a trifle, when you have once attained to it. The aim which yesterday
filled your whole gymnastic horizon you overtake and pass as a boat
passes a buoy: until passed, it was a goal; when passed, a mere speck in
the horizon. Yesterday you could swing yourself three rounds upon the
horizontal ladder; to-day, after weeks of effort, you have suddenly
attained to the fourth, and instantly all that long laborious effort
vanishes, to be formed again between you and the fifth round: five, five
is the only goal for heroic labor to-day; and when five is attained,
there will be six, and so on while the Arabic numerals hold out. A
childish aim, no doubt; but is not this what we all recognize as the
privilege of childhood, to obtain exaggerated enjoyment from little
things? When you have come to the really difficult feats of the
gymnasium,--when you have conquered the "barber's curl" and the
"peg-pole,"--when you can draw yourself up by one arm, and perform the
"giant's swing" over and over, without changing hands, and vault the
horizontal bar as high as you can reach it,--when you can vault across
the high parallel bars between your hands backward, or walk through them
on your palms with your feet in the vicinity of the ceiling,--then you
will reap the reward of your past labors, and may begin to call yourself
a gymnast.

It is pleasant to think, that, so great is the variety of exercises in
the gymnasium, even physical deficiencies and deformities do not wholly
exclude from its benefits. I have seen an invalid girl, so lame from
childhood that she could not stand without support, whose general health
had been restored, and her bust and arms made a study for a sculptor, by
means of gymnastics. Nay, there are odd compensations of Nature by which
even exceptional formations may turn to account in athletic exercises. A
squinting eye is a treasure to a boxer, a left-handed batter is a prize
in a cricketing eleven, and one of the best gymnasts in Chicago is an