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.
[Illustration: Fig. 1. A warped University Oarsman,
imperfectly developed in Muscles not used in Rowing.]
[Illustration: Fig. 2. A warped Professional Sculler,
imperfectly developed in Muscles not used in Rowing.]
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.