"Gymnastic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Goltz is trying to establish aim at similar objects. Such undertakings ought to be vigorously carried out in every large town, and supported by the State, from purely physical as well as social considerations. The gymnastic instruction in the schools and gymnastic clubs has an undoubtedly beneficial effect on physical development, and deserves every encouragement; finally, on these grounds, as well as all others, the system of universal ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... important factor in our training, one of the finest gymnasiums in the world, was near completion and would be ready to receive squads for instruction in a short time. Eventually we were ordered to prepare squads for gymnastic work, and those who had the privilege of attending it liked it very much. I was very fond of fencing, single stick and sword drill. This gymnasium was built and equipped, and the exercises, systematized and progressive, ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... nausea she suffered not at all, and it was with a feeling of joy that she felt the animals come to a halt, saw the black one, upon a word of command, get docilely to its knees, heard Howesha grumbling fiercely to the moon as she went through the same gymnastic performance, and felt her own rocking and pitching until it came to the ground. Whereupon she dismounted lightly, and reeled against the man as the entire desert, herself and camels included, turned a complete somersault, after which she meekly sat down on Taffadaln's back ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... can be turned into play, and some play that can be turned into work? Cannot the powers of observation be called out in a child while collecting flowers, or stones, or butterflies? Cannot his judgment be strengthened either in gymnastic exercises, or in measuring the area of a field or the height of a tower? Might not all this be done without a view to examinations or payment by results, simply for the sake of filling the little dull minds with one sunbeam of joy, such sunbeams being ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... who resided on shore ascended by a ladder to the gun-deck, which had been turned into a schoolroom; how six cadets occupied the space intended for each gun-carriage, where hammocks hung from hooks served them instead of beds; how the chapel was in a closet opened only on Sundays. He described the gymnastic feats in the rigging, the practice in gunnery, and many other things which, had they been well described, would have been interesting; but Fred was only a poor narrator. The conclusion the young ladies seemed to reach unanimously after ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... tested the actual materia medica recommended. I hear of you from all directions, walking up hills in the mornings and down hills in the afternoons, skimming round in wherries like a rather unsteady water-spider, blistering your hands upon gymnastic bars, receiving severe contusions on your nose from cricket-balls, shaking up and down on hard-trotting horses, and making the most startling innovations in respect to eating, sleeping, and bathing. Like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... had also a very large play-ground, and in it, their kind teacher had had a number of gymnastic fixtures put up, for their healthy exercise and amusement. There was a very high pole, with four strong ropes fastened to the top of it, and an iron ring at the ends of the ropes. The boys would take hold of the rings, and run round as fast as they could; then lifting their feet off the ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... two batches of three rounds each). In another, Drummond, who was going up to Aldershot as a feather-weight, would be putting in a little practice with the instructor. On the apparatus, the members of the gymnastic six, including the two experts who were to carry the school colours to Aldershot in the spring, would be performing their usual marvels. It was worth dropping into the gymnasium of an evening. In no other place in the school were so ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... gymnastic aim is symmetry and correct proportions. Anthropometry and average girths and dimensions, strength, etc., of the parts of the body are first charted in percentile grades; and each individual is referred to the apparatus and exercises best fitted to correct weaknesses and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... offering to Apollo of Actium a trireme, a four-banked ship, and so on up to one of ten banks, from the captive vessels; and he built a larger temple. He also instituted a quinquennial musical and gymnastic contest involving horseracing,—a "sacred" festival, as they call all which include distribution of food,—and entitled it Actia. Further, by gathering some settlers and ousting others who dwelt nearby from their homes, he founded a city on the site of the camp and named it Nicopolis.[67] On ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... In one corner Field had a cupboard-shaped pigeon-file, alphabetically arranged, for the clippings he daily made—almost all relating some bit of personal gossip about people in the public eye. Scattered about the floor were dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and other gymnastic apparatus which Field never touched and which the janitor had orders not to disturb in their disorder. Above Field's desk for some time hung a sheet of tin, which he used as a call bell or to drown the noise of the office boy poking the big ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... almost any house. This book, moreover, includes a translation of Prof. KLOGS'S 'Dumb Bell Instructor' and Prof. SCHREBER'S 'Pangymnastikon.' By the way, is this the same work of SCHREBER'S which was translated some years ago by Prof. SEDGWICK, of New York, for his Gymnastic Journal? We remember the latter as a work of solid merit, recommending on sound anatomical principles the means of cure by gymnastics and calisthenics for many of the ills that flesh is heir to. We ask, not remembering accurately, and from observing that Prof, LEWIS confesses ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... co-operative society for the "purchase and distribution of daily necessities," but one of its objects is "the maintenance of public morality." Then there is the students' association which has literary and gymnastic sides, the one side "to refine wisdom and virtue," the other "for the rousing of spirit." Mention may also be made of a "discipline calendar" of fixed memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe": ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... shelter of the tent. Here were in progress all the occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; and many were cleaning their arms or accoutrements,—the more carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief that afternoon; others sat on the ground, while their comrades cut their ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and gymnastic exercises calculated to improve the muscular tone, while every effort is made to secure for the child as perfect hygiene in the ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... distinctly and clearly marked out, if not logically at least traditionally; each life, as well as each portion of each life must conform to this type; otherwise public security is compromised: any falling off in gymnastic education weakens the army; passing the images of the gods and neglecting the usual libation draws down celestial vengeance on the city. Consequently, to prevent all deviations, the State, absolute master, exercises unlimited jurisdiction; no freedom whatever is ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... once took a great fancy to him, made him sleep in his own study, and watched with an equal care the progress of his studies and the cure of his foot. This latter task was no easy one, owing to the restlessness of the child, who would join in all the gymnastic exercises suitable to his age, whereas absolute repose was prescribed for him. Dr. Glennie says, however, that, once back in the study-room, Byron's docility was equal to his vivacity. He had been instructed ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... ** Gymnastic exercises, hunting, fishing, sailing, are all pictured in Theban tombs. The game of draughts is mentioned in the title of chap. xvii. of the Book of the Dead (Naville's edition, vol. i. pl. xxiii. 1. 2), and the women's pavilion ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... so very cunning, that everybody liked to see them. Even the magnificent Mr. Checkynshaw had deigned to regard them with some attention, and had condescended to say that his daughter Elinora would be delighted to see them. Then the houses, and the gymnastic apparatus which Leo attached to them, rendered them tenfold more interesting. At a store in Court Street the enterprising young man had seen them sold for half a dollar a pair; indeed, he had paid this sum for the ancestral couple from which had ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... complete mastery over their mental images. They can call up the figure of a friend and make it sit on a chair or stand up at will; they can make it turn round and attitudinize in any way, as by mounting it on a bicycle or compelling it to perform gymnastic feats on a trapeze. They are able to build up elaborate structures bit by bit in their mind's eye and add, substract or alter at will and ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... dog!" and a few paces farther, "Take care, or the monkey will fly at you!" an incident recalling the old vagaries of the menagerie at Newstead. The biographer's reminiscences mainly dwell on his lordship's changing moods and tempers and gymnastic exercises, his terror of interviewing strangers, his imperfect appreciation of art, his preference of fish to flesh, his almost parsimonious economy in small matters, mingled with allusions to his domestic calamities, and frequent expressions of a growing distaste to Venetian society. On leaving ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of the barrier. He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like one who had often practised it; albeit the discreet adventurer had not mentioned in his narrative to Paul any previous occasion for the practice. As soon as he had gained the top of the wall, he threw down the cord to his companion, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... easily be tempted to "show off" a little when it comes to gymnastic exercises. Neale seized the rope and began to mount it, stiff-legged and "hand over hand." It was a feat that a professional acrobat would have found easy, but that very few but ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... themselves left alone for hour after hour in a corner of the room or the courtyard, badly nourished, and at times scoffed at, or tormented for months by bandages and by useless orthopedic apparatus! Now, however, thanks to care and good food and gymnastic exercises, many are improving. Their schoolmistress makes them practise gymnastics. It was a pitiful sight to see them, at a certain command, extend all those bandaged legs under the benches, squeezed as they were ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... you have a sickly body. In order to make your brains bring you what they ought, you must build up your body; it depends upon you." The boy felt both the obligation and the desire; he willed to be strong, and he went through his gymnastic exercises with religious precision. What he read in his books about knights and paladins and heroes had always greatly moved his imagination. He wanted to be like them. He understood that the one indispensable ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... in Fuller's work contains much curious reading on the ancient physicians, and their gymnastic courses, which Asclepiades, the pleasantest of all the ancient physicians, greatly studied; he was most fortunate in the invention of exercises to supply the place of much physic, and (says Fuller) no man in any age ever had the happiness to obtain so general an applause; Pliny calls him ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... pictured, and cannot do so too often—shaking first his little wings, and then his little throat; the old zigzagging to and fro—here, there, everywhere—whisking in this direction, and bouncing in that direction, restless gymnastic that he is, in a very ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... unmarried men, have in many countries been subjected to penal laws. At Sparta, citizens who remained unmarried after a certain age suffered various penalties. They were not allowed to witness the gymnastic exercises of the maidens; and during winter they were compelled to march naked round the market-place, singing a song composed against themselves and expressing the justice of their punishment. The usual respect of the young to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... "And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is due to the great and subtle power of Love; but those who, having their affections set upon him, are yet diverted into the paths of money-making or gymnastic philosophy are not called lovers—the name of the genus is reserved for those whose devotion takes one form only—they alone are said to love, or to be lovers." "In that," I said, "I am of opinion that you are right." "Yes," she said, "and you hear people say ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... do not know who, and so I will shake hands all around—on the fact that the health of the country seems improving. Whether Dio Lewis, with his gymnastic clubs, has pounded to death American sickness, or whether the coming here of many English ladies with their magnificent pedestrian habits, or whether the medicines in the apothecary shops through much adulteration have lost their force, or whether the multiplication of bathtubs ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... is without strong muscles which are its organ, or how endurance and self-control, no less than great achievement, depend on muscle-habits. Both in Germany and Greece, a golden age of letters was preceded, by about a generation, by a golden age of national gymnastic enthusiasm which constitutes, especially in the former country, one of the most unique and suggestive chapters in the history of pedagogy. Symmetry and grace, hardihood and courage, the power to do everything that the human ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... into a whirling skipping-rope. She had a quaint French accent, but she couldn't sing. She had no voice. And after that one doggerel verse she made a gesture of good-humoured contempt and danced. But she couldn't dance either. It was a wild gymnastic—a display of incredible, riotous energy, the delirious caperings of a gutter-urchin caught in the midst of some gutter-urchin's windfall by a jolly tune. A long-haired youth leapt on to the stage from the stage-box, and caught her by the waist and swung her about him and over his ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... subject of my inferior stature led me to a determination to try what gymnastic practice could do to remedy the defect. For some thirty years, gymnastics, first introduced into this country, I believe, at the Round-Hill School at Northampton, then under the charge of Messrs. Cogswell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... dressed in shirt and trousers, danced together with spirit and grace. The music was provided by a drum, made out of an old tin box. Many of the steps reminded me of a Highland reel, but were curiously mixed up with calisthenic, and even gymnastic exercises; the hands in particular were used very gracefully, and they often took off their hats and waved them to and fro. But they also climbed on each other's shoulders, and did other strange things. After dancing for some time, they sang songs to us in a curious, low, weird kind of ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... Ritter's story took some time, and he was asked several questions by Captain Putnam and Josiah Crabtree. He said that he had just been getting ready to take some gymnastic exercise when Jack and some of his chums had come in and begun to talk about his father, saying that they had ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... was smiling, too. His heart fluttered, and performed some extraordinary gymnastic feat, when she ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... We have numerous gymnastic exercises. Some parts of our apparatus are much like yours, as, for instance, a cross-bar, on which the boy swings, holding on ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... had turned for a moment, and she had seen him. Suddenly it struck her with force: what a shaving of a man he was! Desk-chested, weak-necked, conscious of his little "important" lip and chin—yes, he needed a Polytechnic gymnastic course! Then she remarked how once, at Margate, she had seen him in the distance, as in a hired baggy bathing-dress he had bathed from a machine, in muddy water, one of a hundred others, all rather cold, flinging a polo-ball about and shouting stridently. "A sound mind in a sound body!"... He ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... functions.... Large and colossal edifices were quite furnished with all the necessary for care and sport. Besides localities for all kind of bath—cold, warm, steam bath—didn't want parks, alleys, and porticos in order to walk; lists rings for gymnastic exercises, conversation and reading rooms, localities for theatrical representations, swimming stations, localities for scientific disquisitions, moral and religious teachings. The most splendid art works adorned ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... and he noted with indignation that a large portion of the painting at the northern end had been destroyed and some glass roofing inserted. In another place bolts had been driven in to support the ropes of a trapeze and a few other pieces of gymnastic apparatus. The walls were whitewashed, and at about four feet from the ground a dark band appeared, produced by pencil memoranda and little sketches scribbled on the whitewash. One end of the apartment was unfurnished, except ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... quantity to think much about, but they wore wide red breeches blown out by Fame, big as her cheeks, and a ten thousand of that sort would never think of retreating. Their spectral advance on quaking London through Kentish hopgardens, Sussex corn-fields, or by the pleasant hills of Surrey, after a gymnastic leap over the riband of salt water, haunted many pillows. And now those horrid shouts of the legions of Caesar, crying to the inheritor of an invading name to lead them against us, as the origin of his title had led the army of Gaul of old gloriously, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... smaller bodies, the wandering debris, perhaps, of a star broken up into thousands of pieces, of which the telescope has discovered eighty-two at present. Some of these asteroids are so small that they could be walked round in a single day by going at a gymnastic pace. ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... imperative necessity of psychic science, not that barren abstraction called psychology in colleges, but a science which, like a faithful mirror, reveals to us that which we cannot see. As the gymnastic teacher reveals by a system of measurement (anthropometry) the defective muscles that need development, so should the psychologist discover in the conformation of the brain the special ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... but entered into the services as seriously as the strange gymnastic performances of the preacher would allow me to do, for the truth is, he was quite as amusing as ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Gymnastic and calisthenic exercises are invaluable aids to the culture and development of the bodily organs, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... that obedience was the shortest road to freedom, so climbed and descended the rope again, with the ease gained by her gymnastic training under the "boys'" tuition. But she took into the pit, beside the staff that curious basket which she had once seen Ferd carrying up the canyon and over which she had, most fortunately, just ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... to get on to Peter's shoulders, and by a considerable gymnastic effort to raise my head to the level of the ledge, and at the same time to cast ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... training—an old armchair; a broom; a large gilt portrait frame through which he would leap twenty-five times every morning; a marble clock; a pair of water buckets; an old trunk lid, and other articles of the kind. Close beside his gymnastic apparatus we keep three trunkfuls of note-books and reports representing as many years devoted labour at his studies. At the age of twenty-six my father was a veritable Hercules and held the position ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... entire force of soldiers, fully armed and arrayed, while his fleet also played its part in the scene, he proceeded to the temple of Melkarth in the middle of the town, and offered his much desired sacrifice to Hercules. A gymnastic contest and a torch race formed a portion of the display. To commemorate his victory, he dedicated and left in the temple the battering-ram which had made the first impression on the southern wall, together with a Tyrian vessel, used in the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... but which have not yet been brought to the birth. He must know enough and not too much; he must not dim his perception by acquainting himself in detail with what has been said or thought; he must not take off the freshness of his mind by too much intellectual gymnastic. It is a race across country for which he is preparing, and he will learn better what the practical difficulties are by daring excursions of his own, than by acquiring a ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Dick should run races across the common on their way towards the south parade, in which gymnastic display Miss Nellie and Rover both joined, for company sake as well as to set a good example; the big black retriever going over more ground than either of the competitors ere they reached 'The Moorings,' as Mrs ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... under circumstances and in combinations the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on to washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side of dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of other dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A banquet array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was generally to be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... webs were of silk. I see now how much Benedict owes to Baruch. The Rabbinical gymnastic is no ill-training, though unmethodic. Maimonides de-anthropomorphises God, the Cabalah grapples, if confusedly, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... we go on to specific training of the charger—still working, of course, concurrently at the gymnastic side of his training also—to accustoming him to the curb, then by the end of February the remount ought easily to be ready to be placed ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... the moral of this noble picture, and in it I felt that I had seen an example of that true mission of art which will manifest itself more and more in this world as Christ's kingdom comes; art which is not a mere juggler of colors, a gymnastic display of effects, but a solemn, inspiring poetry, teaching us to live and die for that which it noblest and truest. I think this picture much superior to its companion, the Martyrdom of Huss, which I had already ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of society,—citizens and helots, and their mutual relations,—the distribution of lands to check luxury, the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,—in short, the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather than a law-giver. Under his regime the citizen belonged to the State rather than to his family, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... services are not the whole of this remarkable church. It has not yet adopted Mrs. Stowe's suggestion of providing billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, and gymnastic apparatus for the development of Christian muscle, though these may come in time. The building at present contains eleven apartments, among which are two large parlors, wherein, twice a month, there is a social gathering of the church and congregation, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... affairs held the rooms; an eminent actor was pleased to parody another eminent actor who was also present. This led to a scene in which each caricatured the other, and a French poet did gymnastic feats on the floor and upset a tray of soda-water, and a German conductor fluffed out his hair and died like Marguerite. And when in the earlier hours of the morning part of the guests had gone away, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... good physical condition and to laugh at the doctor we must keep out of doors as much as possible. Gymnasium work of course will help us to build up our strength and develop our muscles, but skill in various acrobatics and gymnastic tricks does not give the clear eye and ruddy cheek of the person whose life is in the open air. Outdoor sports, like tennis, baseball, and horseback riding are far superior to chestweights or Indian clubs as a means of ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... could hear the rattle of their spoons against their bowls and the tramp of their feet. The slow starving was, to my mind, the worst. And after that the loss of sleep. If one did drop off, the cold soon caused a miserable awakening. I tried not to think, and did all the gymnastic drill I knew, even to standing on my hands in the darkness of the cell. I knew that if I gave up it would be all off, for I could daily feel myself getting wabbly as the confinement and starvation, added ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... of instruction is thus that of finding material which will engage a person in specific activities having an aim or purpose of moment or interest to him, and dealing with things not as gymnastic appliances but as conditions for the attainment of ends. The remedy for the evils attending the doctrine of formal discipline previously spoken of, is not to be found by substituting a doctrine of specialized disciplines, but by reforming the notion ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... Outdoor Girls and their boy chums were too active to remain quiet long, even after plum pudding. Allen was the first to become restless, and the others soon caught it from him. He rose, went through some gymnastic exercises, then looked about him curiously. "I wonder if there are any more places like this hereabout?" he said. "Does anybody want to take a little tramp and find out? You look about as energetic as a bunch of turtles. Come on, ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... mind, body, or dress, of their affectations, 222and their leading of a party. There is something manly in the Yacht Club, in a dexterously driving four fleet horses in hand, in reining in the proud barb, and in gymnastic exercises: but the whole merit of these ceases, when my Lord (like him of carroty beard) becomes the tar without his glory, and wears the check shirt without the heart of oak—when the driver becomes the imitator of the stage and hackney box—when the rider is the unsuccessful rival of the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... predominance of the disciplinary process was what once characterized the English university system even more than now. It consisted in the exact and exhaustive mastery of certain limited sections of knowledge and thought, as the gymnastic for all other spheres and toils. At Oxford, not long ago, four years were spent in mastering some fourteen books. Whatever may be our criticism of the process, we may not deny its singular effect. In ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... that Christianity can sanctify all joys, and ensure the harmonious development of all our powers, have we not been forgetting that hand and foot may cause us to stumble, and that we had better live maimed than die with all our limbs? There is a true asceticism, a discipline—a 'gymnastic unto godliness,' as Paul calls it. And if our faith is to grow high and bear rich clusters on the topmost boughs that look up to the sky, we must keep the wild lower shoots close nipped. Without rigid self-control and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... was necessary to climb by cross-beams arranged at wide distances. My companion ascended to this awkward elevation, without hesitating; but I came to an "awful pause" before it. Fettered as I was by my Brobdingnag jacket and trousers, I felt a humiliating consciousness that any extraordinary gymnastic exertion was altogether ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... slender posts the appearance of a huge, long-legged bird watching for a reptile to seize upon. Trunks of palm or other trees with their bark still on them unite the banks by a shaky and infirm foot-bridge which, if not a very secure crossing, is nevertheless a wonderful contrivance for gymnastic exercises in preserving one's balance, a thing not to be despised. The boys bathing in the river are amused by the difficulties of the old woman crossing with a basket on her head or by the antics of the ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... grandmother a regular torture. Every day fresh pretexts were made to keep the child away; he had coughed, it was too cold, it was raining. Then came his walks, rides, gymnastic exercises. The poor old lady never saw her grandson. At first she tried complaining to d'Athis; but women alone have the secret of carrying on these little warfares. Their ruses remain invisible, like the hidden stitches which catch back ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... springs near Padua. An altar, inscribed to Apollo Aponus, was found at Ribchester, and is now at St. John's College, Cambridge. (Wright, "Celt, Roman, and Saxon", p. 320.) (12) See Book I., 411, and following lines. (13) For the contempt here expressed for the Greek gymnastic schools, see also Tacitus, "Annals", 14, 21. It is well known that Nero instituted games called Neronia which were borrowed from the Greeks; and that many of the Roman citizens despised them as foreign and profligate. Merivale, chapter liii., cites this passage. (14) Thus paraphrased ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... monstrous crystal serpent asleep on a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees, dipping and swaying, join the two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired for trembling old men and poor women who must cross with heavy baskets on their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatus for ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... estimated, for instance, that nine out of ten of our college students use tobacco; and yet by the statistics of the last graduating class at Cambridge it appears that it is used by only thirty-one out of seventy-six. I am satisfied that the extent of the practice is often exaggerated. In a gymnastic club of young men, for instance, where I have had opportunity to take the statistics, it is found that less than one-quarter use it, though there has never been any agitation or discussion of the matter. These things indicate that it can no longer be claimed, as Moliere asserted two centuries ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... again, were the following points settled? Does a man who practices gymnastic exercises and applies himself to them, pay attention to the praise and censure and opinion of every one, or of that one man only who happens to be a physician, ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... as to make his classes popular. These prizes took the form of collars, inscribed in large painted letters with the particular merit of the pupil rewarded, such as agility, courage, strength, &c. One pupil was given a prize for "hidden virtue." After the gymnastic lessons came riding lessons, for which we were taken to the Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being always put in the charge of a single tutor. But as he invariably found the riding school too cold, he used ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... remedy what was defective in Humboldt's plan by insisting upon physical exercises as an obligatory part of education in the higher schools. But the physical exercises thus introduced, though salutary in themselves, were divorced from the artistic influences of the Greek gymnastic. Humboldt's chief aim had been forgotten. His system of organization had rooted itself, but his educational ideal, to which he attached far greater importance than to administrative regulation, ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... ourselves to astonish each other with gymnastic tours de force. Ilinka watched us with a faint smile of admiration, but refused an invitation to attempt a similar feat, saying that he had ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... music. But not far away, in the less stately, more natural park surrounding the Alexander Palace, the property of the Crown Prince, lies the real paradise of the children of all classes. There is the playground, provided with gymnastic apparatus, laid out at the foot of a picturesque tower, one of the line of signal towers, now mostly demolished, which, before the introduction of the telegraph, flashed news from Warsaw to St. Petersburg in the then phenomenally ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... as he leisurely observed them, that there was an intrenchment thrown across the straits, and that the Spartans were in front of it. There were other forces behind, but these the horseman could not see. The Spartans were engaged, some of them in athletic sports and gymnastic exercises, and the rest in nicely arranging their dress, which was red and showy in color, though simple and plain in form, and in smoothing, adjusting, and curling their hair. In fact, they seemed to be, one and all, preparing ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... pretty," grinned Split, whose nickname honored a gymnastic feat which no other Madigan, however athletic, could accomplish half so successfully as the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Dorothy found herself in possession of the rifle she knew that she was safe. She even laid the pole flat on the roof, allowing one end of it to project a foot or so beyond it so as to aid the cross-eyed one in his unwonted gymnastic feat. In a few moments the discomfited villain stood on the roof in front ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... out of the hole feet foremost; and, by a tremendous effort, I managed to turn a complete summersault,—what the boys always called a somerset,—which, of course, brought me into the right position. How thankful I felt that I had been taught to practise gymnastic exercises at the school in Roxbury! In my present attitude I couldn't see the bright spot any longer: but, before long, I perceived that it was growing lighter around me; and I was confident that the time of my release drew near. I had determined exactly ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... When one duellist is disabled by skin wounds—there are rarely any others—or by want of breath, palpitation or the like, the duel is over, and the duellists shake hands. This description, with some slight modifications, applies to the ordinary Corps Mensuren, which are simply a bloody species of gymnastic exercise. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... assistant-master, who accompanied us, 'Look at me, Mr. Hart! Please, Mr. Hart, look at me!' evincing, I thought, even in this, an anxiety peculiar to their condition, that their little feats of agility should be SEEN. Among them was a small laughing fellow, who stood aloof, entertaining himself with a gymnastic exercise for bringing the arms and chest into play; which he enjoyed mightily; especially when, in thrusting out his right arm, he brought it into contact with another boy. Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was deaf, and dumb, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... susceptible thinker but the naked athlete, with firm flesh and swelling muscles. Most of their barbarian neighbours were ashamed to be seen undressed, but the Greeks seem to have felt little embarrassment in appearing naked in public. Their gymnastic habits entirely transformed their sense of shame. Their Olympic and other public games were a triumphant display of naked physical perfection. Young men of the noblest families and from the farthest Greek colonies came to them, and wrestled and ran, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... an event of great importance in reckoning time with the Greeks; thus we see that the great procession represented on the frieze occurred once in every four years. This festival continued several days, and all were filled with horse-racing, cock-fighting, gymnastic and musical contests, and a great variety of games; poets also recited their verses, and philosophers held arguments in public places.[A] But the most important day was that on which a procession went up to the Parthenon ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... such a world of pathos in the wail with which Parrot replied that Dick choked in his efforts to repress his emotions. The lads heard the victim blubbing, and pictured his humorous contortions after every cut—for Parrot was weirdly and wonderfully gymnastic under punishment—and Jacker hugged himself and kicked ecstatically, and young Haddon bowed his forehead in the dirt and drummed with his toes, and gave expression to his exuberant hilarity in frantic pantomime. The rough and ready schoolboy is very ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... on the common play-ground of the neighborhood, with the dances under the walnut-trees of sunny Provence. The game is an invigorating one, and even those who do not know it are pleased with its animation. We have hitherto neglected that gymnastic culture which made the Greeks the graceful people they were, and which contributed to the cultivation ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... preparing ourselves for the contest. Although habitually in good physical condition, we undertook special training for the big event. By running, the use of dumbbells and other gymnastic practices, we strengthened our muscles and increased our endurance. Our field shooting was also directed toward rapid delivery and the quick judgment of distances on level, uphill, and falling ground. In fact, we planned to leave ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... consists chiefly in deep and regular breathing, preferably of morning air, in swallowing the saliva three times in every two hours, in adopting certain positions for the body and limbs, which are also strengthened by gymnastic exercises, and finally, as borrowed from the Buddhists, in remaining motionless for some hours a day, the eyes shut, and the mind abstracted as much as possible from all surrounding influences. The upshot of these and other ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... pupils all the acrobatics of the air, and would urge them on with the motto—'Stunt, or die.' Those who could not or would not learn to side-slip, to loop, to imitate a fall out of control, and to perform a dozen other gymnastic feats in the air had little prospect of a long flying career in France. But the first winter of the war was innocent of all these fighting manoeuvres. Group Captain J. G. Hearson, who made acquaintance with the Central Flying School ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... short, Giblets, exacting in return the title of father, instead of the terrible 'pa.' Little Owen thought this a preparation for the itinerant white-mouse exhibition, which he was permitted to believe was only delayed till the daily gymnastic exertions should have resulted in the use of crutches, and till he could safely pronounce the names of the future mice, Hannibal and Annabella, and other traps for aspirates! Nay, his father was going to set up an exhibition of his own, as it appeared; ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... post. At thirty the young man was admitted to full citizenship and compelled to marry, though continuing to live at the public barrack and spending his energies in training boys (R. 1). Women and girls were given gymnastic training to make them strong and capable of bearing strong children. The family was virtually suppressed in the interests of defense and war. [9] The intellectual training consisted chiefly in committing to memory the Laws of Lycurgus, learning a few selections from Homer, and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... rapid process, due to a method learned during college days, which consists of wearing as little as possible, and arranging it at night so that two thrusts (trousers and under-drawers), one enveloping gesture (shirt and under-shirt), and a gymnastic effort of standing first on one leg and then on the other (socks and shoes), ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... numerous young chicks caught premature colds and perished; and how, when I, with manifold toil, had driven one of these inconsiderate gadders into a coop, to teach her domestic habits, the rats came down upon her and slew every chick in one night; how my pigs were always practising gymnastic exercises over the fence of the sty, and marauding in the garden. I wonder that Fourier never conceived the idea of having his garden land ploughed by pigs; for certainly they manifest quite a decided elective attraction ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to his drinking propensities, after this digression about his gymnastic prowess: I must say, that of all his vauntings, it was, luckily for him, the emptiest—that is, after he left England and his boon companions, as I know nothing of what he did there. From all that I heard or witnessed of his habits abroad, he was and had been exceedingly abstemious in eating and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... continually torment his officers for privilege to fall out of ranks to adjust his knapsack, fasten a belt, or some such like purpose, who, on the halt, would amuse his comrades for hours in performing gymnastic feats upon out-spread blankets. Another, who at home flourished deservedly under the sobriquet of "Clever Billy," became, in a few brief months of service, the most surly, snappish, and selfish ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... keep the very keepers?' is the old question, and here is the answer:—You cannot execute the gymnastic feat of 'erecting yourself above yourself' any more than a man can take himself by his own coat collar and lift himself up from the ground with his own arms. But you can cultivate faith, hope, and charity, and these three, well cultivated and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... said the pacified Mr. Tozer to the Pet; "you have used your skill very much to our advantage, and displayed pugilistic powers not unworthy of the athletes, and xystics of the noblest days of Rome. As a palaestrite you would have gained palms in the gymnastic exercises of the Circus Maximus. You might even have proved a formidable rival to Dares, who, as you, Mr. Blades, will remember, caused the death of Butes at Hector's tomb. You will remember, Mr. Blades, that Virgil makes mention of his ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... have I found any difficulty in accomplishing the longest walks; on the contrary they have been taken with entire ease and pleasure. Yet to this day, any considerable exercise of the other muscles is attended with extreme debility. In the absence of facilities for walking, gymnastic exercise is not wholly without benefit, and if this exercise is followed by a cold bath, some portion of the insupportable languor will be removed. Walking, however, is the great panacea, nor can it well be taken in excess. So important is this ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... and up it goes as steadily as if the laws of gravitation had suddenly shifted their course, and worked upward instead of down. Lest, however, they should suddenly resume their original bias, let us cross to the dressing-room, and, while you are assuming flannel shirt or complete gymnastic suit, as you may prefer, let us consider ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... tin and a big jar of ginger. The enormous hand of Innocent Smith appearing through the aperture, like a giant's in a fairy tale, received these tributes and bore them off to the eyrie; then they both hoisted themselves out of the window. They were both athletic, and even gymnastic; Inglewood through his concern for hygiene, and Moon through his concern for sport, which was not quite so idle and inactive as that of the average sportsman. Also they both had a light-headed burst of celestial ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... those exercises already. In Egypt the girls as well as the boys are kept to such gymnastic exercises. My limbs were trained to flexibility by running, postures, and games with hoops ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... aristocratic-looking structure which lends quite an air to the old campus. In the basement there is a roomy baseball cage, a bowling alley, lockers, and baths. In the main hall, one end of which terminates in a fair-sized stage, are gymnastic ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... to treat the human voice like any other instrument, merely to show its resources as an organ; of the final utter bondage of the poet to the musician, till opera became little more than a congeries of musico-gymnastic forms, wherein the vocal soloists could display their art, it needs not to speak at length, for some of these vices have not yet disappeared. In the language of Dante's guide through the Inferno, at one stage of their wanderings, when the sights ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... gymnasium shoes and sweaters and singlets in untidy brown parcels there stood the stout leather-jacketed vaulting horse waiting its turn to be carried up on the stage and set in the middle of the winning team at the end of the gymnastic display. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... With a gymnastic leap, the journalist reached the body of the statue and switched on his electric light. He made a horrible discovery. To reach the King he had maneuvered the statue from the outside. He realized now that ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... present day would appear truly ridiculous.... Not long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculous among the Greeks, as it is now among most barbarous nations, for men to be seen naked. And when the Cretans first, and after them the Lacedaemonians, began the practice of gymnastic exercises, the wits of the time had it in their power to make sport of those novelties.... As for the man who laughs at the idea of undressed women going through gymnastic exercises, as a means of revealing what is most perfect, his ridicule is but 'unripe fruit plucked ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... tolls in the brain (haud rediturus) over one of the noblest—if it be not a treason to discriminate—of all the dead one has known who have died for England. Graciousness was in all his doings and in all the workings of his mind. The music and gymnastic whereof Plato wrote, that should attune the body to harmony with the mind, and harmonise all the elements of the mind in a perfect unison, had done their work upon him. He seemed—at any rate, to the eyes of those who loved him, ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the temper of the people who rushed into the war with the confidence of a schoolboy and who limped out like a man overtaken in his gymnastic exercise by a paralytic stroke. The war taught the South a very useful lesson, but did not sufficiently convince it that it was preeminently a supercilious, arrogant people, who did not and do not possess all the virtue, intelligence, and courage of the country; that its stock of these ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... is. Once or twice I have wrestled with it, and for a time felt its chilling touch on my life; so I speak with knowledge when I say that evil is of no consequence, except as a sort of mental gymnastic. For the very reason that I have come in contact with it, I am more truly an optimist. I can say with conviction that the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings. It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It lets us into the soul of things and ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... love for woman's political freedom, than for their own personal comfort, compelled them to lay it aside. The experiment, however, was not without its good results. The dress was adopted for skating and gymnastic exercises, in seminaries and sanitariums. At Dr. James C. Jackson's, in Dansville, N. Y., it is still worn. Many farmers' wives, too, are enjoying its ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... throughout creation faculties are developed through the performance of the appropriate functions; so that it would be contrary to the whole harmony of nature "if one kind of culture were needed for the gaining of information, and another kind were needed as a mental gymnastic." He then maintained that the sciences are superior in all respects to languages as educational material; they train the memory better, and a superior kind of memory; they cultivate the judgment, and they impart an admirable moral ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... he appears in sculpture, is a young man of eighteen or nineteen years, almost faultless in his form. His beauty is not of a pure Greek type. Though perfectly proportioned and developed by gymnastic exercises to the true athletic fulness, his limbs are round and florid, suggesting the possibility of early over-ripeness. The muscles are not trained to sinewy firmness, but yielding and elastic; the chest is broad and singularly swelling; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... improvement is arrived at, they can in all cases gain cleanly habits, and get entirely rid of that repulsive appearance which an idiot left to himself is almost sure at last to acquire. Active exercises are what they resort to in the first instance; they have a large school-room fitted up with ladders and gymnastic apparatus of all kinds. We saw little boys, who shortly before were scarcely able to stand alone, climbing places which made me tremble for their safety, but it was curious to observe with what caution they ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... longevity. The most important of these are balancing, leaping, climbing, wrestling, and throwing, all of which are especially adapted to the development of the muscles. In conclusion, we offer the following suggestions, viz: all gymnastic exercises should be practiced in the morning, and in the open air; extremes should be avoided; and it should be always borne in mind, that their chief object is to combine, in a proper proportion, mental and physical development. In every relation of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... assemblies of the people and urged them to transfer the command to another general, since "Marcellus," he said, "after a little sparring with the enemy had gone to the hot baths to refresh himself as if after a gymnastic contest." Marcellus, hearing of this, left the army in charge of his legates, and went to Rome to clear his reputation from these slanders; but, in consequence of them he found that he was to undergo a trial. A day was fixed; ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... John, jumping out of his chair, and performing some gymnastic feats that astonished the visitor and the family. ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... lengths; go through fire and water &c. (resolution) 604; move heaven and earth, leave no stone unturned. Adj. laboring &c. v. laborious, operose[obs3], elaborate; strained; toilsome, troublesome, wearisome; uphill; herculean, gymnastic, palestric[obs3]. hard-working, painstaking; strenuous, energetic. hard at work, on the stretch. Adv. laboriously &c. adj.; lustily; pugnis et calcibus[Lat]; with might and main, with all one's might, with a strong hand, with a sledge hammer, with much ado; to the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... emigration, and, in fact, the first piece of good fortune that had befallen him since he left his native town. When he joined the circus he was an apprentice, and beside a certain number of hours of gymnastic practice daily and service in the ring both afternoon and evening, he had half a dozen horses to care for, his part of the tent to pack up and load, and the team to drive to the next stopping-place. For sixteen and often eighteen hours of hard work he received only ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... fight with stones; because, if you are, you ought to give me a chance to get some,' and I thought to myself that I would pick up rocks that could be heaved. 'Oh no,' says he, with one of them smiles of his—'oh no; I just want to open our conference with a little gymnastic exhibition.' And so sayin', he rolled up his shirt-sleeves—he hadn't no coat on—and he picked up one of them rocks with both hands, and then he gave it a swing with one hand, like you swing a ten-pin ball, and he sent ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... The Gymnastic.—The idea of a gymnasium within a gaol must deliver no small shock to the prejudices of many, but in studying the Elmira system we must endeavour to keep before us the end which the authorities are aiming at, viz., the restoration to society of ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... of a system of instruction for light troops for distribution to the several States, including everything pertaining to the instruction of the militia in the school of the soldier,—company and battalion, skirmishing, bayonet, and gymnastic drill, adapted for self-instruction. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... skill. Under his instruction, with the stimulus of the Doctor's praise and criticism, Ned soon grew to be the pride of the Frenchman's school, in both the active departments; and the Doctor himself added a further gymnastic acquirement (not absolutely necessary, he said, to a gentleman's education, but very desirable to a man perfect at all points) by teaching him cudgel-playing and pugilism. In short, in everything that related to accomplishments, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very native who saved our ratel's life, all the same; for his gymnastic display during the few seconds that followed was so energetic that the pink pyjamas and a revolver, that represented the white hunter fresh from sleep, had no chance at all of doing any damage except ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... less, Major. 'Retired Captain, aged fifty, who'll take on all comers of forty-two and over, at a steeplechase, round of golf, billiard match, hopping match, gymnastic competition, swinging Indian clubs——' No objection, gentlemen? ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... has considered the manner of life among the ancients, attributes the strength of body and mind by which they are distinguished from the men of our own day to their gymnastic exercises. The stress laid by Montaigne upon this opinion, shows that it had made a great impression on him; he returns to it again and again. Speaking of a child's education he says, "To strengthen the mind you must harden the muscles; by training ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... at first studied medicine under his father, he had afterwards for his teachers Gorgias and Democritus, both of classic fame, and Herodicus, who is known as the first person who applied gymnastic exercises to ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... at the house of St. John's studying diligently, and continuing his military exercises. These were severe; for the scions of noble houses, who hoped some day to distinguish themselves as knights, were put through many gymnastic exercises—were taught to spring on to a horse when clad in full armour, to wield heavy battleaxes, to run and climb, and to prepare themselves for all the possibilities of the mode of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... offence, and the designer hastened to soothe the displeasure which he had thoughtlessly excited. Stephanos, known by the surname of Castor, who was highly distinguished for gymnastic exercises, was a sort of patron to the little artist, and not unlikely by his own reputation to bring the talents ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... putting them through their gymnastic exercises I studied their faces. At first my impression was one of prevailing homeliness; scrubbed, flat, peasant faces, for the most part, without the features or the mental apparatus that provides expression. But soon I singled ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... grasped the other end, and, between them, with much puffing, pushing, and squeezing, they thrust the box through the trap to the upper regions, whither the Captain followed it by means of the same gymnastic feat that he performed on his first ascent. Thrusting his head down, he invited the doctor to "come aloft," which the doctor did in the same undignified fashion, for his gentle manner and spirit had not debarred him from the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of gymnastic exercise of any nation corresponds always to its way of fighting. So long as this consists in the personal struggle of a hand-to-hand contest, Gymnastics will seek to increase as much as possible individual strength and adroitness. As soon as the far-reaching ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... body have two arts waiting upon them, first the art of politics, which attends on the soul, having a legislative part and a judicial part; and another art attending on the body, which has no generic name, but may also be described as having two divisions, one of which is medicine and the other gymnastic. Corresponding with these four arts or sciences there are four shams or simulations of them, mere experiences, as they may be termed, because they give no reason of their own existence. The art of dressing up is the sham or simulation of gymnastic, the art of cookery, of medicine; rhetoric ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... occasionally, into the rambling, fluctuating life of the hunting tribes. It is, besides wars, perhaps the only factor that makes their solidarity vitally perceptible to the adherents of a primitive tribe, and it is at the same time one of the best preparations for war, for the gymnastic dances correspond in more than one respect to our military exercises. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the primitive dance in the culture development of mankind. All higher civilization is conditioned upon the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... by which praise is won, Leon Battista was from his childhood the first. Of his various gymnastic feats and exercises we read with astonishment how, with his feet together, he could spring over a man's head; how in the cathedral, he threw a coin in the air till it was heard to ring against the distant roof; how the wildest horses trembled under him. In ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... of the gymnasium is generally a vigorous and enthusiastic instructor, who is able to conduct skillfully daily gymnastic class work, and relieve monotony and evoke interest by introducing a variety of exercises for the different college classes. He is also the hygienic adviser in all matters relating to study and recreation. ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... which are exhaustive in their presentation of ethical theory. On the other hand books are plenty which give good moral advice with great elaborateness of detail. Each type of work has its place and function. The one is excellent mental gymnastic for the mature; the other admirable emotional pabulum for the childish mind. Neither, however, is adapted both to satisfy the intellect and quicken the conscience at that critical period when the youth has put away childish things ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... hollow sound, that it was at once quite clear that if she did not know the celebrity personally that was because of all the obstinate, ineradicable principles against which her arching shoulders were stretched back to rest, as on one of those ladders on which gymnastic instructors make us 'extend' so as to develop the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... to the use of dumb-bells, and other gymnastic appliances. For my part, I find no artificial practices necessary for the maintenance of health and a vigorous circulation of the blood. My only gymnastics have been those of Nature—walking, riding, working in field and garden, bathing, swimming, etc. ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... houses? they give the ladies a cruel contempt of our natural furniture. And what do we know but that Plato, after other well-instituted republics, ordered that the men and women, old and young, should expose themselves naked to the view of one another, in his gymnastic exercises, upon that very account? The Indian women who see the men in their natural state, have at least cooled the sense of seeing. And let the women of the kingdom of Pegu say what they will, who below the waist have nothing to cover them but ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... mistress should prefer some other girl. In many instances, where a child's behaviour is puzzling, such a solution of the riddle will become apparent when it is looked for. Boys, again, endeavour by feats of strength to make the greatest possible impression upon the girls of their choice, in gymnastic exercises, for example, in athletic sports, and games. Coquetry also occasionally manifests itself very early in life. Girls try to please boys by their dress, and in similar ways. In boys also similar phenomena may often ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... hospitable heart, Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, To do the honors of his court, As fits a feathered lord of land; Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, Prints his small impress on the snow, Shows feats of his gymnastic play, Head downward, clinging ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... undoubtedly gymnastic in the externals of music, but the intrinsic spirit of music is unguessed by her. I asked her what music meant to her—you know I'm always curious to know that particular thing; and she did not know what it meant to her, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London |
