Hence, it is the province of the school to so organize all its
activities that the physical powers of the pupils shall be fully
conserved. The president of a large university says that during his
incumbency of seventeen years they have found only one young woman of
physical perfection and not a single young man, although the tests have
been applied to thousands. College students, it will be readily
conceded, are a selected group; and yet even in such a group not a
physically perfect young man was found in tests extending over seventeen
years. If a like condition should be discovered in the scoring of live
stock at our fairs, there would ensue a careful investigation of causes
in the hope of finding a remedy.
=Personal efficiency.=--We shall not achieve national efficiency until
every citizen has achieved personal efficiency, and physical fitness is
one of the fundamental conditions precedent to personal efficiency. Here
we have the blue print for the guidance of society and the school. If we
are ever to achieve national efficiency, we must see to it that every
man and woman, every boy and girl, has a strong, healthy body that is
fully able to execute the behests of mind and spirit. This may require a
stricter censorship of marriage licenses, including physical
examinations; it may require more stringent laws on our statute books;
it may require radical changes in our methods of physical training; and
it may require the state to assume some of the functions of the home
when the home reveals its inability or unwillingness to cope with the
situation.
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