An Introductory Course of Modern Gymnastic Exercises (extract)

6 GYMNASTICS. manly and healthful games which have been encour­ aged by all high-spirited nations, as conducing to keep up the physical strength and martial spirit of their citizens. In a yet more limited acceptation, it has of late years been used to denote that system of bodily exercise to explain which is the object of the follow­ ing pages. It may beneither uninteresting noruseless to trace succinctly the rise and progress of systematic Gymnastics. Even in the rudest stages of society, such as we find among some of the aboriginal tribes of America, we find the germs of a gymnastic education. We find the parents anxious to nerve their children for the labours which in after life must procure them food,—the watch­ fulness and agility which must enable them to baffle their foes. From infancy they are trained, by a sub­ stitution ofheavier and still heavier bows, to the prac­ tice of archery. Their little arms are instructed to stem the most rapid rivers. They are habituated to remain long beneath the surface of the water, and to make their way to its lowest depths. Running for a long continuance of time over the roughest ways, hurl­ ing missiles with their hands, wielding clubs or hat­ chets, are among the list of their accomplishments ; and not the least extraordinary among their exercises are those by which they seek to harden themselves against the mastery of physical pain. It has been remarked, that in proportion as this rigid training was sedulously enforced by the elders of the tribe, its mem­ bers were found to advance towards the dignity of civilized man. The physical, the animal powers were developed with a degree of beauty and grandeur that