-climbing and
swimming. These should, of course, be graduated in intensity with
varying age and varying degrees of vitality.

[Sidenote: Exercise after Meals]

Gentle muscular activity after meals promotes normal digestion and
should be practised for a quarter or half an hour after each meal, but
violent exercises immediately after meals should be avoided, as a large
amount of blood is then engaged by the digestive system.

[Sidenote: Outdoor Exercise in Winter]

A very important fact for the average man to take into consideration is
that, whereas he naturally gets considerable out-of-door exercise in
summer, he allows it to lapse in the winter. Such a decided change in
the amount of exercise is dangerous and should be avoided by taking
regular gymnasium exercise. Even though a gymnasium is not elaborately
equipped, use can be made of such games as hand-ball, volley-ball and
other available games.

[Sidenote: Enthusiasm in Exercise]

Systematic exercise is important and beneficial, even when the
individual finds it uninteresting. The idea, which is now spread abroad,
that exercise in which one is not emotionally interested is of no
benefit, is quite incorrect. A gentleman who had this opinion was
challenged to test it and speedily changed his mind. For an entire
winter he faithfully attended a gymnasium, though it was an unceasing
bore to him. To his surprise, he found that he had never spent a winter
in such good health.

But, although exercise when self-imposed is wholesome, exercise to which
one is naturally attracted is more so. Golf, horse-back riding, tennis,
usually inspire enthusiasm, and enthusiasm itself is healthful. Walking
may also do so, if the walk has an object, as in mountain-climbing,
when often the artistic feelings may be enlisted in the sport. Working
out an ideal stroke in rowing, perfecting one's game in polo or other
sports, are other examples.

[Sidenote: The Greek Ideal]

[Sidenote: Injuries from College Athletics]

The Greeks lifted their sports to a higher level than ours by
surrounding them with imagination and making them a training in
esthetics as well as in physical excellence. The American idea is too
closely connected with the mere wish to win and the performance of mere
"stunts" and not enough with the idea of beauty of physique and control
of the body. There is accumulating considerable evidence that college
athletics often seriously injure those who engage in them, altho