system 22

22

later as most strengthening to the digestion and the intestinal functions. There are other muscles. as for instance the triceps (on the outside of the upper arm) and the trapczius (at the back and sides of the neck), which are often exaggeratedly developed in present-day athletes, whereas they are never strikingly conspicuous among the ancicnts. They play no considerable role as regards the liealth or generał efliciency of the body, which is the reason I have not laid much stress upon them in " My System."

The chief value and title to esteem of classical sculpture is that it has created niodels we can admire, learn from, and seek to imitate.

Forty-five Years’ Experience

Exercise of evcry organ and muscle and a bath which is not to cost much money or time or troublc can only be had within the sphere of one’s own home. The blessings of home gymnastics are therefore accessible to each and every one who only cares to hołd out his hands for them.

Lct me tell a little about myself. My fatlier suffercd from different bodily infirmities. and whcn I was born I only weighcd 3\ ths.,¹ and could be placed in an ordinary cigar box. When I was two I nearly died of dysentry ; as T grew oldcr I contracted every childish complaint, and in my early schooldays I was always ill some few tiraes in the year (with feverish colds, diarrhuea, etc). I consequently neither inheritcd my prcsent health and strcngth nor laid the foutidations of it in my childhood. They are ąualities acquired through physical exercises, which havc bcen carried out on a plan which has been, year by year, morę carefully thought out. Of courso, I should have attaincd this good result much morę quickly atid easily had T set about the matter at first with the knowledge and cxperience I now’ possess. But for that reason T regard it as my duty to render the work easier for those who are striving towards the same goal, but have not yet attaincd it.

In 1874, when I was eight years old, I got hołd of some books translated from the English and German on The Pnnciple Teachings of Physiology (Or. A. Combę) and on Health Gymnastics (Or. Schreber), and I began to do a few exercises on my own account both with and without dumb-bells. A short notice on " Pcdcstrianism " in Ober Land und Meer in 1880 taught me amongst other things to run on the balls of the fcet, and was the first step towards my being able later—after having studied l'ictor Silberer^ in T885—to introduce walking and running sports on rational lines into Denmark. In 1881 1 studied a short popular Guide to the Care of the Health, by Trautner, District Medical Officer of Health.}

1 tried, one after the other, evcry system of Home Gymnastics that came out. and in addition, as years went by, gained considerable experience by practising Gymnastics (partly prieate and partly Club practice), now according to the " Danish " method and now according to the " Swedish,” as well as all kinds of out-of-door sports. Still, it

1

Danish. very utarły equlva!ent to 4 Ibs. English.

t Austnan autbor and “ father ” oi soorls

t Trautner, “ 1'tj/eJrtsnę t Sundhedspitjt," i>rd ei Cop«nlugcn. 1891. Ust ed- 1881.)