{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-12:manhattan-athletic-club-dinner",
  "slug": "manhattan-athletic-club-dinner",
  "title": "Manhattan Athletic Club Dinner",
  "subtitle": "After-dinner speech.",
  "excerpt": "After-dinner address to the Manhattan Athletic Club of New York.",
  "year": 1890,
  "volume": 12,
  "category": "After-Dinner",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/manhattan-athletic-club-dinner/",
  "wordCount": 1824,
  "body": "Manhattan Athletic Club Dinner\n\nNew York, December 27, 1890.\n\nTOAST: ATHLETICS AMONG THE ANCIENTS.\n\nTHE first record of public games is found in the twentythird Book of the\nIliad. These games were performed at the funeral of Patroclus, and there\nwere:\n\nFirst. A chariot race, and the first prize was:\n\n\"A woman fair, well skilled in household care.\"\n\nSecond. There was a pugilistic encounter, and the first prize,\nappropriately enough, was a mule.\n\nIt gave me great pleasure to find that Homer did not hold in high esteem\nthe victor. I have reached this conclusion, because the poet put these\nwords in the mouth of Eppius, the great boxer winding up with the\nfollowing refined declaration concerning his opponent:\n\n\"I mean to pound his flesh and smash his bones.\"\n\nAfter the battle, the defeated was helped from the field. He spit\nforth clotted gore. His head rolled from side to side, until he fell\nunconscious.\n\nThird, wrestling; fourth, foot-race; fifth, fencing; sixth, throwing the\niron mass or bar; seventh, archery, and last, throwing the javelin.\n\nAll of these games were in honor of Patroclus. This is the same\nPatroclus who, according to Shakespeare, addressed Achilles in these\nwords:\n    \"In the battle-field I claim no special praise;\n    'Tis not for man in all things to excel—\"\n    \"Rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid\n    Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,\n    And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,\n    Be shook to air.\"\n\nThese games were all born of the instinct of self-defence. The chariot\nwas used in war. Man should know the use of his hands, to the end that\nhe may repel assault. He should know the use of the sword, to the end\nthat he may strike down his enemy. He should be skillful with the arrow,\nto the same end. If overpowered, he seeks safety in flight—he should\ntherefore know how to run. So, too, he could preserve himself by the\nskillful throwing of the javelin, and in the close encounter a knowledge\nof wrestling might save his life.\n\nMan has always been a fighting animal, and the art of self-defence is\nnearly as important now as ever—and will be, until man rises to that\nsupreme height from which he will be able to see that no one can commit\na crime against another without injuring himself.\n\nThe Greeks knew that the body bears a certain relation to the soul—that\nthe better the body—other things being equal—the greater the\nmind. They also knew that the body could be developed, and that such\ndevelopment would give or add to the health, the courage, the endurance,\nthe self-confidence, the independence and the morality of the human\nrace. They knew, too, that health was the foundation, the corner-stone,\nof happiness.\n\nThey knew that human beings should know something about themselves,\nsomething of the capacities of body and mind, to the end that they might\nascertain the relation between conduct and happiness, between temperance\nand health.\n\nIt is needless to say that the Greeks were the most intellectual of all\nraces, and that they were in love with beauty, with proportion, with the\nsplendor of the body and of mind; and so great was their admiration\nfor the harmoniously developed, that Sophocles had the honor of walking\nnaked at the head of a great procession.\n\nThe Greeks, through their love of physical and mental development, gave\nus the statues—the most precious of all inanimate things—of far more\nworth than all the diamonds and rubies and pearls that ever glittered in\ncrowns and tiaras, on altars or thrones, or, flashing, rose and fell on\nwoman's billowed breast. In these marbles we find the highest types of\nlife, of superb endeavor and supreme repose. In looking at them we feel\nthat blood flows, that hearts throb and souls aspire. These miracles of\nart are the richest legacies the ancient world has left our race.\n\nThe nations in love with life, have games. To them existence is\nexultation. They are fond of nature. They, seek the woods and streams.\nThey love the winds and waves of the sea. They enjoy the poem of the\nday, the drama of the year.\n\nOur Puritan fathers were oppressed with a sense of infinite\nresponsibility. They were disconsolate and sad, and no more thought\nof sport, except the flogging of; Quakers, than shipwrecked wretches\nhuddled on a raft would turn their attention to amateur theatricals.\n\nFor many centuries the body was regarded as a decaying; casket, in\nwhich had been placed the gem called the soul, and the nearer rotten the\ncasket the more brilliant the jewel.\n\nIn those blessed days, the diseased were sainted and insanity born\nof fasting and self-denial and abuse of the body, was looked upon as\nevidence of inspiration. Cleanliness was not next to godliness—it\nwas the opposite; and in those days, what was known as \"the odor of\nsanctity\" had a substantial foundation. Diseased bodies produced all\nkinds of mental maladies. There is a direct relation between sickness\nand superstition. Everybody knows that Calvinism was the child of\nindigestion.\n\nSpooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased, as\nvultures sail above the dead.\n\nOur ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual, and that\ngood health was inconsistent with the highest forms of piety. This\nheresy crept into the minds even of secular writers, and the novelists\ndescribed their heroines as weak and languishing, pale as lilies, and in\nthe place of health's brave flag they put the hectic flush.\n\nWeakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of all.\nNothing was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store\nattachment.\n\nPeople became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the evidences\nof labor. They avoided \"sun-burnt mirth\"—were proud of pallor, and\nregarded small, white hands as proof that they had noble blood within\ntheir veins. It was a joy to be too weak to work, too languishing to\nlabor.\n\nThe tide has turned. People are becoming sensible enough to desire\nhealth, to admire physical development, symmetry of form, and we now\nknow that a race with little feet and hands has passed the climax and is\ntraveling toward the eternal night.\n\nWhen the central force is strong, men and women are full of life to\nthe finger tips. When the fires burn low, they begin to shrivel at the\nextremities—the hands and feet grow small, and the mental flame wavers\nand wanes.\n\nTo be self-respecting we must be self-supporting.\n\nNobility is a question of character, not of birth.\n\nHonor cannot be received as alms—it must be earned.\n\nIt is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green.\n\nAll exercise should be for the sake of development—that is to say, for\nthe sake of health, and for the sake of the mind—all to the end that\nthe person may become better, greater, more useful. The gymnast or the\nathelete should seek for health as the student should seek for truth;\nbut when athletics degenerate into mere personal contests, they become\ndangerous, because the contestants lose sight of health, as in the\nexcitement of debate the students prefer personal victory to the\nascertainment of truth.\n\nThere is another thing to be avoided by all athletic clubs, and that is,\nanything that tends to brutalize, destroy or dull the finer feelings.\nNothing is more disgusting, more disgraceful, than pugilism—nothing\nmore demoralizing than an exhibition of strength united with ferocity,\nand where the very body developed by exercise is mutilated and\ndisfigured.\n\nSports that can by no possibility give pleasure, except to the\nunfeeling, the hardened and the really brainless, should be avoided.\nNo gentleman should countenance rabbit-coursing, fighting of dogs, the\nshooting of pigeons, simply as an exhibition of skill.\n\nAll these things are calculated to demoralize and brutalize not only\nthe actors, but the lookers on. Such sports are savage, fit only to be\nparticipated in and enjoyed by the cannibals of Central Africa or the\nanthropoid apes.\n\nFind what a man enjoys—what he laughs at—what he calls diversion—and\nyou know what he is. Think of a man calling himself civilized, who is in\nraptures at a bull fight—who smiles when he sees the hounds pursue and\ncatch and tear in pieces the timid hare, and who roars with laughter\nwhen he watches the pugilists pound each other's faces, closing each\nother's eyes, breaking jaws and smashing noses. Such men are beneath\nthe animals they torture—on a level with the pugilists they applaud.\nGentlemen should hold such sports in unspeakable contempt. No man finds\npleasure in inflicting pain.\n\nIn every public school there should be a gymnasium.\n\nIt is useless to cram minds and deform bodies. Hands should be educated\nas well as heads. All should be taught the sports and games that require\nmind, muscle, nerve and judgment.\n\nEven those who labor should take exercise, to the end that the whole\nbody may be developed. Those who work at one employment become deformed.\nProportion is lost. But where harmony is preserved by the proper\nexercise, even old age is beautiful.\n\nTo the well developed, to the strong, life seems rich, obstacles small,\nand success easy. They laugh at cold and storm. Whatever the season may\nbe their hearts are filled with summer.\n\nMillions go from the cradle to the coffin without knowing what it is\nto live. They simply succeed in postponing death. Without appetites,\nwithout passions, without struggle, they slowly rot in a waveless pool.\nThey never know the glory of success, the rapture of the fight.\n\nTo become effeminate is to invite misery. In the most delicate bodies\nmay be found the most degraded souls. It was the Duchess Josiane whose\npampered flesh became so sensitive that she thought of hell as a place\nwhere people were compelled to sleep between coarse sheets.\n\nWe need the open air—we need the experience of heat and cold. We need\nnot only the rewards and caresses, but the discipline of our mother\nNature. Life is not all sunshine, neither is it all storm, but man\nshould be enabled to enjoy the one and to withstand the other.\n\nI believe in the religion of the body—of physical development—in\ndevotional exercise—in the beatitudes of cheerfulness, good health,\ngood food, good clothes, comradeship, generosity, and above all, in\nhappiness. I believe in salvation here and now. Salvation from deformity\nand disease—from weakness and pain—from ennui and insanity. I believe\nin heaven here and now—the heaven of health and good digestion—of\nstrength and long life—of usefulness and joy. I believe in the builders\nand defenders of homes.\n\nThe gentlemen whom we honor to-night have done a great work. To their\nenergy we are indebted for the nearest perfect, for the grandest\nathletic clubhouse in the world. Let these clubs multiply. Let the\nexample be followed, until our country is filled with physical and\nintellectual athletes—superb fathers, perfect mothers, and every child\nan heir to health and joy.\n"
}