One evil breeds another.  The brain fed only with thin blood gives rise to morbid thoughts.  Activity, sharpness, and quickness of perception are but poor compensations for the want of the milder and more generous attributes of the mind.  Dyspepsia spawns a moody literature.  Broad, manly views and hopeful thoughts of life exist less here, we think, than in England.  The cities are supplied year by year with people from the country; yet the latter, the source of all this supply, does not produce so healthy mothers as the city; and were it not for the increasing study of physiology and its vital truths, we fear that we should awaken too late to a knowledge of our physical degeneration.

Now what means are in use among us to furnish the needed stimulant of exercise?  It is paradoxical to say that the average of people take more exercise in the city than in the country; yet we believe it to be true.  That exercise is only of one form, to be sure, namely, walking.  The common calls of business, and the mere daily locomotion from point to point of an extended city, necessitate a large amount of this simplest exercise.  Other sources of health, as sunlight and the vivifying influence of trees and grass upon the air, exist more in the real country.  Yet as many girls attain a vigorous development in town as out of it; for in our smaller New England villages indoor cares and labors confine the females excessively and prevent their using much exercise in the open air.

Our militia system, including the exercises of volunteer companies, supplies but to a very limited extent the want of real gymnastics.  The common militia meet too infrequently and drill too little to gain much sanative benefit.  The old-fashioned “training-day” was always a day of drunkenness and subsequent sickness.  The “going into camp” now adopted is even worse; for here youths taken from the sheltered counting-room and furnace-heated house are exposed to the inclemencies of the weather not long enough to harden them, but long enough to lay the foundation of disease.  Volunteer companies parade and are reviewed oftener, and drill more constantly; but the good effects of the manual exercise are rendered nugatory by its being conducted in confined armories and a bad atmosphere.

The frequency of conflagrations and the emulation of rival volunteer corps render the fire-companies an active school of exercise.  But the benefits of this are neutralized by the violence and irregularity of their exertions.  Quitting the workshop half-clad, and running long distances, the fireman arrives panting at the fire, to breathe in, with lungs congested by the unusual effort, the rarefied and smoky atmosphere of the burning buildings.  We should naturally suppose this a fertile source of pulmonary complaints.  Besides, were it the most healthy of exercises, it is followed only by the mechanic and the laborer, who use their muscles enough without it.

The “prize-ring” and the professed athlete still exist among us.  Unfortunately, their habits brutalize the mind.  A limited knowledge of sparring, and a full vocabulary of the slang of the pugilist, are fashionable among many youths.  Few young men, however, can cultivate the one, or frequent the society of the other, without the risk of becoming rowdies or bullies, if nothing worse.