An Introductory Course of Modern Gymnastic Exercises (extract)

8 GYMNASTICS. bours, fostered to a preternatural strength by the pre­ posterous adulation bestowed upon the victors of the games, introduced a habit of cultivating one power alone, instead of seeking to develop the whole bodily- capabilities. A good wrestler, a carrier of immense weights, andthe like, became articles ofluxury. They were kept and fed like fighting-cocks, and for purposes of equal dignity and importance. The real soldier learned at last to despise the bully of the ring, and Gymnastics gradually lost repute, and at last became antiquated. The reader will find the history of their decline in Aristophanes : their death-warrant was the caustic remark of the Theban general. Rome was from the first a huge camp. Her youth were trained to hardihood and exertion, but it was chiefly in active service, and as members of a great body. To act in unison, mutually to support each other,—to giveimpetus to the charge and preserve or­ der in retreat,—discipline, in short, was the object of their study. Their exercises were intended to train the great mass, not theindividual. When in process of time the military became a distinct profession,—when the army was formedof Praetorians and the drafted legion­ aries from conquered countries,—Rome was found to have no efficient academy for training her citizens to active exercises. Her sons, instead of breasting the Tiber in armour, and riding or hurling the javelin in theCam­ pus Martius, snatched a furtive and cowardly joy in witnessing the massacre of slaves by each other or wild beasts. Respecting the gymnastic exercisesof the Teutonic nations, who overthrew the Roman empire, no satis-