ad, with
another whose youth has been made dreary by dumb-bells. It may freely be
laid down, then, that systems of physical training are good in
proportion as they approximate to play, and bad in proportion as they
depart from it; and, further, that the very best of them ever devised is
worthless in comparison with a good game. This evidently does not refer
to, say, special exercises for a curved back.

However, systems of physical training we shall still have with us for a
long time to come, and perhaps the mere difficulty of finding room for
games makes them necessary, though it may be noted in passing that the
last touch of absurdity is accorded to our frequent preference for
exercises over games when we conduct the exercises in foul air and
prefer them to games in the open air. If exercises we are to have, then
they must at least be modelled so as to come as near as possible to play
in the two essentials. The first of these has already been
mentioned--the preference of skill to strength as an object.

The second, though less obvious, is no less important. What is the most
palpable fact of the child's play? It is enjoyment. We have done for
ever with the elegant morality which grown-up people, very particular
about their own meals, used to impose upon children, and which was based
upon the idea that everything which a child enjoys is therefore bad for
it. We are learning the elements of the physiology of joy. We find that
pleasure and boredom have distinct effects upon the body and the mind,
notably in the matter of fatigue. Careful study of fatigue in school
children has shown that the hour devoted to physical exercise of the
dreary kind under a strict disciplinarian may, instead of being a
recreation, actually induce more fatigue than an hour of mathematics.
If, then, we cannot allow the girl to play, but must give her some kind
of formal exercise, we must at least make it as enjoyable as possible.
There are Continental systems of gymnastics which do not believe in the
use of music because, forsooth, they find that the music diminishes the
disciplinary effect! Such an argument dismisses those who adduce it from
the category of those entitled to have anything to do with young people.
They should devote themselves to training the rhinoceros, these
martinets; the human spirit is not for their mauling. In point of fact
one of the redeeming features of physical training is the use of music,
which goes far to supply the