(Deals with the question of exercise, both for the idle and the overworked.) In discussing the important question of exercise, there is one fundamental fact to begin with: that our present civilization divides men sharply into two classes, those who do not get enough exercise, and those who get too much. Obviously it would be folly to make the same recommendations to the two classes.
I begin with those who get too much exercise. They include a great number, probably the majority of those who do the manual work of the world. They include the farmers and the farm-hands, who work from dawn to sunset, and sometimes by lantern light. They include also the farmers' wives, the kitchen slaves of whom the old couplet tells:
"Man's work ends from sun to sun,
But woman's work is never done."
I am aware that men have worked that way for countless ages, and yet the race is still surviving; but I am aware also that men wither up with rheumatism, and contract chronic diseases of the kidneys and the blood vessels, consequent upon the creation of greater quantities of fatigue poisons than the body can regularly eliminate.
I have very little interest in the past, and none whatever in finding fault with it. My purpose is to criticize the present for the benefit of the future, and therefore I say that modern machinery and the whole development of modern large-scale production make it absolutely unnecessary that women should slave all their waking hours in kitchens, or that men should slave all day. I say it is monstrous folly that men should work for twelve-hour stretches in steel mills, and for ten and eleven hours in factories and mines. Organized labor has adopted the slogan, "Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for play"; but my slogan is "Four hours for work, four hours for study, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for play."
I know, and am prepared to demonstrate to any thinking man, that modern civilization can produce, not merely all the necessities, but all the comforts of life for every man, woman and child in the community, by the expenditure of four hours a day work of the adult, able-bodied men and women. So to all the wage slaves of the factories and mines, the fields and the kitchens, I say that too much exercise is what is the matter with you, and what you need is to get off in a quiet nook in the woods and read a good novel, not merely for a few hours, but for a few months, until you get over the effects of capitalist civilization. I know that not many of you can get away as yet, but I urge you to insist upon getting away, to fight for the chance to get away; and I will here suggest a few of the novels for you to read when finally you do get away. I choose the easy ones, which the dullest and most tired of you will love; I say, make up your mind to read these thirty-two books before you die, and do not let the world cheat you out of your chance!
Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Charles D. Stewart: The Fugitive Blacksmith. W. Clark Russell: The Wreck of the Grosvenor. R. L. Stevenson: Treasure Island, Kidnapped. Jack London: The Sea Wolf, The Call of the Wild, Martin Eden. Joseph Conrad: Youth. H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds, When the Sleeper Wakes, The Sea Lady, The History of Mr. Polly, The Food of the Gods, The Island of Dr. Moreau. Upton Sinclair: The Jungle, King Coal, Jimmie Higgins, 100 Per Cent. Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie. George Moore: Esther Waters. Frank Norris: The Octopus. Brand Whitlock: The Turn of the Balance. De Foe: Robinson Crusoe. Fielding: Tom Jones, Jonathan Wild the Great. Thackeray: The Adventures of Barry Lyndon. Marmaduke Pickthall: The Adventures of Hadji Baba. Blasco Ibanez: The Fruit of the Vine. Frank Harris: Montes the Matador. Frederik van Eeden: The Quest. Tolstoi: Resurrection.
And now for the people who do not get enough exercise. In the armies of King Cyrus it was the law that every man was required to sweat once every twenty-four hours, and that is still the law for every business man and office-worker and writer of books. There is no substitute for it, and there is no health without it. I have heard Dr. Kellogg say that the modern woman sends out her health with her washing, and I have heard the leisure class ladies at the Sanitarium discuss this cryptic utterance and wonder what he meant by it. I know that there is use telling leisure class ladies what exercise at the wash-tub would do for their abdomens and backs. I will only tell them that unless they can find some kind of vigorous activity which keeps them in a free perspiration for an hour or two each day, they will never be really well, and will never bear children without agony and abortion.
For myself, I have found that the minimum is three or four times a week. Unless I get that much hard exercise I am soon in trouble. So my advice to the business man is to take off his coat and collar and turn out and help his truck-man; my advice to the white collar slave is to get a part-time job, and dig ditches the rest of the time. To the man who has cares which pursue him, and likewise to the ardent student and brain-worker, I say that they should find, not merely exercise, but play. The distinction between the two things is important. There can be play that is not exercise, for example cards and chess; and, of course, there can be exercise that is not play. What you must have is something that is both play and exercise; something that not merely causes your heart to beat fast, and your lungs to pump fast, and your sweat glands to throw out poisons from your body, but something that fully occupies your mind and gives your higher brain centers a chance to relax.
Our civilization has very largely destroyed the possibility of play and the spirit of play. We civilized people no longer know what play is, and regard the desire to play as something abnormal—a form of vice. We allow children to play after school hours, and on Saturdays; but for grown-up, serious-minded men and women to want to play would be almost as disreputable as for them to want to get drunk. What could foe more pitiful than the spectacle of tens of thousands of men crowding into our baseball parks and amusement fields to watch other men play for them! Imagine, if you can, a crowd of people gathering in a resta............