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Show NEW it is so easy for us to go down hill after the artificiality and bow wow system; but to climb to glorious heights where art leaps lightly over the steps labor has cut on the way up the steeps, reaching at last the eminence where art and nature wedded sit enthroned, this is the aim and purpose of all tiue elocutionists. Difficult is the task of climbing the mountain, with the interposing snags and boulders of public opinion and the necessity of helping to raise a public standard also. It has not been difficult out here, in the West, to convince people that voices were harsh, interpretation of ideas not correct, and that even there was necessity for more brain power. But to come to a people physically strong, from struggling with the hardships of life in a new country, environed by lofty mountains, seems perhaps presumptuous to such people. To awaken the interest which Dr. D. A. Sargent of Harvard was desirous of awakening in the work of physical culture, and to show the necessity of a development of the body equal to the mental powers was, to a person with less enthusiasm and belief in the subject, a herculean task. But when it was understood that physical culture meant the development of dormant possibilities, and even brain power by education of the physical this wras the dawn of a new idea. If the farm, kitchen and desk form all that is necessary in the development of the outer man, why does a change of occupation completely exhaust the very persons whose strength was, in their own minds at least, all that could be desired? Why bent shoulders, halting, lumbering gait and drooping heads? In no occupation do we find the imprint of time so indelibly stamped as upon the farmer, and the woman who has the exercise needed with broom and frying pan Why is this so? Physical culture answers these questions with due emphasis. To those persons who find their occupations inducing in them some weakness or physical deformity, let me say that you are working to exhaustion certain muscles and organs and starving others for the lack of such work as is necessary to keep them healthy. Physical culture comes with a perfectly develI will be a oped system and says: in your quarrelsome and peace-makwrongly used body, will equalize the burden, and even show you how to do double the work with half the expenditure. Cant I do this of myself? is asked In just so much as you by ignorance. can educate the mind by blindly finding out for yourself, at a much greater expense, a road for your intellect to follow. Because your father drove an ox- - 29 YEAR'S, 1893. team from the Missouri river will you ignore the railroad ? It has been demonstrated by experience that in schools the mind is capable of grasping deeper thoughts and grander ideas by the of the mental and Vital system. The brain requires of the entire amount of blood used by the body. Exercise, by oxygenation, creates an increased demand, and an increased supply of this fluid is provided. The brain receives its shaie and is thereby strengthened and enlarged. The mental superiority of thought, never since excelled, which was found in ancient Greece, was the result of the physical, united or blended with the mental training, each of which they considered was of vital importance. This idea was lost by the conquering Christians, and we have to suffer for an inheritance of a body abused and chastised through the dark ages and even reaching down to this age we live in. The greatest mental and spirone-sixt- g itual heights can be more, we must learn certain things by rule, but by such freedom and control of the body that every expression mirrors itself in the physical. The German embraces somewhat of both systems, working with apparatus more especially. There is another phase of this work, to which we will ever be indebted to Dr. Sargent the system of development by certain apparatus indented for that purpose by himself. To this great man we must ever return thankful praise for the possibility and science of physical measurement by which we can know of individual needs and thus prescribe individual work, and suit apparatus to man, not the man to the machine. To those who regard these various systems of physical culture as conflicting, I can reached only by a perfect physical and mental being. The Maker has given these thiee attributes and allied them together so closely that the injury of one results in weakness and disease for the others. This is an age of new ideas and systems, and we are troubled by the war of conflicting opinions as to which is the correct system of physical culture. The Swedes say that in their perfect order of on days e x e r c i s e going from lighter to more advanced work, with special reference to the effect Maud May Babcock, Professor of Elocution and Physical Culture, University of Utah. upon the vital organs lies the secret of physical perfec- say that it is only by the use ot all for tion. Their great motto is to expend its purpose that a perfect whole can be the greatest amount of force, thereby found. Dr. Sargent puts it thus: The English, generating the greatest amount of force. Their work is all stiff and angular, the French, the Swedes and the Gerstrength, not beauty, being their ideal. mans have each their especial systems, The French or Delsarte system is the which may be suitable and sufficient for opposite, claiming that we expend too them. But the American, true to himmuch force in every action, even to raise self, culls and selects the best of all the finger, and that grace and ease are they have, invents improvements w'here only to be gained by slow, precise movethey are needed, and thus presents to ment, ever practiced in soft curving lines the world the perfect composite system The great new idea of which Delsarte of physical culture that known as the was the discoverer, is that only by the Sargent or American system. perfect relaxation of the various parts of To particularize the work done, doing, the body, can we use strength econom- and the hopeful plans for future usefulically. Everything in the Delsarte sys- ness, it might be mentioned that the tem tends toward expression, not any writer has found a wide field and a warm set ideas for scorn, terror, etc., but the welcome in the University of Utah, in study of the impulse of nature. Further the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, |