You will notice, however, that a part of the gymnastic class are exercising without apparatus, in a series of rather grotesque movements which supple and prepare the body for more muscular feats:  these are calisthenic exercises.  Such are being at last introduced, thanks to Dr. Lewis and others, into our common schools.  At the word of command, as swiftly as a conjuror twists his puzzle-paper, these living forms are shifted from one odd resemblance to another, at which it is quite lawful to laugh, especially if those laugh who win.  A series of windmills,—­a group of inflated balloons,—­a flock of geese all asleep on one leg,—­a circle of ballet-dancers, just poised to begin,—­a band of patriots just kneeling to take an oath upon their country’s altar,—­a senate of tailors,—­a file of soldiers,—­a whole parish of Shaker worshippers,—­a Japanese embassy performing Ko-tow:  these all in turn come like shadows,—­so depart.  This complicated attitudinizing forms the preliminary to the gymnastic hour.  But now come and look at some of the apparatus.

Here is a row of Indian clubs, or sceptres, as they are sometimes called,—­tapering down from giants of fifteen pounds to dwarfs of four.  Help yourself to a pair of dwarfs, at first; grasp one in each hand, by the handle; swing one of them round your head quietly, dropping the point behind as far as possible,—­then the other,—­and so swing them alternately some twenty times.  Now do the same back-handed, bending the wrist outward, and carrying the club behind the head first.  Now swing them both together, crossing them in front, and then the same back-handed; then the same without crossing, and this again backward, which you will find much harder.  Place them on the ground gently after each set of processes.  Now can you hold them out horizontally at arm’s length, forward and then sideways?  Your arms quiver and quiver, and down come the clubs thumping at last.  Take them presently in a different and more difficult manner, holding each club with the point erect instead of hanging down; it tries your wrists, you will find, to manipulate them so, yet all the most graceful exercises have this for a basis.  Soon you will gain the mastery of heavier implements than you begin with, and will understand how yonder slight youth has learned to handle his two heavy clubs in complex curves that seem to you inexplicable, tracing in the air a device as swift and tangled as that woven by a swarm of gossamer flies above a brook, in the sultry stillness of the summer noon.

This row of masses of iron, laid regularly in order of size, so as to resemble something between a musical instrument and a gridiron, consists of dumb-bells weighing from four pounds to a hundred.  These playthings, suited to a variety of capacities, have experienced a revival of favor within a few years, and the range of exercises with them has been greatly increased.  The use of very heavy ones is, so far as I can find, a peculiarly American hobby, though