Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
The aim in this little book has been to sketch out a course of gymnastics suitable for use in schools and classes. I have tried, on the one hand, to render it so complete that the various sets of muscles in the wrist, the hand, the fingers, and to a certain extent in the arm also, should receive due development. On the other hand, I have kept constantly in view the necessity of avoiding any exercise in which there could be the slightest chance of danger owing to carelessness or misunderstanding of the directions given.
Several schemes for gymnastic training of the hand have been already put forward, the chief being Miss Leffler Arnim's "Wrist and Finger Gymnastics " and Mr. Ward Jackson's "Gymnastics for the Fingers and Wrist." Miss Arnim gives three classes of exercises: Active, Duplicate and Passive. In the Duplicate exercises the fingers of one hand have not merely to perform certain motions, but have, in addition, to overcome the resistance of the other hand. This seems to me decidedly dangerous, because it is impossible to ensure that pupils should sufficiently modify the opposing force.
Mr. Ward Jackson gives, besides the free exercises for hand and fingers, - a series to be performed whilst holding cork cylinders between the fingers, and another series in which the - finger-tips are to be placed upon a notched stick. These exercises are very ingenious, but his system is based upon the idea that the chief source of stiffness is in the transverse ligaments lying at the back of the hand, and he does not, I think, sufficiently insist on the importance of training the extensor muscles.
In using the present manual in schools and classes the exercises can of course be directed by any one of the teachers, as no musical capacity is needed; but 1 would strongly insist on the necessity of a thorough comprehension of the elementary principles of muscular action as described in the second chapter, so that the directions given may be clear, and any deviation from the proper performance of the exercises at once detected.
The illustrations are drawn from photographs taken by Messrs. Window & Grove, Baker Street.
