names of the stars, or whether one does not think that his diagram of a jelly-fish serves with admirable fidelity to illustrate the movements of the solar system. These, of course, I quote as extreme cases, and even as displaying the prettiness which belongs to a child-like simplicity. But simplicity of this kind ought to be put away with other childish things; and in whatever measure it is allowed to continue after childhood is over, the human being has failed to grasp the full privileges of human life. Therefore, in my opinion the days are past when any enlightened man ought seriously to suppose that in now again reaching forth her hand to eat of the tree of knowledge woman is preparing for the human race a second fall. In the person of her admirable representative, Mrs. Fawcett, she thus pleads: No one of those who care most for the woman's movement cares one jot to prove or to maintain that men's brains and women's brains are exactly alike or exactly equal. All we ask is that the social and legal status of women should be such as to foster, not to suppress, any gift for art, literature, learning, or goodness with which women may be endowed.' Then, I say, give her the apple, and see what comes of it. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the result will be that which is so philosophically as well as so poetically portrayed by the Laureate :

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:

Then springs the crowning race of human kind.

May these things be!

GEORGE J. ROMANES.

DECAY OF BODILY STRENGTH

IN TOWNS.

FOR some years, both in the press and on the platform, I have been endeavouring to draw public attention to the degeneration which to my mind is taking place in the physique of our town populations. I have been asked for proofs of this assertion. Statistical proofs of this, to me self-evident, proposition are very hard to furnish. It is said that the statistics of army recruiting should demonstrate the truth; doubtless they would, if all recruits enlisted in towns had been born and brought up in them; but it is notorious that this is not the case, inasmuch as all the principal recruiting stations are in the cities, and if a country lad desires to enlist, he must do so by first visiting the town. This fact must at once upset all theories founded on the statistics of town recruiting for the army; but taking town and country recruits together, out of 64,000 men who enlisted in 1884, no fewer than 30,000 were rejected for physical incapacity, a proportion which cannot fail to give occasion for very serious reflection. Indeed, the difficulty of obtaining recruits for the army possessed of adequate physical strength has become so great that a general order has now been issued, in which great discretion is given the recruiting officer and doctor in passing men, the authorities trusting to the military gymnasium to bring the men after enlistment up to the proper standard. Mr. A. Alexander, director of the Liverpool Gymnasium, who is a most energetic promoter of physical education, gave, a short time ago, a course of instruction to the soldiers at Aldershot. He states that he was surprised to find that many of the recruits were unable to raise their bodies by the strength of their arms until their chins were level with the bar! And these are the defenders of our country! The fact that Lord Wolseley is now crying out for the authorities to supply him with men with large chests instead of large heads, proves that our most eminent general recognises the gravity of the situation.

It is not possible either to place any very great reliance upon the statistics of health in our large towns. These also are to a certain extent useless for our purpose, inasmuch as an emigration from the country to the town is in constant progress at the rate of from 50,000 to 60,000 souls per annum. This stream of vigorous

country life flowing into the towns tends to raise unduly the standard of health in the latter, whilst the children of these 50,000 sturdy men and women are probably more robust than those whose parents were born in the town. If we could isolate the city, and could prevent all intermarriage with the country, the degeneration in the physique of the inhabitants of the former would probably be so marked as to horrify the public, and would arouse a sense of national danger which would command the attention of Parliament and the country.

The danger of the situation lies in the gradual nature of the physical deterioration which is taking place in our midst, and in the fact that, whilst our purely rural population is decreasing in numbers, our town-bred men and women are augmenting at the rate of 340,000 a year. But, though it may be difficult to prove by statistics that our urban is less robust than our town population, and that each generation of pure city dwellers is less robust than the previous, it is only necessary for an intelligent man or woman to walk through the slums of our great towns in order to assure himself or herself, beyond all question or doubt, that the physical condition of the people in these crowded districts is, to say the least, unsatisfactory, and one of which no Englishman can well be proud.

Now this being so, and given the annual increase of our urban population as stated above, surely we have a strong primâ facie case for asking for a Royal Commission to inquire into the physical condition of our people. If the result of the Commission be to show that all our fears are unfounded, and that our town population is the equal of the country, we shall have every cause to rejoice; but if, on the other hand, it be shown, as I firmly believe it will, that large numbers of the inhabitants of our cities are physically unfitted, though in the prime of life, to defend the country in time of war, or to carry on her work in peace, a growing but a hidden danger to Great Britain will have been revealed, and the first step will have been taken towards the reform of an evil which would ultimately lead to a degeneration of the race and to national effacement. But only the first step; for though no reform be possible until the evil to be reformed be known and recognised, further steps must be taken if a cure is to be effected. In this instance the remedy which naturally suggests itself, is the minimising of the unhealthy conditions of urban life which have led to such a sad result-in other words, the better housing of the poor, the establishment of breathing spaces such as parks and playgrounds, and the feeding of the children in the National Schools, as is done in Germany and France, where each child is supplied with a midday meal which he can purchase at a very cheap rate (in Germany, if the father is too poor to pay, the meal is still given, and the father is either summoned for the price or must declare himself a pauper, in which case the meal is supplied out of the rates), the due enforcement of sanitary laws, and finally

the compulsory training of all children attending Board and National Schools in gymnastics and calisthenics. In order that the physical training given in the schools shall be efficient, it is necessary that it should be included in the code of education, and that grants should be given for proficiency, just as is done in the case of intellectual training. It should never be forgotten that the mind is not likely to be healthy unless the body is in a sound condition, and that if intellectual studies were varied with physical exercises we should hear less of over-pressure and of the difficulties of getting the children to attend school. Physical exercises, especially when performed in masses and with song, are extremely attractive to children and have been found to improve greatly the discipline of the schools into which they have been introduced. The School Board of

London have taken a useful step by the introduction of Swedish musical drill amongst the girls attending their schools. These exercises require no apparatus and are easily learnt, and I do not know a prettier sight than to see a group of happy girls practising to the sound of their own merry voices the graceful movements of the Swedish musical drill.

I hope that within a short time there will be no school within the United Kingdom which will not teach gymnastic exercises to its boys and Swedish drill to its girls. Almost every nation in Europe, with the exception of ourselves, has established such a system of compulsory physical training, and spends large sums of money in strengthening the bodies and nerves of its future citizens. We alone neglect this precaution. Do we believe that there is something in British flesh and blood which is able to withstand the deteriorating influences of bad air and food, and want of healthy exercise? If so we are living in a veritable fool's paradise, and when the stress of national danger arrives we shall find that our men are made of different stuff from those who fought and conquered the combined armies of Europe. Those men were mostly reared in country homes, on wholesome though maybe coarse fare, and under the pure canopy of heaven, not fed on white bread and adulterated beer or spirits, working in cellars and warehouses into which the full daylight seldom or never penetrates. How is it that we are so behind other nations in this matter of the physical education of the people? believe it is because our middle and upper classes hold such a high place amongst the athletes of the world, that we are blind to the deficiencies in this respect of their brothers of a lower station in life. I do not suppose it would be possible to find more perfect specimens of young healthy manhood than are to be seen in our larger colleges and universities, but this should only make the contrast between their condition and that of the young lads who hang about the public-houses and roam the streets of our large towns more apparent and more startling. These young men want not only physical

I

development, but the discipline which a course of gymnastic training would give them. It is now eighty years since Germany first established the Turnverein, or National Gymnastic Association, which by its thorough and systematic training of the entire population in gymnastic exercises, strengthening to the body and nerves, and producive of physical courage, many believe to have been in no slight degree instrumental in the thorough defeat which the French sustained at the hands of the Germans in 1870. The French seem to think this partial explanation of their defeat to be not without some possible foundation in truth, for since the war they have taken steps to teach their youth to strengthen their bodies by manly exercises. Perhaps it will be necessary for us to undergo some such national humiliation.

I trust, however, that we shall learn our lesson without the infliction of punishment, which may overtake us in other ways than by the means of the sword. The arts of peace cannot be carried out successfully by men and women feeble in body and weak in health. Physical strength is almost as much required in the peaceful contests of everyday life as in wars; and other things being equal, the nation which has the healthiest and sturdiest human material with which to work, will produce the best and most saleable manufactures. We are, as a nation, dependent on the productions of our hands and brains. We cannot produce in these islands food sufficient to supply our necessities. We must therefore purchase it, and we can only purchase it by manufacturing for our neighbours, and thus earning money sufficient to pay for the food we buy. It is therefore imperative that we shall be able to make better goods than our neighbours, in order to attract their custom; and how can we hope to surpass them in the excellence of our manufactures if the intellect of our designers is weakened by bad health, and the bodies of our artisans and labourers are suffering from lassitude and depression?

This question of Physical Education is one therefore which all classes of the community should support: the working men for their own sakes and for that of their children; military and naval men for the reputation of their country's arms; philanthropists and divines for the love of their fellow-men; employers and capitalists for the sake of improved trade; and statesmen lest they find that the Britain which they profess to govern is sinking before their eyes, borne down by no foreign foe, but undermined through physical causes which might have been avoided but for the blindness and obstinacy with which they have fixed their gaze on distant objects and questions of haute politique, to the neglect of nearer and less interesting but more indispensable reforms connected with the health and physique of the people of Great Britain and Ireland.

BRABAZON.