course the range and freedom of action will be correspondingly
so. This is a point of great importance. The limbs, and indeed the
entire body, should have the widest and freest range of motion. It is
only thus that our performances in the business or pleasures of life
become most effective.

A complete, equable circulation of the blood is thereby most perfectly
secured. And this, I may remark, is in one aspect the physiological
purpose of all exercise. The race-horse has a much more vigorous
circulation than the cart-horse. It is a fact not unfamiliar to
horsemen, that, when a horse is transferred from slow, heavy work to
the carriage, the surface-veins about the neck and legs begin at once
to enlarge; when the change is made from the carriage to the cart, the
reverse is the result.

And when we consider that the principal object of all physical
training is an elastic, vigorous condition of the nervous system, the
superiority of light gymnastics becomes still more obvious. The
nervous system is the fundamental fact of our earthly life. All other
parts of the organism exist and work for it. It controls all, and is
the seat of pain and pleasure. The impressions upon the stomach, for
example, resulting in a better or worse digestion, must be made
through the nerves. This supreme control of the nervous system is
forcibly illustrated in the change made by joyful or sad tidings. The
overdue ship is believed to have gone down with her valuable,
uninsured cargo. Her owner paces the wharf, sallow and wan,--appetite
and digestion gone. She heaves in sight! She lies at the wharf! The
happy man goes aboard, hears all is safe, and, taking the officers to
a hotel, devours with them a dozen monstrous compounds, with the
keenest appetite, and without a subsequent pang.