attractive as lifting kegs of nails? Women need not fall behind men in
those exercises which require grace, flexibility, and skill. In the
Normal Institute for Physical Education, where we are preparing
teachers of the new gymnastics, females succeed better than
males. Although not so strong, they are more flexible. There are in my
gymnasium at this time a good many ladies with whom the most ambitious
young man need not be ashamed to compete, unless the shame come from
his being defeated. Gentlemen will sacrifice nothing by joining their
lady-friends in the gymnasium. But suppose it costs them something; I
greatly mistake the meaning of their protestations of devotion, if
they are not quite willing to make the sacrifice.

Before proceeding farther, I desire to answer a question which wise
educators have asked:--"Do children require special gymnastic
training?" An eminent writer has recently declared his conviction that
boys need no studied muscle-culture. "Give them," he says, "the
unrestrained use of the grove, the field, the yard, the street, with
the various sorts of apparatus for boys' games and sports, and they
can well dispense with the scientific gymnasium."

With all our lectures, conversations, newspapers, and other similar
means of mental culture, we are not willing to trust the intellect
without scientific training. The poorest man in the State demands for
his children the culture of the organized school; and he is right. An
education left to chance and the street would be but a disjointed
product. To insure strength, patience, and consistency, there must be
methodical cultivation and symmetrical growth. But there is no need of
argument on this point. In regard to mental training, there is,
fortunately, among Americans, no difference of opinion.
Discriminating, systematic, scientific culture is our demand. No man