THE GYMNASIUM.

WE are so accustomed to having everything made subservient to our whims that if our slightest suggestion fail to meet with instantaneous notice, we cry out that our privileges are being curtailed, our rights infringed upon. Our virtuous indignation so blinds us that we do not wait to investigate the facts involved, but rush headlong into violent upbraidings of those whom we consider the authors of the supposed wrong. The recent complaints with regard to the hours for closing the Gymnasium are a case in point. An interview with Dr. Sargent clears up the whole matter. The real reason for the present regulation is not, as the complainants hastily assumed, to defraud the students for the sake of certain muscularly inclined instructors, but to further the good of the students themselves.

It is well known that young men, when without proper supervision and direction, disregard the most elementary rules of hygiene. They bathe and exercise directly after eating; and, especially, they eat directly after exercising. Now it is to prevent, as far as may be, this latter injurious habit that the Gymnasium is closed at 5.30; for most of the men who exercise there board at Memorial Hall, where the dinner hour is from 5.30 to 6.30. If, therefore, the Gymnasium were kept open till six, those who stayed until that time would have to rush straight from their exercise to their dinner in order to get anything at all to eat. The result would be a most melancholy set of dyspeptics. As it is, men must leave off work at 5.30. They can then dress at their leisure, and have ample time to quiet down before eating. Of course the evil is not wholly avoided even by the present precautions: those who stop exercise at 5.30 can still ruin their digestions, if they will, by hurrying off at once to their dinner. But the rule is effectual in many cases at least, and helps to enjoin upon us a proper system of healthful living.

Of the instructors who use the Gymnasium, but one or two take their meals at Memorial; the rest have no need to hasten to their dinner. That the present rule was made with especial reference to the dinner hour at Memorial, and not for the accommodation of these instructors, is conclusively proved by the promptness with which the time for exercise was extended to six o'clock, when the dinner hour was changed to six; and by the fact that the instructors did not apply for permission to exercise after 5.30 until that hour had already been decided upon as the time for closing. Their request then was due to their inability to obtain any boxes, and the inconvenience to which they were subjected in the crowded dressing-rooms, with no place to put their clothes. They asked to be allowed to exercise when the rest of the men had finished; they had no thought of usurping any one's rights or privileges.

The statement in the Advocate that students are refused the right to exercise at all Saturday afternoons is entirely erroneous, and shows how little the writer concerned himself with facts, so that he might make out a cause for complaint. The Gymnasium is now open on Saturday afternoons as on other days. It is only in the spring, during April, May, and June, that the opposite is the case; and then only with the design of inducing men to take long walks, and be in the open air as much as possible.

As for the discontent expressed at the promptness with which the lights are turned out at the appointed time, this touches, not the rule itself, but the manner in which it is carried out. There would be exactly as much growling if the lights were put out promptly at six o'clock. The malcontents do not seem to appreciate that a rule, especially one that has to deal with such a large number of individuals, to be of any use, must be rigidly enforced.

The regulations of the Gymnasium are made with a view to what seem the desires of the majority of the students, provided these be reasonable on hygienic grounds. It was not supposed when the 5.30 limit was set that there would be a demand for any other; nor is it believed that the present fault-finding really voices the sentiments of many: it is little more than the grumbling of a few who grumble merely for the sake of grumbling. They are of a sort with the individual who, coming into the Gymnasium one cold day, and changing his heavy ulster for a light gauze shirt, complained at the office that the hall was unbearably cold; and who, after exercising violently for ten minutes, returned and lodged another remonstrance, - that it was outrageously hot.

We must remember that Dr. Sargent is not merely the Director of the Gymnasium; he is the College physician, and, as such, is bound to take whatever steps he deems advisable for the physical welfare of the students. The invariable courtesy which marks all his relations with the students, the readiness with which he adopts all reasonable suggestions from them, or, as in the present case, accords a satisfactory explanation for not doing so, are a constant rebuke to their cavilling spirit, and should most certainly deter them from forming hasty judgments with respect to the justice of his acts.

P. H.