Exercise.
When the body is well fed and clothed, the next demand is for exercise.
Our powers are given us to be used; and unless they are used they waste
away. Nothing destroys power so surely and completely as disuse. The
only way to keep our powers is to keep them in exercise. We acquire the
power to lift by lifting; to run, by running; to write, by writing; to
talk, by talking; to build houses, by building; to trade, by trading. In
mature life our exercise comes to us chiefly along the lines of our
business, domestic, and social relations. In childhood and youth, before
the pressure of earning a living comes upon us, we must provide for
needed exercise in artificial ways. The play-impulse is nature's
provision for this need. It is by hearty, vigorous play that we first
gain command of those powers on which our future ability to do good work
depends.
THE DUTY.
+The best exercise that of which we are least conscious.+--It is the
duty of every grown person as well as of every child to take time for
recreation. Exercise taken in a systematic way for its own sake is a
great deal better than nothing; and in crowded schools and in sedentary
occupations such gymnastic exercises are the best thing that can be had.
The best exercise, however, is not that which we get when we aim at it
directly; but that which comes incidentally in connection with sport and
recreation. A plunge into the river; a climb over the hills; a hunt
through the woods; a skate on the pond; a wade in the trout brook; a
ride on horseback; a sail on the lake; camping out in the forest;--these
are the best ways to take exercise. For in these ways we have such a
good time that we do not think about the exercise at all; and we put
forth ten times the amount of exertion that we should if we were to stop
and think how much exercise we proposed to take.
Next in value to these natural outdoor sports come the artificial games;
baseball, football, hare and hounds, lawn tennis, croquet, and hockey.
When neither natural nor artificial sports can be had, then the
dumb-bells, the Indian clubs, and the foils become a necessity.
Everyone should become proficient in as many of these sports as
possible. These are the resources from which the stores of vitality and
energy must be supplied in youth, and replenished in later life.
THE VIRTUE.
+The value of superfluous energy.+--The person whose own life-forces are
at their best cannot help flowing over in exuberant gladness to gladden
all he meets. Herbert Spencer has set this forth so strongly in his
Data of Ethics that I quote his words: "Bounding out of bed after an
unbroken sleep, singing or whistling as he dresses, coming down with
beaming face ready to laugh at the slightest provocation, the healthy
man of high powers enters on the day's business not with repugnance but
with gladness; and from hour to hour experiencing satisfaction from work
effectually done, comes home with an abundant surplus of energy
remaining for hours of relaxation. Full of vivacity, he is ever welcome.
For his wife he has smiles and jocose speeches; for his children stories
of fun and play; for his friends pleasant talk interspersed with the
sallies of wit that come from buoyancy."
THE REWARD.
"Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance."
The reward of exertion is the power to make more exertion the next time.
And the reward of habits of regular exercise and habitual cheerfulness
is the ability to meet the world at every turn in the consciousness of
power to master it, and to meet men with that good cheer which disarms
hostility and wins friends.
THE TEMPTATION.
+Excitement not to be made an end in itself.+--The exhilaration of sport
may be carried to the point of excitement; and then this excitement may
be made an end in itself. This is the temptation which besets all forms
of recreation and amusement. It is the fear of this danger that has led
many good people to distrust and disparage certain of the more intense
forms of recreation. Their mistake is in supposing that temptation is
peculiar to these forms of amusement. As we shall see before we complete
our study of ethics, everything brings temptation with it; and the best
things bring the severest and subtlest temptations; and if we would
withdraw from temptation, we should have to withdraw from the world.
We must all recognize that this temptation to seek excitement for its
own sake is a serious one. It is least in the natural outdoor sports
like swimming and sailing and hunting and fishing and climbing and
riding. Hence we should give to these forms of recreation as large a
place as possible in our plans for exercise and amusement. We should see
clearly that the artificial indoor amusements, such as dancing,
card-playing, theater-going, billiard-playing, are especially liable to
give rise to that craving for excitement for excitement's sake which
perverts recreation from its true function as a renewer of our powers
into a ruinous drain upon them. The moment any form of recreation
becomes indispensable to us, the moment we find that it diminishes
instead of heightening our interest and delight in the regular duties of
our daily lives, that instant we should check its encroachment upon our
time and, if need be, cut it off altogether. It is impossible to lay
down hard and fast rules, telling precisely what forms of amusement are
good and what are bad. So much depends on the attitude of the individual
toward them, and the associations which they carry with them in
different localities, that what is right and beneficial for one person
in one set of surroundings would be wrong and disastrous to another
person or to the same person in other circumstances. To enable us to see
clearly the important part recreation must play in every healthy life,
and to see with equal clearness the danger of giving way to a craving
for constant and unnatural excitement, is the most that ethics can do
for us. The application of these principles to concrete cases each
parent must make for his own children, and each individual for himself.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
+Neglect of exercise and recreation leads to moroseness.+--Like milk
which is allowed to stand, the spirit of man or woman, if left
unoccupied, turns sour. One secret of sourness and moroseness is the
sense that some side of our nature has been repressed; and this inward
indignation at our own wrongs we vent on others in bitterness and
complainings. Moroseness is first a sign that we ourselves are
miserable; and secondly it is the occasion of making others miserable
too. Having had Spencer's account of the benefits of the cheerfulness
that comes from adequate recreation, let us now see his description of
its opposite. "Far otherwise is it with one who is enfeebled by great
neglect of self. Already deficient, his energies are made more
deficient by constant endeavors to execute tasks that prove beyond his
strength, and by the resulting discouragement. Hours of leisure, which,
rightly passed, bring pleasures that raise the tide of life and renew
the powers of work, cannot be utilized: there is not vigor enough for
enjoyments involving action, and lack of spirits prevents passive
enjoyments from being entered upon with zest. In brief, life becomes a
burden. The irritability resulting now from ailments, now from failures
caused from feebleness, his family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate
energy for joining in them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the
amusements of his children; and he is called a wet blanket by his
friends."
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
+Perpetual amusement-seeking: brings ennui, satiety, and disgust.+--"All
play and no work makes Jack a mere toy," is as true as that "All work
and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The constant pursuit of amusement
makes life empty and frivolous. Rightly used recreation increases one's
powers for serious pursuits. Pursued wrongly, pursued as the main
concern of life, amusement makes all serious work seem stale and dull;
and finally makes amusement itself dull and stale too. Ennui, loathing,
disgust, and emptiness are the marks of the amusement-seeker the world
over. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. All things are full of
weariness. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with
hearing"--this is the experience of the man who "withheld not his heart
from any joy." It is the experience of everyone who exalts amusement
from the position of an occasional servant to that of abiding master of
his life.
THE PENALTY.
+The penalty of neglected exercise is confirmed debility.+--"Whosoever
hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath."
Enfeebled from lack of exercise a man finds himself unequal to the
demands of his work; and soured by his consequent dissatisfaction with
himself, he becomes alienated from his fellows. The tide of life becomes
low and feeble; and he can neither overcome obstacles in his own
strength nor attract to himself the help of others.