Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/556

550 passed away. Muscular Christianity is now the rule and not the exception. A weak, stunted and famished body is no longer regarded as a sure abode, not even as a promise, of a purified, robust spirit. The Roman motto of a sound mind only in a sound body is in universal favor.

Again, a continually diminishing proportion of the people are engaged in reducing the wilderness, in raising the crops and in rearing the stock which are needed for food; and as for the rest of us, we are walled up in great cities, roofed in from the sunlight and pure air, and then given a maximum of brain work with as little as possible of physical exercise. This state of things can not long endure without serious injury to our manhood. Close observers of the American people state that nervous diseases and all complaints arising from excessive brain work, combined with a lack of physical health and vigor, are steadily increasing, and if we would avert the threatened physical degeneracy of our nation we must consciously introduce physical culture and athletic games which shall strengthen our bodies and invigorate our minds.

The army and navy draw but a very small fraction of our youth to the fascinations of military or marine life, and even the cadets must have their sports and games in addition to the routine of drill.

Perhaps we can leave mere fun to the children, but contests which tax one's strength and skill have perpetual charm for young men who are at an age to be delightfully conscious of their strength, and increasingly ambitious to exhibit their skill. Now, more than ever in history, opportunities for exhibiting strength and skill in competition must be manufactured. In primitive days the young farmer, the builder, the hunter, the soldier, found abundant opportunity to exhibit his prowess without modern athletics. The marked development of athletics during the last four years is due to no change in the mental, moral and physical tastes and appetites of young men, but to a social development which renders necessary special provision for the gratification of those normal tastes and appetites.

I find it necessary to make a distinction between manly sports and gymnastics. They agree generally in affording athletic culture, but they differ in the order of importance they attach to exercise and to sport. Gymnastic training makes the exercise the main thing, while the pleasure and passion for competition and victory are secondary. It is just the other way with athletic games; with them the game is foremost, while the physical and moral benefits are incidental.

'Athletics begin where gymnastics leave off.' There is no