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156 PHYSICAL TRAINING.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
- Whoever Lias Watched The Growth From I...
ing girls , _wlio require strengthening , they are invaluable ;—but they are not whollwhat we desire to seenor what probably their
professors would y desire , for the bulk of the , population . It appears to usthatif we wish to cope with the ever-increasing development
of , our enormous , towns , we must endeavour to provide playgrounds , not onlfor the childrenbut for the peoplereputable places of
exercise and y amusementcovered , from the weather , if necessary ; nothing , would be so easy in these days of iron and glass . We English are
apt to forget that our present heavy unhealthy habits , alternating , for work every and class purel , between intellectual the two recreation extremes are of an engrossed anomaly attention among the to
nations of the present y day , and a sad falling , off from the wiser habits of our own ancestors . Those good people may have led a short life ,
but it was at least a merry one , and between its brevity and its jollity there was assuredlno connexion whatever ! Three hundred
y years ago , when the scjuare wooden tower of St . Paul ' s Cathedral looked down over a picturesque London , full of streets where the
inhabitants of opposite houses could leap across from balcony to balcony—the dirty , insalubrious , yet not unhappy London of good
Queen Bess—it was the custom of grown men to play at games , and of youths and maidens to disport themselves with maypoles ,
processions , and open air dancing , to a degree which we should now consider fit only for a Merry-andrew . When fevers , plagues , and fires
swept over these narrow streets , whose houses , built of wood and carpeted with rushes , were hopelessly unsafe and unsanitary , of
course the population disappeared as by magic . Had they tried to live as we do nowshut up within the circle of their streets , they
could not have lived , at all ; as it was , they counteracted the effects ' of the terrible epidemic mortality by the more vigorous usages of
daily existence ;—they felt the full influences of the four seasons , knew where the flowers blew in the fields of Islington and under
the trees in St . Martin ' s Lane ;—and we do not suppose that a child could be found ( as some are found in the present day ) who had never
seen either a pig or a hedge . They were a curious mixture , our ancestors , with their strange
contrasts of murder and merriment ; - —what awful things they did , — burning , beheading , imprisoning with a fatal facility which makes us
shudder as we read ;—yet full of juke , wearing the gayest of dresses , keeping Court Fools , getting up great processions , and indulging in
the broadest farce;—they seem to us both inconsistent and childish , yet they cherished a certain principle of healthy life which we
have lostand which we should do well to attempt to revive . If we cannot , institute systems of elaborate physical training , such
as those _practised by the 'different Greek communities ;—systems little akin to the busy _ungesthetic temper of the English people , let
us at least try to recover our love of sports ; not merely the sports of
the country , now , ulas ! largely discontinued by our lower classes , but
156 Physical Training.
156 PHYSICAL TRAINING .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1858, page 156, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051858/page/12/
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