"What did you say yourself just now?" from One, Two, and Three.

"Remarkably well put!" from Smith and Jones.

"I said," admitted Sir Patrick, "that a man will go all the better
to his books for his healthy physical exercise. And I say that
again--provided the physical exercise be restrained within fit limits.
But when public feeling enters into the question, and directly exalts
the bodily exercises above the books--then I say public feeling is in a
dangerous extreme. The bodily exercises, in that case, will be uppermost
in the youth's thoughts, will have the strongest hold on his
interest, will take the lion's share of his time, and will, by those
means--barring the few purely exceptional instances--slowly and surely
end in leaving him, to all good moral and mental purpose, certainly an
uncultivated, and, possibly, a dangerous man."

A cry from the camp of the adversaries: "He's got to it at last! A man
who leads an out-of-door life, and uses the strength that God has given
to him, is a dangerous man. Did any body ever hear the like of that?"

Cry reverberated, with variations, by the two human echoes: "No! Nobody
ever heard the like of that!"

"Clear your minds of cant, gentlemen," answered Sir Patrick. "The
agricultural laborer leads an out-of-door life, and uses the strength
that God has given to him. The sailor in the merchant service does the
name. Both are an uncultivated, a shamefully uncultivated, class--and
see the result! Look at the Map of Crime, and you will find the most
hideous offenses in the calendar, committed--not in the towns, where the