An objection frequently made to the gymnasium, and especially by anxious parents, is the supposed danger of accident.  But this peril is obviously inseparable from all physical activity.  If a man never leaves his house, the chances undoubtedly are, that he will never break his leg, unless upon the stairway; but if he is always to stay in the house, he might as well have no legs at all.  Certainly we incur danger every time we go outside the front-door; but to remain always on the inside would prove the greatest danger of the whole.  When a man slips in the street and dislocates his arm, we do not warn him against walking, but against carelessness.  When a man is thrown from his horse and gratifies the surgeons by a beautiful case of compound fracture, we do not advise him to avoid a riding-school, but to go to one.  Trivial accidents are not uncommon in the gymnasium, severe ones are rare, fatal ones almost unheard-of,—­which is far more than can be said of riding, driving, hunting, boating, skating, or even “coasting” on a sled.  Learning gymnastics is like learning to swim,—­you incur a small temporary risk for the sake of acquiring powers that will lessen your risks in the end.  Your increased strength and agility will carry you past many unseen perils hereafter, and the invigorated tone of your system will make accidents less important, if they happen.  Some trifling sprain causes lameness for life, some slight blow brings on wasting disease, to a person whose health is merely negative, not positive,—­while a well-trained frame throws it off in twenty-four hours.  It is almost proverbial of the gymnasium, that it cures its own wounds.

A minor objection is, that these exercises are not performed in the open air.  In summer, however, they may be, and in winter and in stormy weather it is better that they should not be.  Extreme cold is not favorable to them; it braces, but stiffens; and the bars and ropes become slippery and even dangerous.  In Germany it is common to have a double set of apparatus, out-doors and in-doors; and this would always be desirable, but for the increased expense.  Moreover, the gymnasium should be taken in addition to out-door exercise, giving, for instance, an hour a day to each, one for training, the other for oxygen.  I know promising gymnasts whose pallid complexions show that their blood is not worthy of their muscle, and they will break down.  But these cases are rare, for the reason already hinted,—­that nothing gives so good an appetite for out-door life as this indoor activity.  It alternates admirably with skating, and seduces irresistibly into walking or rowing when spring arrives.

My young friend Silverspoon, indeed, thinks that a good trot on a fast horse is worth all the gymnastics in the world.  But I learn, on inquiry, that my young friend’s mother is constantly imploring him to ride in order to air her horses.  It is a beautiful parental trait; but for those born horseless, what an economical substitute is the wooden quadruped of the gymnasium!  Our Autocrat has well said, that the livery-stable horse is “a profligate animal”; and I do not wonder that the Centaurs of old should be suspected of having originated spurious coin.  Undoubtedly it was to pay for the hire of their own hoofs.