Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/644

624 is well organized, but is not under medical direction. Few of the other colleges of recognized standing are without a director of the gymnasium, but too often they have been content with the erection of a showy building, instead of looking to the organization of an efficient department; it has not been put upon an equal footing with other departments of instruction and expected to do the same quality of work; the same grade of general culture and special preparation has not been exacted from its head.

Of the colleges for women, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke all have college physicians, in most cases giving instruction in physiology or hygiene, or both. Each has in addition a director of the gymnasium, but only at Bryn Mawr is she a medical graduate. None of these directors is given the rank of professor in the faculty, but they are better qualified for their positions than are many of the male directors. The Woman's College of Baltimore is the best organized, with a professor of anatomy, physiology, hygiene, and physical training, and two instructors in physical training.

The completion of the Hemenway Gymnasium at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1879, marked the beginning of the present era of gymnasium building in American colleges and universities. The example of Harvard was followed during the next decade by Amherst, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Bowdoin, Williams, Lehigh, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, and some others; and among the large number added to the list since 1890 are Yale, Wesleyan, Brown, Kutgers, Colgate, the Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Leland Stanford, Smith College, and the Woman's College of Baltimore. The cost of the better class of these buildings ranges from ten thousand dollars to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the average being not far from fifty thousand dollars.

A typical gymnasium of the period may be described somewhat as follows: It is built of brick or stone, several stories high, with a basement. The large main hall, containing the bulk of the apparatus, is open to the roof, unobstructed by posts or pillars, surrounded by a suspended gallery for the running track, and crossed above by iron beams to which the swinging apparatus is attached. On the floor below, or in the basement, are lockers in which the clothing worn during exercise is stored between times. Here, too, is a very important feature, the bathing equipment, consisting commonly of a plunge bath, tubs, and a considerable number of shower and spray baths. There are also the director's office and examining rooms, rooms for special developing appliances, or for boxing, wrestling, and fencing, perhaps bowling alleys in the basement, a "cage" for indoor baseball or tennis, an athletic trophy room, and others for the use of