Most people act as if they thought that nature owed them strong and healthy bodies. When they do not feel well they blame the weather, or the cook, or the bad air in their office; and some seem to think them selves the victims of a wrathful Providence. That health is within the reach of every normal man—one not already suffering from organic disease—is ab solutely true. The average man when out of order goes to his doctor and expects to get medicine which will make him well, but no doctor can make a man really well. All the doctor can do for a sick man is to help nature remove some of the poisons and ob structions which he has allowed to accumulate in his body. If a man really wants health Ile must get it by his own effort. His ancestors could not give it to him and he cannot give it to his descendants. Health is a reward which kindly nature gives us when we obey her laws.
It is a fundamental psychological truth that man has to earn all the fine things he enjoys. Pleasures not earned do not please. Appetite not earned is the forerunner of indigestion. The listless, idle, inactive man or woman is the prey of ennui,langweile, disgust with life, boredom. The child who gets the pleasures and toys it wants merely by asking for them, gets little joy out of them, not merely because it is sated, but because the parents have violated a law of nature and sought to give it that which really cannot be given.
"If you want knovvledge," said Ruskin, "you must toil for it; if food, you must toil ior it; and if pleas ure, you must toil for it." Health is one of the most precious of all posses sions, but, like all the other good things of life, it must be earned. In the next few sections we shall discover how to earn it. The task is easy and the reward certain.
6. Exercise.—The word exercise suggests dumb bells, Indian clubs, walking, running, vaulting and va rious outdoor games. All these are forms of exer cise and a man should indulge in some of them as much as possible, especially those which lie enjoys; but exercise as a means of earning health need in clude no games, or long walks, or hours in the gymna sium, or weights, or apparatus.
The purpose of exercise for health is to give all the muscles of the body a chance to use their strength, for an unused muscle weakens. It is not necessary here to prescribe any set of exercises. The reader can get for a nominal price at almost any bookstore or from any dealer in sporting goods a little book with coin plete instructions. Or he can send to Washing-ton
and get the "Setting-Up" exercises prescribed for the United States Army.
It does not matter much what set of exercises a man adopts if only they bring into play all the muscles of the body. That is absolutely essential. In no other way can the human machine be kept clean inside and out ; and cleanliness of that kind is the secret of health.
Futhermore, the exercise must be regular. At least half an hour a day should be given to it, and not a day should be skipped. If a man is traveling, let him invent substitutes for his home exercises and so let his muscles know that he is not forgetting them. If he rides in a Pullman car, he can exercise in his berth.' AIany people declare positively that they cannot bear to do lonely exercises in their rooms. That is all nonsense. They are merely making an excuse for their laziness. They do not realize that setting-up exercises, persisted in month after month, will give them far rnore pleasure than they get from their break fast. The most confirmed coffee drinker, if be could be persuaded to do the setting-up exercises regularly for a month, would soon discover to his surprise that he did not care whether he had a cup of coffee at break fast or not.
Some people object that they cannot spare the time for setting-up exercises because they have to leave their homes so early to get to their places of business on time. If they have been rising at seven and are ad vised to rise half an hour earlier in order to get time for exercise, they groan. They are sure they do not get sleep enough even tho they stay in bed until seven o'clock, and it is very difficult to convince them that. a half-hour of exercise will do them more good, body and soul, than that last half-hour in bed. They do not know that a half-hour of exercise, persisted in daily, would make them sounder sleepers, so that they would feel better after seven hours in bed than they now do after eight.
If you really want health there must be no ex cuses. You must work for it. Everybody has time enough.
If you can spend half an hour in a gymnasium'play ing handball with a chum, so much the better ; then you will not need the "setting-up" exercises. That is the way a successful New York restaurateur keeps in the pink of condition. He rises at six, plays hand ball for half an hour, breakfasts at seven, works until midnight, and is up again the next day at six. He is keeping well, is making money, and says be enjoys life.