other says environment, exploitation, lack of opportunity. I know of no better way of contrasting the philosophy of the so-called upper and lower worlds.

To such loose thinking an increasing protest is arising. Unconscious, perhaps, of its full significance, many of those now grappling with social problems are condensing their statement of causes into the one word, "maladjustment." In a word, we create the evil as well as the good. Nature is impersonal. To an increasing degree man determines. The race stock remains practically unchanged. Each generation starts on the same physical level. Are conditions such that physical strength will be conserved or exhausted? Will children become robust men and women or weaklings? Do social institutions provide opportunities or check ambition by some form of privilege?

In America we must face the issue. God cares no more for us than for other nations. The problems of vice, crime, poverty are ours. Only by intelligent study of the situation, only by effective coöperation in remedial and constructive measures can ultimate downfall be averted. As individuals we are helpless.

In my judgment the situation is hopeful. To realize that our problems are chiefly those of environment which we in increasing measure control; to realize that, no matter how bad the environment of this generation, the next is not injured provided that it be given favorable conditions, is surely to have an optimistic view. Shall not our ideal be, then, a sound body as the necessary basis of a sound mind, a healthy, progressive race?

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A SOUND PHYSIQUE

BY DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT, M. D.,

Director Hemenway Gymnasium, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Juvenal's dictum of "a sound mind in a sound body" is a brief description of a happy state in this world, but how few of us realize its practical significance. Our bodies as they exist to-day are the results of struggles and conflicts that have gone on through the ages, in which the ability to stand erect and to use the trunk and limbs in lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, striking, walking, running, jumping, swimming, etc., have played a most important part in enabling man to maintain a footing in the world and to compete for existence with other species of the animal kingdom. Yet there is hardly one of these physical activities in which man has not been surpassed by some of the lower animals. Therefore if we would account for man's supremacy among animated creatures we must look for it in the superior development of his brain and the more intelligent use of his hands and fingers.

This fact has become so evident during the past few centuries that nearly all the schools and colleges founded for the education of the young have given much attention to the training of the mind and paid little attention to the training of the body. It is only within a very few years that technical schools for training in the manual arts have come into existence, and there is no school or college that I know of where the education of the body as such is made an essential part of the curriculum. To sustain this theory as to the superiority of the mind over the body the young are frequently told of the great work that has been done by Pascal, Darwin, Spencer, Marcus Aurelius, William Wilberforce, Robert Louis Stevenson and others, though they all had inferior physiques, as contrasted with the mental and moral efforts of the world's champion oarsmen, matadors, pugilists and athletes with their splendid. bodies.

These exceptional cases only serve to illustrate the extent to which nature will go in her variations from the normal when special development for any purpose is required. Danger lies in the

direction of the extremes, and unsoundness, disease and extermination are the inevitable results of too great a departure from the mean. In mental and physical development nature always tends toward the normal. In refusing to perpetuate the extremes she keeps down the number of freaks and anomalies. In seeking for man's success in competing with rivals and contending with the forces of nature we have not been sufficiently mindful of what he owes to the division of labor and the ability to cooperate with others. This is now becoming very apparent in the building of a community or nation-it is equally apparent in the building of a sound physique.

One of the first difficulties encountered in trying to develop the muscles of any particular part of the body is that a limit in size and power in these muscles is soon reached. If these muscles are on the calf of the leg, for instance, and one is desirous of making them larger and stronger, it is often found necessary to develop the muscles in other parts of the body before the calf muscles will increase beyond their first limitation. Finally a stage of development is soon reached in each individual beyond which no amount of further use or practice will carry it. This was for some time a paradox-now the same law is known to apply to all the other organs and tissues of the body. Larger muscles in a limb. would not only call for larger bones, tendons and connective tissues, but for larger blood vessels, a better developed heart, lungs, nervous system, etc.

The interdependence of one part of the body upon another has been brought about largely through a differentiation of the tissues and organs. In the lowest forms of animal life, as in the amoeba, for instance, the little animal feels, moves, breathes, catches and digests food, although it consists of but one cell. The higher animals perform their functions by means of different cells set apart in special organs. Thus we have bony tissue, cartilaginous tissue, muscular tissue, respiratory tissue, nerve tissue, etc., each having special duties to perform. The physiological division of labor among the higher animals has resulted in the better performance of the specific functions of the various organs and tissues of the body, and consequently in the development of the highest species as represented by man. The development of the higher animals has been greatly favored by the establishment of the heart, lungs, blood

vessels and nervous system, by which the food and oxygen of the air is carried to all parts of the body and the exchange between the different tissues is regulated and controlled.

The high physiological position attained by man has not been won without a great internal struggle. We are all familiar with the external struggle for existence-but how many of us have thought that the primary and fundamental struggle must be that of the organic forces at work in creating a structure capable of pushing its way amid external forces?

The organism must find a footing in the world before it can compete with rivals and defend itself against foes. The reason why fifty per cent. of the children born fail to find a footing in the world is in consequence of inherited weakness, internal dissensions or imperfect development, all of which may be traced to malnutrition. All parts of the body are competing for their pabulum or food which is supplied by the blood. The parts which are most active generally get the larger share, but as the quantity of blood! in the body is limited some other parts get less than their share. This leads to the establishment of an organic weakness or constitutional defect. If one of the parts deprived of its proper nutriment is an important organ, then imperfect function will result and all parts of the body will suffer in consequence. Sometimes an excessive accumulation of muscle tissue impairs the efficiency of the muscles, the person becoming muscle bound, as it is termed. Whenever there is an encroachment of one tissue upon another there is always a disturbance of the normal balance, which readily passes into a pathological state. Fatty degeneration of the heart or some other diseased condition results.

A sound physique, therefore, implies a bodily condition in which there are not only well-proportioned limbs, perfection of structure and harmony in muscular development-but a condition in which harmony and accord exist throughout the whole organism. If these facts are well founded then the health and soundness of the various tissues and organs of the body must depend upon their receiving a just share of the body's nutriment. The distribution of nutriment we found to be greatly influenced by the activity of the different organs and tissues. We have seen that man's status as an animal among animals was the resultant of an all-round conflict with nature and brute forces which must have given him the vigor

ous all-round physical development with which he is naturally endowed. We have also seen that his recent progress as a social being has been greatly dependent upon the division of labor and the further culture of his fingers, hands and brain. But the division of labor through the invention of machinery calls for the use of very few muscles and faculties, and many occupations do not furnish enough all-round employment for the body to keep it in good health.

Think of the simplicity of service now expected of many of the employees in our great railroad systems. One man sells a ticket, another watches it drop in a box, another rings a bell or blows a whistle, another presses a button, another opens or closes a gate, and so on. This is fairly typical of the little physical and mental effort now required to earn a livelihood in many of our great industries. It is hardly necessary to add that such a pursuit carried on persistently through a long term of years without any other life interest to supplement it would lead to general atrophy of the muscular and nervous systems. In other words, a larger portion of the working classes, though toiling for wages and food externally, are literally starving some of their bodily tissues, if not their very souls, for want of sufficient nutriment. For it matters very little how much food is consumed or how much air breathed, the tissues can only be well fed just so far as they can be induced to take up this food and air as a result of their organic activity.

As division of labor and use of machinery have greatly reduced the amount of all-round physical and mental effort now required of the individual, as well as the hours of his employment, it becomes a matter of vital necessity that something should be done to make up for the deficiency of his occupation as a health promoting, body building and mind developing agency. The leisure now gained through the great reduction in the hours of labor affords an admirable opportunity for physical and mental culture and recreation and for all-round personal improvement. To embrace this opportunity is the only way to counteract the narrowing and deadening influence of our highly specialized occupations, and to keep up the mental and physical vigor of the race. But our schools, colleges and athletic clubs all tend to specialize, and with the increasing demand for more industrial training less and less time and