PHYSICAL CULTURE.

Gisborne Times, 17 October 1908, Page 7

PHYSICAL CULTURE.

SOME FOES TO THE NATURAL HEALTH MOVEMENT.

(By F. A. Hornibrook, in tlio “Canter-; bury Times”)

Tho physical "culture movement, like its object either, the mental, moral, or physical improvement of the people, is always liable to a great, amount of misapprehension and ignorant prejudice. It seems to mo that, among* a certain, class, every natural remedy .is opposed simply because it is a natural remedy. ■ Thus, for example, one might tell tlio mother of an amende girl-that her daughter needed breathing exercises to enrich her blood, and you are promptly regarded as -a crank. Tell the same woman, that Bunkum’s ’Blue Bobs for Yellow People will effect a cure, and you are at once regarded as a friend of the family. One of the stock arguments—if 'it can be called .(such—which is regularly made use of by this class of person when referring to “a physical culture movement is, “1 don’t believe in tpese new-fangled fads.” Such people have never paused to consider,, probably they have never known—that physical culture form- | ed - part of the national life of Greece over 2000 years ago, and tha tto awaken amongst our people,“io a certain extent, the revival of the Old Greek ideal, is the great aim and object of the physical culture movement. The greatest opponents one meets are the people who tell you, with a selfsatisfied smirk, that they liad- nothing of that sort of thing when they were' young. In many cases the information is absolutely needless, for it is demonstrably evident that they are physically uncultured. Besides,any. man who talks in this' strain in a progressive age like ours, marks Turnself at once.as being not only ignorant of his own physical defects, but also lamentably lacking in judgment and mental calibre. A man making the statment that he liad none of that sort of thing when lie was young, means' that such an individual is quite satisfied with his existing physical condition, and satisfaction of this kind breeds stagnation. If we all thought upon the lines of these persons, the world would never advance. We would practically live in a groove, and man, instead ol : reaching a higher plane in his evolution, would retrograde and become decadent. When men talk of the conditions of thirty or forty years ago, they quite forget the great- changes that hare taken place in thought, especially m reference to the cult oL the body and in methods of business, owing in a great measure to vast dmpro/aments m machinery. Modern business is conducted in a much finer spirit of competition than formally—-tno natural result is fresh crops of nervous diseases. The more mental activity, the less bodily activity. Man ’s body and mind, and you cannot separate them. When you develop <r.e at the expense of the other, Nati’e infiicts a penalty. The trouble is that these narrow conservative men force their way very often into publ’C bodies, such as Education Boards, etc., and here they have a chance to air ihennarrow views. One may ask why such a large percentage of men v. ho sit on public boards are un’-eiloct :ng and ultra conservative. Another opponent is the man who, without taking any trouble to study the subject, s a ys : —“Physical Culture! I don’t know ’naytiling abrut it, but it is a lot of rot.” 1o :o <iv v.cli easier to speak in this manner U.au to manifest a determination to study the subject. You also meet the man who tells you that he gets plenty of exercise at his work. Granted; u is probable that lie gets too lurch exercise—of _pertain musc..es, to theexclusion of all the others. Exeiciso is not work, and work is not exercise. If work alone developed l muscle, then a blacksmith ought to bo tlie strongest .man on earth, but the blacksmith is like a child in the ■hands of the trained athlete. Although the blacksmith’s arms may- -be very strong, his legs are usually poorly developed, so are liis' abdominal muscles, and his lung capacity is not much better than that ot the average man. So, practically with any trade or work, systematic physical culturemeans the cultivation of organic strength first and physical strength afterwards. You have also tlie man who takes up physical culture for two or three weeks with wild enthusiasm, hoping to become a Hackensclimidt in that time, and because be does not realise this absurd expectation, lie promptly gives it up ■in disgust, and tells his friends that ho fried it and found it wanting. This is tbe type of young naan who has had half a quarter’s lessons on the pianoforte, attended a dancing class for fivo aveeks, joined the-volunteers and promptly resigned. In fact he is the kind of young man who takes things up' in a great hurry and drops them even in a greater hurry. This is~ a common type known to til© physical culture student as the common or. garden variety : brain power, mediocre; will power, nil; physical conditions, poor; originality, wanting; concentration, non-existant; general character, harmless.

Lastly, you have opposed to. all natural movements, the old, blind, ignorant belief an. the power of drugs, tho idea- that a dose of medicine is a panacea for all the “ills that Ilesli is heir ‘ to.” Tho physical culturist doubtless has his faults—none arc exempt—but there is one quality the physical cjilturist possesses—enough commonseaise not to rot liis body with medicine, or rot his brain with alcohol. “When Sydenham, the -father of English medicine, was dying, ho said to tbe four physicians who were attending him: “I leave behind me throo great, physicians;”. and when their curiosity caused them to ask who tho three were, lie said : Fresh Air, Water, and Exercise.”