nd supper is getting quite cold!"

The name of the country of Skitzland translated into the vulgar tongue
is the planet earth, and America is one of the portions thereof. If we
were to look round in a circuit of a hundred miles, how many of the
Skitzland aristocracy should we find, think you? What a dropping off of
limbs and features there would be, if the letter of the law of Skitzland
were carried out! But it is absolutely certain that, this is in effect
the law of nature, which does not act, it is true, all in a moment; but
which slowly and truly tends to this. The Hindoo ties up an arm, for
years together, as a penance, thinking thereby he does Brahma service;
the limb with fatal sureness withers away, and rots. The prisoner in
solitary confinement has his mind and faculties bound, fettered and
tied, and by a law as fixed as that which keeps the stars in their
places, the said prisoner's mind grows weaker, feebler, less sane, day
by day. School children are confined six long hours in a close
school-room, sitting in one unvarying posture, their lungs breathing
corrupted air, no single limb moving as it ought to move, not the
faintest shadow of attention being paid to heart, lungs, digestive
organs, legs or arms, all these being bound down, and tied as it were;
and so, by the stern edict of heaven, which, when man was placed upon
earth, decreed that the faculties unused should weaken and fail, we see
around us thousands of unhealthy children whose brains are developed at
the expense of their bodies; the ultimate consequence of which will be,
deterioration of brain as well as body.

What is the remedy for all this? I have before stated that in large
crowded cities, gymnastic training, systematically pursued _as a study_,
is the only thing which seems possible to be done, and most assuredly
will be beneficial wherever it is introduced. But there is a different
method of physical education, which can be pursued either exclusively,
or in association with gymnastics, which can be followed up either in
the country, or in towns, where playgrounds can be obtained. This is the
method which I have invariably pursued myself, namely, the systematic
pursuit of health and strength by all manner of manly sports and games.
I myself learnt to play and love these games at school and at college. I
have given them now nearly four years' trial in my school, and every day
convinces me more and more of their beneficial results.

I cannot