Some go
foxhunting in the English counties, others grouse-shooting on the
Scotch hills, while many wander away every summer to climb
mountains in Switzerland. Hence the boating, running, cricketing,
and athletic sports of the public schools, in which our young men
at the same time so healthfully cultivate their strength both of
mind and body. It is said that the Duke of Wellington, when once
looking on at the boys engaged in their sports in the play-ground
at Eton, where he had spent many of his own younger days, made the
remark, "It was there that the battle of Waterloo was won!"
Daniel Malthus urged his son when at college to be most diligent in
the cultivation of knowledge, but he also enjoined him to pursue
manly sports as the best means of keeping up the full working power
of his mind, as well as of enjoying the pleasures of intellect.
"Every kind of knowledge," said he, "every acquaintance with nature
and art, will amuse and strengthen your mind, and I am perfectly
pleased that cricket should do the same by your arms and legs; I
love to see you excel in exercises of the body, and I think myself
that the better half, and much the most agreeable part, of the
pleasures of the mind is best enjoyed while one is upon one's
legs." But a still more important use of active employment is that
referred to by the great divine, Jeremy Taylor.
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