Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/29

 much to do, the work goes only to parts of the body; the right arm gets the lion's share; the left not much; the back more than the chest—or, rather, than the front of the chest—and the legs have it easy. Puddlers and boiler-makers; plumbers and carpenters; coopers and smiths; shipwrights, carriage-makers, tinners; all who are at trades which call for strong action, not only work one side more than the other; but many of their tools are made right-handed, so that they could not well use them with the left hand if they tried to. As to those whose work is fine; saddlers and shoemakers; mill-hands and compositors; wood-turners, tailors, jewellers, and engravers; and nearly all the lighter craftsmen, learn their trade with one hand; and would not trust any of its finer work to the other. In short, take the mechanic where you will, his right arm and side are larger and stronger than his left; quite as often his work does not give him strong legs; and dwarfs his height and weight.

Nor is this a new thing. A century ago, Salzman, school-master at Schnepfenthal, Germany, said: "Our mechanics are feeble, with spindle shanks because they do not use their legs; with slender hands and arms because used only in work fit for ladies; with narrow pinched chests, bent backs, and poked necks, because they sit too much. The same is true of the learned—they lack symmetry ."

Only a few years ago Dr. Charles Roberts, of London, after long and painstaking investigation, found, out of seventy-eight hundred boys and men between ten and thirty years old, who were children of artisans; and out of seventy-seven hundred who were children of the most favored class in England—boys at the great schools, military and naval cadets, university and medical students;—that the sons of the mechanics, instead of being