bit of persevering physical effort.
This is an advantage which the working classes, strictly so called,
certainly possess over the leisure classes--that they are in early
life under the necessity of applying themselves laboriously to some
mechanical pursuit or other--thus acquiring manual dexterity, and the
use of their physical powers. The chief disadvantage attached to the
calling of the laborious classes is, not that they are employed in
physical work, but that they are too exclusively so employed, often
to the neglect of their moral and intellectual faculties. While the
youths of the leisure classes, having been taught to associate labor
with servility, have shunned it, and been allowed to grow up
practically ignorant, the poorer classes, confining themselves within
the circle of their laborious callings, have been allowed to grow up,
in a large proportion of cases, absolutely illiterate. It seems,
possible, however, to avoid both these evils by combining physical
training or physical work with intellectual culture; and there are
various signs abroad which seem to mark the gradual adoption of this
healthier system of education.

The success of even professional men depends in no slight degree on
their physical health; and a public writer has gone so far as to say
that "the greatness of our great men is quite as much a bodily affair
as a mental one." A healthy breathing apparatus is as indispensable
to the successful lawyer or politician as a well-cultured intellect.
The thorough aeration of his blood by free exposure to a large
breathing surface in the lungs is necessary to maintain that vital
power on which the vigorous working of the brain in so large a
measure depends. The lawyer has to climb the heights of his
profession through close and heated courts, and the political leader
has to bear the fatigue and excitement of long and anxious debates in
a crowded House. Hence the lawyer in full practice and the
parliamentary leader in full work are called upon to display powers
of physical endurance and activity even more extraordinary than those
of the intellect--such powers as have been exhibited in so remarkable
a degree by Brougham, Lyndhurst and Campbell; by Peel, Graham and
Palmerston--all full-chested men.

Though Sir Walter Scott, when at Edinburgh College, went by the name
of "The Greek Blockhead," he was, notwithstanding his lameness, a
remarkably healthy youth; he could spear a salmon with the best
fisher