Among the many notable discoveries made by the Anglo-Saxon race during the nineteenth century there is none more curious, none perhaps which will turn out to have been more concerned with the well-being of the race itself, than that which we may broadly call the discovery of Athletics. In itself this discovery was natural enough, since the love of sport, the pitting of the wit of man against animals, or against his fellows, has always been strongly inherent among us; but after thirty years of the new rÉgime we are apt to under-estimate the extraordinary difference between the average middle-class Englishman of to-day, in the matter of athletics, and the Englishman of the late sixties. For to put it generally, games have been, if not invented, at any rate nationalized since then; a large class of professional or semi-professional players has come into existence, and an innumerable company of amateurs who play games for their own sake, and for the sake of the increased measure of health which most men find that they thereby enjoy. That this movement at present is in the exuberance of its riotous juvenility, which coming years will tame and quiet, is probable, but it is also probable that with this modification will come a more scientific method of playing games, which will convert the mere animal pleasure of using muscles and lungs into a system which, by their fit and reasonable use, ensures for their users not only a greatly increased power in mere strength and agility, but a greatly increased power of mental quickness and moral strength. The discipline, the quick obedience, the endurance which were found to be necessary for the games in themselves, will be consciously used in other ways and with objects vastly more important than mere athletic excellence. In fact, the standing luck of the Anglo-Saxons is here again typified: that which they began simply for purposes of amusement, Nature is converting and will further convert into an element, not only of physical, but of mental and moral pre-eminence.

Indeed, it was time that some new strain of growth, as it were, was imported. For decades upon decades the country life of England had been gradually drained out of the country altogether by colonization and emigration, and by centralization into its towns; and the inevitable health which waits upon those who live mainly in the open air, whose diet is simple and wholesome foods, was being undermined by close quarters, insufficient oxygen, and more than sufficient stimulants, while those of the upper classes who still lived much in the country hunted six days out of the seven, and drank seven nights out of the same number. For the good old Englishman type, “one of the rare old sort,” as it is the fashion to call it, cannot in the light of to-day be fairly thought to be a very efficient or wholesome specimen. In fact, instead of admiring the life which certain not very critical observers have told us “made them what they were,” we ought rather to admire the wonderful constitutions nature had given them, which did not sooner break up under the extraordinarily unhealthy rÉgime of riding off every day some of the excessive port wine consumed the evening before. No doubt those works of fiction which admiringly record their feats make such a class to appear to us larger and more wide-spread than it really was; it is merely the admiration which we deprecate.

But by this wise provision of nature, simultaneously with the crowding into towns (a feature, by the way, not of decadent but of increasing national energy, and inevitable to successful competition), came this new feature, the rise of athleticism, and the desire and necessity for the health which athleticism both demands and, on the other hand, brings with it. It is requisite, in order to excel at any game which demands fleetness of foot, quickness of movement, accuracy of eye, to live, broadly speaking, in a sober and rational manner. Drunken meteors have reeled and will reel again over the athletic heavens, men who are built in such iron mould that excess appears not to interfere with their excellence, but on the one hand their brilliance is but short-lived, and on the other they are in themselves exceptional; for we may say that the average scratch player at golf, for instance, will certainly not remain on that desirable mark for six months if he drinks a bottle of port every night, and empties his box of cigarettes in two days. Thus athleticism, on the whole, encourages among its million votaries a more sensible and moderate way of life than they would, but for it, have enjoyed, and by it they now, and their children in the future, will inevitably be the fitter citizens. The green fields of England are depopulated it is true, and a thicker and ever-spreading pall of smoke rises above the clanking manufacturing towns and fog-ridden skies under which the cities hum like swarming hives; but how on Saturday afternoons are the fields populated again, and how the sand-pits crumble under the illiterate strokes of delving stockbrokers, to whom at the moment the little half-hidden ball is of more importance than the miles and millions of the Rand or the salvation of their souls!

Nor is this movement confined to those who have the money and the occasional leisure to play games. When before in the history of the nation has there been such a phenomenon as the weekly crowds at Cup ties, or the rapt lines of spectators at county cricket matches, watching with the intensest interest the games they never play, and knowing the athletic history of heroes they have never spoken to? That the pleasure and excitement of betting enter into their enthusiasm is, of course, undeniable, but we do not for a moment believe that this accounts for all of it. There is something else as well, and that something is the admiration and envy of the fitness of physical excellence. Or when before was seen so curious a sight as the ordinary bookstall groaning under magazines, the sole aim and purpose of which is to teach their readers how to obtain physical strength? The “genial broad-shouldered Englishman” of an earlier day was content to be broad-shouldered; nowadays every one wants to know how the broad shoulders are to be acquired. But the “genial broad-shouldered Englishman” of an earlier day was subsequently content to recline himself on a curtained feather-bed in a most microbeous room, with windows shut; now we tear down our curtains, fling open our windows, and plunge ourselves (without knowing why, it is true) into freezing baths before we begin the work of the day.

To say that athletics are entirely responsible for the healthier way of life pursued by the average Englishman of to-day as compared to the average Englishman of forty years ago, would be of course an assertion utterly beyond the mark. On the other hand, it is quite certainly within the mark to say that athletics have appreciably contributed to it, inasmuch as they both demand, as mentioned before, a sobriety and moderation in life as an essential to continued success, and themselves directly contribute to health as well as demanding the conditions that are likely to lead to it. At the same time the science of athletics is at present in its infancy, both whether we consider them as an end in themselves (a very small affair), or as a means to an end (an immensely large affair). Even the literature of the subject, that with which the bookstalls teem, seems to be full of fallacies, to be dealt with hereafter, and to a large extent to be based on one immense fallacy—namely, that the possession of enormous muscles, and the ability thereby to lift immense weights, is in itself an object worth the attention of a reasonable man. And when one adds to this that the actual acquirement of such power is in itself not always a very safe process, possibly leading to strain and involving misuse of the muscles themselves, it is not too much to say that if this, namely, the acquiring of huge muscles and the mere power they give, at the sacrifice in many cases of quickness, and in some at the risk of positive injury, were all, such practice would be Athleticism gone crazy. On the other hand, these periodicals would probably retort by saying, “What is the use of being able merely to hit a golf ball two hundred yards, make a totally untakeable stroke at racquets, hit over the pavilion at Lord’s, or put in a hot shot at Association?” To this we readily answer, “There is no use in it at all in itself.” But what is useful is to be possessed of the quickness, not only of muscle and eye, which is necessary to such a performance, but the quickness of seeing an opportunity, and the having the body in such perfect poise, in such perfect obedience to the will, that as soon as the opportunity occurs it instantly and correctly takes advantage of it. The acquisition of mere muscular force cannot produce this, and the professional strong man who could lift a wiry golf player from the ground with one hand will, unless he is something more than a professional strong man, be easily outdriven by the other. This borders on the vital question—namely, What is the use of athletics? And the answer is that they are a help towards training, by which is meant not the cultivation of a particular set of muscles in order to attain excellence at a particular game, still less the cultivation of slow moving muscles of ponderous size adapted only for the moving of heavy bodies, but the fitness of the entire body to execute the orders of the will rapidly and correctly, the health necessary and incidental to this, the endurance and strength which will result from it.

Nor is this fitness, which we desire to see the birthright of the entire race, at all confined to the body only, for to have the body in subjection in this manner necessarily contributes to the mental and moral health of a man. That his mind and morals may be extremely healthy, though he does not know a cricket-bat from a golf-club, goes without saying; but that athletics, from their engrossing nature to (we believe) the average person, from the healthy fatigue which they produce, from their insistence that a man should abstain from excess of food and drink and other habits more injurious, contribute to the health of mind and morals, is, we believe, beyond question. Training, in other words, in the bigger sense in which we wish to apply the term, has for its object not only fitness for any or for every athletic exercise, but fitness for all work mental as well as bodily. Yet it is nearly as much a mistake to devote all one’s time to keeping perfectly well, as it is to disregard health altogether. We believe, in fact, that certain rules of life, certain habits and certain daily exercises produce the state of body which we denote by the phrase being in Training, and that this adapts its owner, in so far as he is adaptable, for any work he has to do. Not that there is any one fixed mode of life, any one diet, or any one exercise which will suit everybody, but there are certain general lines of health, broad paths which should be approximately followed, or at any rate given a trial. For in these matters the personal equation must be taken into consideration, and the diet and exercise that are beneficial to the heavily-built man of fourteen stone are not only not necessarily beneficial to a light-weight, but may be positively injurious, though, of course, it is perfectly true that frankly unwholesome diet or continuance of unhealthy habits would be injurious both for the one and the other. On this point ordinary systems of training, even when in such competent hands as those who have charge of the University crews, seem to us capable of being bettered. The entire crew, broadly speaking, are treated as if they were eight identical specimens of one machine, as if what is the best for one must necessarily be the best for all. This assumption is not only not proved; it is on the face of it highly improbable.

But it is infinitely more important that a city full of folk living, by the exigencies of their work, under far from favourable conditions, should be in decent health, than that a boatful of strong young men, living in the best conditions, should be at the tip-top of excellence of which they are capable on a given morning; and in the consideration of the question of training, what we say is submitted to the attention not only of those who have some definite athletic trial in front of them, though it is hoped that even these may find something of profit herein, but of those who have to lead a sedentary life, which does not naturally suit them, and find that their health, and through their health their work, suffers. No doubt in such cases there must be compromise to a certain degree; for some persons unfavourable hours of work, or ill-ventilated rooms are practically (at present anyhow) unavoidable, but even here there will be found to be possible not only certain rules which will mitigate the ill-results that would naturally follow, but certain corrective measures which will, to some extent, prevent the ill-results following at all.

It is in the crowded life of cities that these difficulties most beset the problem of how to bring health within the reach, not of course of those who suffer from definite disease, for that is the work of doctors and physicians, but of those who in surroundings which suited them would naturally be healthy. Hard brain-work, for instance, especially in a dead and vitiated atmosphere, though it produces merely headache in some, produces in many others (both the present writers are cases in point) violent appetite, and the natural impulse is to take large quantities of solid food. The result of this would of course be extreme somnolence, and a subsequent awakening from a sleep that is as different from nature-demanded sleep as is light from darkness, with an extreme attack of general inability. Now such a meal as this, which produced in the brain-worker somnolence and inability, would very likely have produced in the man who was shooting all day nothing but an added zest for his sport. In the one case the food goes, so to speak, to the right place; in the other to the wrong one. Yet how comparatively few of us study our health even in so superficial a manner as to know that appetite, when one lives in abnormal conditions, is not by any means the same thing as appetite when one lives wholesomely in the open air. And how many fewer have the sense, even if they know it, to put the lesson into practice, and deliberately alter their diet to suit the conditions under which they are bound to live.

Again, there are many who, when able to take exercise, are healthy and fit for any work that they may have to do, in whom the difficulty, almost the impossibility, of getting it in the ordinary way in towns, produces a marked decline in health and consequently in output of work. Here, in a chapter devoted to the consideration of the question as applied to those who must live in towns, we shall discuss the possibility of athletic clubs to be brought within the means of those to whom such clubs as at present exist are not, by reason of expense and other causes, in any way accessible. For all these, also, we shall suggest such daily exercises as can be taken in a minimum of time in the minimum of space, which have for their object not the acquisition of huge muscles, but the acquisition of healthy nerves and muscles, prompt to obey, and swift to act. For these, too, as indeed for everyone, certain perfectly simple hints will be given about the use of air, and how to breathe properly, the use of water, warm to cleanse, hot or cold to brace, and hot vapour baths to counteract that persistent clogging of the passages of the skin which more particularly besets those whose life is passed in towns, where there is less air, less exercise, more dirt, and a tendency in all to indulge excessively (considering the conditions) in food and stimulants.

Within the last few decades, it is perfectly true, the strides that have been made towards the ultimate sanitary perfection of living are enormous. Vast sums of money are quite properly spent annually on securing for town and country dwellers alike, in answer to the demands made by scientific investigators into the theory of microbes, pure water supplies, ventilation and light in dwelling-rooms, systems of drainage and disinfectants, and inspections of food which shall reduce, as far as possible, such dangers as are universally incident to life and health. Yet in a way, admirable as such expenditure and research is, admirable also as are the results which have followed it, these natural provisions for health deal more with the surroundings of the body than with the body itself. Tenement houses are built on the most approved sanitary principles, but that done it is left to the discretion of the inhabitants of them (provided they do not keep pigs or poultry in their bedrooms) to decide as to how they shall live in them. Board schools are built with rooms containing so many cubic feet of air per person, but that done the teachers are allowed to keep the windows hermetically closed. Inspectors of food, again quite properly, destroy barrows of decaying fish, and impose fines on their vendors, but no instruction is given to either rich or poor as to the nature of foods, and in consequence, with the best will in the world, they take quantities of an expensive and stimulating food, when what they really need is a cheap and nutritious one. Interesting and costly experiments are made as to the bacilli of various diseases, and numberless means of dealing with them are suggested in text-books, but what is not done is to inform people, except in the vaguest manner, as to how they may prevent such bacilli finding a suitable, nay a possible, home in their bodies.

Instead, it is here our intention to go to the object itself, to the putting of the body in such condition as will render it not only, from its inherent health, far less liable to be attacked by disease, but as will make it as far as possible a fit servant of the will, ready and prompt to act, unclogged by the dÉbris of excess, far more capable of work than was its wont, and capable, too, of better work. It will thus be saved not from disease only, but from a continual condition of being slightly unfit, even in the case of those who (rightly in comparison with the general average of health) consider themselves healthy. Nor is such a benefit, if obtainable, limited to the present, for historically it is perfectly certain that both the bodily and mental health of any one generation depend very largely on the condition of the previous generation; since habits which are the progenitors of tendencies can be formed by any one in whom the will-power is ever so little alive. Further, in this wonderful intermingling of mind and body which we know as man, there is no change possible to one which does not affect the other, and just as deficiencies of mind produce physical ill-health, so a more healthy and cleanly condition of body produces a more healthy and cleanly mind. For who shall say of how much immorality bodily stimulants and overfeeding are not the lawful and genuine parents, or for how much depression, morose spirits, and stagnated languor of mind that organ known as the liver is not entirely responsible?

Hitherto training has been, and still is, largely regarded as a sort of monopoly of the few, and is considered by many to be mysteriously connected with beefsteaks and a total abstinence from tobacco. That such practices come under the head of certain special species of training, and no doubt in many cases are admirably fitted for the production of the highest possible excellence in one or other branch of athletics, is quite possible; but what we mean by Training, by the sort of Training, that is, which is within the reach, and lies almost in the sphere of duty, of everyone, is a less specialized and infinitely more important condition, for it means, as we have said before, a condition of body that will enable one to get the most possible out of oneself, whether the work in hand is mental, spiritual, or merely physical. But in the ensuing pages it is to be hoped that the reader will find an absence of dogmatism; such at any rate has been one of the chief objects of the authors. Theories and suggestions will be put forward, for instance, about the use of simpler foods; but it is to be remembered that they are, though supported by solid evidence, only meant to be theories and suggestions worth trying, we venture to hope, in those cases where the ordinary heavy meat meal produces on its consumer somnolence and disinclination to activity. Again, in the way of exercises, certain brisk full movements instead of dumb-bells, the use of which many find laborious, monotonous and wearying, are put forward as worth a trial, seeing that in many instances they have given satisfactory results. The book, in fact, is meant to be anything rather than a beaten hedged-in path beyond the bounds of which none may stray, for this is exactly what seems to the authors to be the defect in most existing systems of training. It is meant rather to show a not unpleasant track leading, as it were, through fields, and mainly, it is hoped, in the right direction.

Finally, even at the risk of wearisome reiteration, the word “Training” throughout is to be understood not in the sense of Training for merely some special athletic event, though it includes such, but Training for the ordinary work-a-day businesses of life, so that we may be able to do them better, quicker, with more taste for them, and with less fatigue.