522 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



skilled and unpracticed in any athletic exercise, even in that of 

 walking. After she has been in college a few weeks she will tell 

 yon, with great pride, that she has walked to town, a distance of 

 two miles ! Every claim upon her time at college, social as well 

 as intellectual, outranks in importance the claims of exercise, and 

 this duty yields to pressure from any other. If she were trained 

 to rank study and play of the right kind as of equal importance 

 to her mental development, the conscientiousness with which she 

 devotes herself to study would secure her faithful attention to 

 recreation. 



It is encouraging to see that already some schools are setting 

 the example of reform in this direction. One school at Indian- 

 apolis has introduced scientific physical training under a skilled 

 director, and has placed this training on exactly the same footing 

 as the intellectual exercises of the school. Besides gymnastics, 

 daily outdoor exercise of two hours duration is required of each 

 student. 



In another school, in Connecticut, in the care of an English 

 principal, there is no two-by-two daily promenade. Groups of 

 not less than three girls are allowed, within certain bounds, to 

 take a walk of from four to eight miles. In the hour and a half 

 which they are required to spend in vigorous exercise out of 

 doors, they play tennis, cricket, and basket-ball, occasionally hav- 

 ing matches with other schools. In the winter physical training 

 in the gymnasium is prescribed in connection with the winter 

 sports of coasting and skating. A "high-stand" prize is offered, 

 for which no girl is qualified to compete without a good athletic 

 record for the year. 



Of special importance to the student is the relation of athletics 

 to the hygiene of the brain. Physicians say that if a muscle is 

 once overtaxed or a nerve overstrained, they never regain their 

 original tone and power ; and yet I think that in America little 

 care is taken to prevent such injury to the brain. We summarily 

 dispose of its welfare with the classical platitude, "Mens sana m 

 sano cor pore." 



What is indicated by the fact that the college " valedictorian " 

 of the past so many times sank into obscurity after his com- 

 mencement oration, while his classmate, not overzealous in study 

 and reasonably interested in athletics, subsequently rose to dis- 

 tinction at the bar or in the pulpit ? by the fact that the graduate 

 student frequently fails to fulfill undergraduate promise and to 

 go from strength to strength in mental achievement ? by the fact 

 that the country youth with meager opportunities, fresh from sim- 

 ple rural life, so frequently outstrips classmates who have known 

 all the advantages which our best schools can afford ? What is 

 indicated by these conditions but that the students of our schools 



