File:Keeping physically fit; common-sense exercises for the whole family (1916) (14778495831).jpg

Identifier: keepingphysicall00crom (find matches)
Title: Keeping physically fit; common-sense exercises for the whole family
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Cromie, William J. (William James), 1877-
Subjects: Physical education and training
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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com-plete explanation grounded on a general prin-ciple which is apphcable at once to youth and tothe play which lasts throughout life. The latest \dew of play is held by Professor G.Stanley Hall, who says that ^the first sponta-neous movements of infancy are keys to thepast; that in play every mood and movementis instinct with heredity. The power to throwwith accuracy and speed was in the long agonecessary for survival. Those who could throwunerringly overcame enemies, killed game, andsheltered the family, while those who could notwere eliminated. Running and dodging withspeed and endurance and hitting with a clubwere also basal to hunting and fighting. Theseexercises are still necessary for developing andperfecting the organism, and this is what makesthe game of baseball so racially famihar and ourNational, sport. Does not the typical collegegame of football revive memories of the conflictand struggle of primitive ages? It does not takea Carlisle eleven to make a gridiron resemble a
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Fig. 28.—Pull-Up ExerciseThe child keeps the body rigid while it is being raisedto the position of Fig. 27. 68 Keeping Physically Fit battlefield of savages, illustrating, as it does,the joys of victory and the crushing sorrows ofdefeat. Why will twenty or thirty thousandpersons sit for two hours cheering their favorites,oblivious of the cold, rain, and blinding snow,if not impelled by ancestral traits handed downby those football tactics of running, dodging,tackling, and throwing of the primitive man?Is it not a racial instinct that impels one to sitall day on the bank of a stream and fish? Someexercises and play are more interesting thanothers because they touch and revive the basicemotions of the race. Play,^ continues Pro-fessor Hall, ^at best is only a school of ethics.It gives, not only strength, but courage andconfidence, tends to simplify habits, gives en-ergy, diversion, and promptness to the will,brings consolation and peace of mind in evildays, is a resource in trouble, a

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