Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Published Writings
  3. Periodicals
  4. Journalism
  5. per.00710

The American Physique

About This Item

  • Title: The American Physique
  • Date: 26 September 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00710
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 26 September 1857: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Amelia R. Loew Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The American Physique." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00710.xml (TEI)
image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

THE AMERICAN PHYSIQUE—

Horace Mann, in his speech before the Christian Convention, at Cincinnati, says:

With better health of the body, we can obtain more work of the mind, and hence can save that prodigious loss which now comes from the real, not the feigned, indispositions of scholars. I have authentic information of one college class in this country, one half of whose students died within three years after they graduated. Students ought to leave college in better bodily health than when they entered it. There is fault somewhere if they do not. Parents are responsible for the health of children and youth. The constitution being given, men are responsible for their own health and length of life as they are for character. God has ordained, it is true, that all men must die at some time; but he had left a blank in the decree, in which, within certain limitations, each one may insert, for his own death, what date he pleases.

All sensible men will endorse these remarks. It is sad, indeed, to see the waste of health and life that prevails in our midst, for which there is no real occasion.
Back to top