Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/646

626 has been thoroughly done, the director has at hand a valuable fund of information to be used in framing advice suited to the needs of the individual, and the study of hundreds of such cases together may yield important deductions concerning the characteristics of the student class. In this way a variety of graphic charts have been prepared, upon which the measurements and tests of the individual can be plotted, so as to show at a glance his relation to an imaginary standard. It is true, however, that much of the chart-making hitherto done has been of trifling scientific value, based upon insufficient data, or the result of superficial methods. This study of men in masses should not lead to the neglect of the individual, who, after all, must be compared with himself', with his own latent possibilities.

There is so much diversity in the methods of physical training employed in our colleges and universities at present that a satisfactory summary is difficult to give. As elsewhere in this paper, where names of institutions are used by way of illustration no attempt is made to furnish complete lists. A few schools, like Bowdoin and Leland Stanford, allow credit for work done in the gymnasium, just as for any course in the laboratory or classroom. Regular attendance during the four years of undergraduate life is required at Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, University of Chicago, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Vassar, and the Woman's College of Baltimore. The requirement extends only through the junior year at Mount Hobyoke and the women's department at Oberlin; through the sophomore year at Wesleyan and the University of Wisconsin; and is confined to the freshman year at Cornell, Dartmouth, Williams, and Wellesley. Attendance is altogether optional at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The nature of the work done can be shown with tolerable accuracy by the selection of certain types. The results sought at Amherst are hygienic and recreative, rather than corrective or educational. The men meet by college classes, each of which elects its captain. The characteristic feature is a memorized series of exercises with wooden dumb-bells, set to music and executed by the entire class under the leadership of its captain. The men are required to be present and to take part, but beyond this there is little attempt at discipline. They have a good time, all the functions of the body are stimulated by the vigorous exercise, and the spirit of class rivalry, intensified by a system of prize exhibitions, insures a degree of proficiency. The use of the fixed apparatus is optional, and not much is made of prescription work for the individual. This plan, while it has given general satisfaction at Amherst for many years, has not been introduced into other schools to any extent. It owes much of its success to the peculiar conditions existing there, and to the