publicity. The first is a very grave objection. Not a tithe of the
benefits of exercise can be obtained within-doors. The sallow mechanic
and the ruddy farmer are the two points of comparison. The one may work
as hard and be as strong as the other, and yet we cannot call him as
healthy. Nothing short of Nature's own sweet air will supply the highest
physical needs of the human frame. As our gymnasia are usually private,
and only moderately frequented, the gymnast is not stimulated to those
exertions which society and competition would arouse. _Ennui_ often mars
his enjoyment. We have seen men methodically pursuing, day after day,
the same exercises, with all the listless drudgery of a hack-horse.
Geniality and generous emulation are among the great benefits of the
true gymnasium.

"But how shall I find time to follow out even one of these exercises?"
objects the victim of American social life. It is true, he cannot. We
live so fast that we have no time to live. Nevertheless, gymnastics
have one advantage adapted to our hurried habits. They afford the most
exercise in the shortest time. In no other way, so easily accessible,
can as much powerful motion be used in so brief a space.

The tired clerk or merchant comes home late, with feverish brain and
weary legs. His chest and arms have had no exercise proportional to the
rest of his system. What shall he do to restore the balance? If he can,
let him erect in some upper room, away from furnace-heat, instead of a
billiard-table, a private shrine to Apollo or Mercury. He will need but
little apparatus. A set of weights and pulleys, a pair of parallel bars,
two suspended rings, and a leaping-pole are all the necessary permanent
fixtures. Other articles, as the dumb-bells, the Indian club,
boxing-gloves, foils, or single-sticks, take up no room, and can be
added as his growing taste for their use demands. We would single out