There are, I am aware, certain parents and guardians who are opposed to gymnastic or athletic exercises, as the process of training is something like that adopted in the case of pugilists. And this brings to my recollection an incident that occurred to me personally when engaged in teaching the art in Michigan, not very long ago. I was engaged at the period in directing a gymnasium connected with an educational institution, and had besides opened my own rooms, where I gave private instructions. I had not been engaged over a month or so, when a legal friend of mine introduced me to a wealthy grocer, whose two sons, aged respectively seventeen and nineteen, were going to school, but who were tall, consumptive-looking creatures, with but little apparent life or strength in them. On entering into conversation with the father of these boys, I happened to introduce my profession as a great promoter of health, and one that could be brought to bear with advantage upon his two sons. He did not take my observation kindly, but, in a manner that was very far from polite, intimated to me that he wanted to make scholars and gentlemen of his sons, rather than entrust them to my tuition, which he plainly hinted would tend to leading them off in a different direction. I felt a little nettled at his rudeness, but was determined that I should not imitate it, although he had insulted me to some extent.
"Well, sir," I observed, in reply to his remark, "it is quite proper, and is very creditable to you to give these young gentlemen a fine education, for I know, to my cost, what a poor education means, although I am satisfied that neither wealth nor learning are the only constituents of a gentleman. I regret to say that my education is very defective, although, in knocking about the world, I have learned some things, and among them, that of being polite to strangers and of being considerate of the feelings of others. And now let me ask you to give me, if you can, any intelligent or good reason for your sneer at my profession, which has for its object physical culture only. Had you made yourself thoroughly acquainted with the subject, and with its mission and benefits, you would have been able to perceive that in the present state of the health and the _physique_ of your two sons, neither of them can attain to anything like proficiency in their studies. Their brain sympathizes with their feeble and undeveloped frame and hence no good mental work can be performed by them. Again, if they are permitted to continue their studies on the same plan upon which they are now conducted, they will be old men before they reach the age of thirty-five. You object to allowing them to attend my class for a couple of hours in the evening, imagining that were they to attend it they would become fighters and pugilists; but in this you are mistaken. I am no friend or champion of pugilism, but simply a physical trainer who develops the muscles, strengthens the system and the brain, and gives the whole frame something like true consistence. And whether, I should like to ask you, would your two sons, who are all but skeletons, be safer in my hands for a couple of hours after school every evening, for a few weeks, than in standing at the corners of the streets or in visiting drinking and billiard saloons, where the foundation of drunkenness and gambling are so often laid, and where the seeds of active disease are so often sown? In the one case they would be subjected to a pleasant course of physical training, resulting in health, strength and activity, and out of the reach, for the time being, of bad examples and bad habits. In the other, they would be breathing an atmosphere not always pure, and fragrant at times with some of the worst vices of the age. Whether would you rather see your boys men with finely developed forms, active and athletic, or mere apologies for men, with no _physique_, and with no life or health in them, not only from a neglect of their systems, but from the excesses and indulgences to which your conduct so tends to expose them. With me their health and morals are safe for that length of time, at least; and, as they are taught nothing that does not tend toward their mental and physical welfare, as they suffer in neither language or deportment, and are rather led in the way of generous and manly sentiments, I think they would not deteriorate from any contact with me, or with the true gentlemen of the profession."