Physical culture

“ But still anything in the way of exercise is better than nothing. But we protest against that form of Physical Culture which has for its object the enlargement of certain muscles, and the performance of the feats of the "strong men." All this is unnatural. The perfect system of physical culture is that one which tends to produce a uniform development of the entire body—the employment of all the muscles—the nourishment of every part, and which adds as much interest as possible to the exercise, and which keeps its pupils out in the open air. ”

“ To constantly and persistently cultivate the whole of the body so that at last it shall be capable of anything that sound organs and perfectly developed muscles can accomplish—that is physical culture. The production, in short, of an absolutely perfect body—that is physical culture. To undo the evil for which civilization, and all the drawbacks it has brought in its train, have been responsible in making man regard his body lightly—that is the aim of physical culture. I think I am justified in saying that while it embraces every variety of athletics it goes very much further. ”

“ In the light of the biological law of wasted energy and disease, in connection with organs that are parasitic on the life, we are now prepared to estimate this ideal of general culture from a new point of view. And first of all, as being more obviously amenable to this biological law, let us consider the ideal of physical culture. Now it has been contended for generations, in accordance with the general culture ideal, that certain courses of discipline will give a fund of physical energy that may be available for all the demands of subsequent life. ”

“ Physical culture, rightly conducted, aims to secure the highest condition of the body through the exercises that are required by the laws of the body. Law, physical law, governs the body, and exercise should be according to this law. The first object of exercise is to make a vital supply for the whole body. This is first secured by proper attitude. If we stand or sit properly [70] we gain a proper position of the vital organs, and then they will do their work well, and the result will be more perfect nutrition. ”

“ This is the age of physical culture in all its forms. There is a tendency from the artificial habits of life, back, or rather one should say forward, to Nature and Nature's laws. "Athletes appreciate the value of physical training: brain-workers appreciate the value of mental training, of thinking before acting, and if you would become either you must follow the methods of both."
Many of our foremost educators in all branches of development, physical, mental and musical, are now making a bold stand for natural methods of education. ”

“ Physical culture differs from labor. Labor, having the design to produce a change in the world of matter outside the body, is not deliberately modified to suit the requirements of perfect physical development. ”

“ The Western world is paying much attention to Physical Culture just now, which is a good thing. But in their enthusiasm they must not forget that the exercise of the external muscles is not everything. The internal organs also need exercise, and Nature's plan for this exercise is proper breathing. ”

“ Our great task will be the building up of bodies equal to the needs [160] of our environment. This we have, in a small way, already begun to do—imitating the ancient Greeks—in our schools of physical culture, where the body can be trained up to its best, and also in our laboratories for psychological research, in which the relation of mind and body are being carefully investigated, where every subject connected with every function is being studied, even weariness, anger, hope, despair, drink, food, sleep, the weather, and their effects on function. ”

“ All enlightened schemes of physical culture and hygiene, although directed primarily to secure the strength, the health, and the happiness of the present generation, yet are sustained and ennobled by the conviction that the improvement of the individuals of each generation enters by inheritance into the gradual physical improvement of the race. ”

“ In other words the only physical culture worth talking about is nervous culture. The principles here laid down are daily defied in very large measure in our nurseries, our schools and our barrack yards. ”

“ As well uproot the flower, or shrub or tree, and expect it to flourish, as to cut the child off from the influence of home, and the care of a loving mother, father, brother and sister, and hope that the sympathetic faculties of its mind can attain their just development.
Physical culture, heretofore neglected among us—the body being left to grow up as it may happen or chance—will form a prominent feature of training in every well-ordered school. All the muscles of the body will be in turn exercised, developed. ”

“ The increased mental and moral cultivation of mankind imposes upon them the necessity for greater physical culture. [pg 208] "Wiser and weaker," is a trite saying, and means that the exercise of the higher nature discloses the equivalent necessity of culturing the body, in order to support the increasing expenditures of the former. ”

“ Passing now over the boundary line which separates what are generally recognized as the physical sciences from the science of culture, in which the subjects treated are emanations from the human mind, we find that these also have their corresponding phases of development. ”

“ By all means let us culture physical energy. Let there be more gymnasiums in our colleges and theological seminaries. Let the student know how to wield oar and bat, and in good boyish wrestle see who is the strongest. The health of mental and spiritual work often depends on physical health. If I were not opposed to betting, I would lay a wager that I can tell from the book column in any of the newspapers or magazines of the land the condition of each critic's liver and spleen at the time of his writing. ”

“ The physical reaction being certain, the question is, whether the gain resulting from the extra culture is equivalent to the loss?—whether defect of bodily growth, or the want of that structural perfection which gives vigour and endurance, is compensated by the additional knowledge acquired? ”

“ They are secured through expansion by breathing, vocal culture, and a large number of physical exercises which are described. Food, clothing, the dwelling, horseback-riding, the will and will power, and many other physical agencies much neglected are discussed ”

“ So that humanity, in its twofold nature, is dependent 43 for its development upon two distinct species of stimulants, objective and subjective. Material causations, or those forces which minister to the requirements of man's material nature but upon which his intellectual progress is dependent, are configurations of surface, soil, climate, and food. Those physical conditions which, when favorable, give to their possessors wealth and leisure, are the inevitable precursors of culture. ”

“ For man has gained new muscles, in his use of the forms and forces of the inorganic world, and has commenced a new process of adaptation, which has already enabled him to extend his kingdom from the tropic to the frigid zone, and which promises to make him to some extent master of the fields of water and air. And his mental experience of wider and wider conditions of nature has produced a new form of physical adaptation—that signified in clothing and habitation. ”

“ REST, fresh air, exercise, and nourishment, enough of each in proportion to the work done, are the material essentials to a healthy physique. Indeed, so simple is the whole process of physical care, it would seem absurd to write about it at all. The only excuse for such writing is the constant disobedience to natural laws which has resulted from the useless complexity of our civilization. ”

“ Relation of the Body to its Environment.—While life is directly dependent upon the internal nutrient fluid, it is indirectly dependent upon the physical surroundings of the body. Herein lies the need of the external organs—the feet and legs for moving about, the hands for handling things, the eyes for directing movements, etc. That the great needs of the body are supplied from its surroundings are facts of common experience. Food, shelter, air, clothing, water, and the means of protection are external to the body and form a part of its environment. ”

“ There is in human beings, as in plants and animals, a certain natural impulse of growth, and this is just as true of mental as of physical development. Physical development is helped by air and nourishment and exercise, and may be hindered by the sort of treatment which made Chinese women's feet small. ”

“ There are conditions that favor the development of the body beautiful. These we must analyze, thinking of bad conditions only long enough to learn how to make them good. Our model for our drinking water must be the water of an unpolluted mountain stream; for our air, the air of the open country; for our exercise, the varied movements of “the natural man” in his efforts to secure food; for our food, that which the man eats whose surroundings favor physical vigor. ”

“ Anatomy, physiology, psychology, bacteriology, pathology, general hygiene, individual hygiene, group hygiene, and intergroup hygiene are sciences, or combinations of sciences, from which physical training draws its facts. These sciences and those phases of economics and sociology that have to do with the economic and social influences of health and disease, of physical efficiency and physical degeneracy, supply physical training with its general subject matter. ”

“ Our bodily structure in the large or whole, as necessary to an understanding of the general conditions in man's physical life and as fundamental to instruction in health. The more important native and foreign animals and plants; their growth and life, together with their importance in nature's economy. The natural forces which have greatest significance for organic life and for man's efficiency. ”

“ Nothing more is wanted than a pair of very light Indian clubs, a pair of light wooden dumb bells, a long wooden rod, and a pair of wooden rings,—the last for combined exercises. Indeed, a systematic motion of the body itself, without any extra artificial resistance, is quite sufficient for the purposes of physical education. ”

“ Before we attempt to reply to these criticisms, it may be well to make a few brief remarks on the development of the methods of physical anthropology. The living representatives of the various races of man were originally described according to their generaly appearance,—the coor of the skin, the form and color of the hair, the form of the face, etc. ”

“ Of this, fitness of environment is quite as essential a component as the fitness which arises in the process of organic evolution; and in fundamental characteristics the actual environment is the fittest possible abode of life.” Such is the thesis which this work seeks to establish through discussions of the physical and chemical characteristics of life and cosmogony, and through critical study of the properties of matter in their biological relations. ”

“ Manifestly I cannot speak with any less confidence of Anthropology than a chemist does of chemistry, when for forty-five years, I have ever been able and willing to demonstrate its principles by experiments on intelligent persons, changing their physical strength, their circulation and their mental faculties.
2. Sensitive.—I have felt nearly all the functions of the brain in various degrees of excitement in my own person, and know the positions of the organs as well as the gymnast knows the position of the muscles in which he produces fatigue. ”

“ First of all, we must endeavor to produce the individual who is sound physically. Modern education recognizes the fact that a man’s usefulness is conditioned by his bodily condition, and is also coming to find that physical activity is not without its effect on the mental development and life of the individual. There is, therefore, one large division of our work which we may call physical education. ”

“ All the machinery upon which these small cells of life operate and give action, energy, and duration—the heart, the nerves, the blood, and all the organs essential or co-operative, are identically the same.
Men have tried to find a difference in the physical make-up of the various races but they have signally failed. ”

“ A skin of some dimension was cast in the 16th century, and another towards the end of the 18th, while, within the last fifty years, the extraordinary growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent. ”

“ First among these is the physical factor which conditions human activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his environment when it has put obstacles in his way. This physical element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or seashore, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control physical development, and the physical constitution of the group. ”

“ If the people would only read my books on physiology and hygiene, and learn something of the nature and laws of their own physical organization, and what will promote the health, growth and action of all its parts, and let that ‘old fable’ alone, they would be healthier, happier and better off every way. ”

“ It seeks to utilize generally the material productions of the earth, to improve our means of locomotion, to give us better clothes to wear, better houses to live in, and make the conditions of our physical existence altogether more comfortable. ”

“ Moreover, the muscles, tissues, and fibres of their bodies, and all the organs of sight, hearing, smell, or motion, are as well developed as in us. Only in taste and judgment, based upon larger experience, in the power of expression, in morals and intellectual culture, are we superior. ”