After the more violent exercises, as baseball, football, a long ride on the bicycle, or even after a prolonged walk, a warm bath should be taken at the first convenient opportunity.  Care should be taken to rub down thoroughly, and to change a part or all of the clothing.  Exercise is comparatively valueless until the idea of taking it for health is quite forgotten in the interest and pleasure excited by the occasion.  No exercise should be carried to such a degree as to cause fatigue or exhaustion.  Keep warmly clad after exercise, avoid chills, and always stop exercising as soon as fatigue is felt.

Wear clothing which allows free play to all the muscles of the body.  The clothing should be light, loose, and made of wool.  Care should be taken not to take cold by standing about in clothes which are damp with perspiration.  In brisk walking and climbing hills keep the mouth shut, especially in cold weather, and breathe through the nose, regulating the pace so that it can be done without discomfort.

97.  Effect of Alcoholic Liquors and Tobacco upon Physical Culture.  As a result of the unusual attention given to physical culture in the last few years, hundreds of special instructors are now employed in training young people in the theory and practice of physical exercise.  These expert teachers, to do their work with thoroughness and discipline, recognize the necessity of looking after the daily living of their students.  The time of rising and retiring, the hours of sleep, the dress, the care of the diet, and many other details of personal health become an important part of the training.

Recognizing the fact that alcoholic drink and tobacco are so disastrous to efficiency in any system of physical training, these instructors rigidly forbid the use of these drugs under all circumstances.  While this principle is perhaps more rigorously enforced in training for athletic contests, it applies equally to those who have in view only the maintenance of health.

Books on Physical Education.  There are many excellent books on physical education, which are easily obtained for reading or for reference.  Among these one of the most useful and suggestive is Blackie’s well-known book, “How to Get Strong and how to Stay so.”  This little book is full of kindly advice and practical suggestions to those who may wish to begin to practice health exercises at home with inexpensive apparatus.  For more advanced work, Lagrange’s “Physiology of Bodily Exercise” and the Introduction to Maclaren’s “Physical Education” may be consulted.  A notable article on “Physical Training” by Joseph H. Sears, an Ex-Captain of the Harvard Football Team, may be found in Roosevelt’s “In Sickness and in Health.”

Price lists and catalogues of all kinds of gymnastic apparatus are easily obtained on application to firms handling such goods.