an equivalent daily at the rowing-weights. He will find a lot of eager fellows at his side, working their utmost to outdo him, and get that place in the boat which he so earnestly covets, and which he is not yet quite sure that he can hold. Some of his muscles are developing fast. His recitations are, perhaps, suffering a little, but never mind that just now, when he thinks that there is more important work on hand. The young fellow's appetite is ravenous. He never felt so hearty in his life, and is often told how well he is looking. He attracts attention because likely to be a representative man. He never filled out his clothes as he does now. His legs are improving noticeably. They ought to do so, for it is not one or two miles, but three or four, which he runs on almost every one of those days in the hundred in which he is not rowing.

Our young athlete has not always gone into the work from mere choice. For instance, one of a recent Harvard Freshman crew told the writer that he had broken down his eyes from over-use of them, and, looking about for some vigorous physical exercise which would tone him up quickly and restore his eyesight, and having no one to consult, he had taken to rowing.

The years roll by till the whole four are over, and our student is about to graduate. He looks back to see what he has accomplished. In physical matters he finds that, while he is a skilful, and perhaps a decidedly successful, oar, and that some of his measurements have much improved since the day he was first measured, others somehow have not come up nearly as fast, in fact, have held back in the most surprising way. His chest-girth may be three or even four inches larger for the four years' work. Some, if not much, of that is certainly the result of growth, not development, and, save what running did, the rest is rather an increase of the back muscles than of front and back alike. Strong as his back is--for many a hard test has it stood in the long, hot home-minutes of more than one well-fought race--still he has not yet a thoroughly developed and capacious chest. Doubtless his legs have improved, if he has done any running. (In some colleges the rowing-men scarcely run at all.) His calves have come to be well-developed and shapely, and so too have his thighs, while his loins are noticeably strong-looking and well muscled up, and so indeed is his whole back. But if he has done practically no other arm-work than that which rowing and the preparation for it called for, his arms are not so large, especially above the elbow, as they ought to be for a man with such legs and such a back. The front of his chest is not nearly so well developed as his back, perhaps is hardly developed at all, and he is very likely to carry himself inerectly, with head and neck canted somewhat forward, while there is a lack of fulness, often a noticeable hollowness, of the upper chest, till the shoulders are plainly warped and rounded forward.

With professional oarsmen, who for years have rowed far more than they have done anything else, and who have no especial care for their looks, or spur to develop harmoniously, the defects rowing leaves stand out most glaringly. Notice in the cuts on pp. 36, 37 (Figs. 1 and 2) the flat and slab-sided, almost hollow, look about the upper chest and front shoulder, and compare these with the full and well-rounded make of the figure whose body is sketched on the cover. It will not take long to determine which has the better front chest, or which is likely to so carry that chest as to ward off tendencies to throat and lung troubles. Yet Fig. 1 is from a photograph of one of the most distinguished student-oarsmen America ever produced, while Fig. 2 represents one of the swiftest and most skilful professional scullers of the country to-day.[A] Better proof could not be presented of the effect of a great amount of rowing, and of the very limited exercise it brings to those muscles which are not especially called on.

After the student's rowing is over, and his college days are past, and he settles down to work with not nearly so much play in it, how does he find that his rowing pays? Has it made him fitter than his fellows, who went into athletics with no such zeal and devotion, to stand life's wear and tear, especially when that life is to be spent mainly in-doors? When, in later years, with new associations, business cares, and long, hard head-work, accompanied, as the latter usually is, by only partial inflation of the lungs, when all these get him out of the way of using his large back muscles, he will find their very size, and the long spell of warping forward which so much rowing gave the shoulders, tends more to weigh him forward than if he had never so developed them. Instead of benefiting his throat and lungs, this abnormal development actually inclines to cramp them.

Here, then, is the case of a man who voluntarily gave much time, thought, and labor to the severest test of his strength, and who had hoped to bring about staying powers, and he comes out of it all, to begin his real race in life, often no better fitted, perhaps not nearly so well fitted, for it as some of his comrades who did not spare half so much time to athletics. The other men, who did not work nearly as much as he did, still managed to hit upon a sort which, instead of cramping their chests, expanded them, enlarging the lung-room, and so gave the heart, stomach, and other vital organs all the freest play.

If the ordinary play and exercise of the boy do not build and round him into a sound, well-made, and evenly-balanced man; if the hardest work he has hit on, when left to himself to find out, mostly to be paid for by a considerable amount of money; if these only leave him a half-developed man, can it not be seen at once that an improvement is wanted in his physical education?

Are we not behindhand, and far behindhand, then, in a matter of serious importance to the well-being of the people of our country? Do we not want some system of education which shall rear men, not morally and intellectually good alone, but good physically as well? which shall qualify them both to seize and to make the most of the advantages which years of toil and struggle bring, but which advantages among us now are too frequently thrown away. Men too often, just as they are about clutching these benefits, find, Tantalus-like, that they are eluding their grasp. The reason must be plain to all. It is because that grasp is weakening, and falls powerless at the very time when it could be and should be surest, and potent for the most good.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The faces of both men have, of course, been disguised.