ity and unlimited observing faculties, personally acquainted with
every man, child, horse, dog, in the township,--intimate in the families
of oriole and grasshopper, pickerel and turtle,--quick of hand and
eye,--in short, born for practical leadership and victory,--such a boy
finds no provision for him in most of our seminaries, and must, by his
constitution, be either truant or torment. The theory of the institution
ignores such aptitudes as his, and recognizes no merits save those of
some small sedentary linguist or mathematician,--a blessing to his
teacher, but an object of watchful anxiety to the family physician, and
whose career was endangering not only his health, but his humility.
Introduce now some athletic exercises as a regular part of the
school-drill, instantly the rogue finds his legitimate sphere, and leads
the class; he is no longer an outcast, no longer has to look beyond the
school for companions and appreciation; while, on the other hand, the
youthful pedant, no longer monopolizing superiority, is brought down to
a proper level. Presently comes along some finer fellow than either, who
cultivates all his faculties, and is equally good at spring-board and
black-board; and straightway, since every child wishes to be a Crichton,
the whole school tries for the combination of merits, and the grade of
the juvenile community is perceptibly raised.

What is true of childhood is true of manhood also. What a shame it is
that even Kingsley should fall into the cant of deploring maturity as a
misfortune, and declaring that our freshest pleasures come "before
the age of fourteen"! Health is perpetual youth,--that is, a state of
positive health. Merely negative health, the mere keeping out of the
hospital for a series of years, is not health. Health is to feel the
body a luxury, as every vigorous child does,--as the bird does when it
shoots and quivers through the air, not flying for the sake of the goal,
but for the sake of the flight,--as the dog does when he scours madly
across the meadow, or plunges into the muddy blissfulness of the
stream. But neither dog nor bird nor child enjoys his cup of physical
happiness--let the dull or the worldly say what they will--with a
felicity so cordial as the educated palate of conscious manhood. To
"feel one's life in every limb," this is the secret bliss of which all
forms of athletic exercise are merely varying disguises; and it is
absurd to say that we cannot possess this wh