34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



sary, so that at the close of his college career, instead of cumulative 

 abnormal development, as in the case of the professional strong man, 

 he has built up an evenly-balanced physical machine. 



Expert Opinions. — The athletes are nearly unanimous in endors- 

 ing cross-country running (as distinguished from cross-country 

 racing), as a safe and valuable form of exercise, but the same unanim- 

 ity is not shown when we come to the consideration of distance 

 racing — 880 yards to two miles. Ten per cent, of the men oppose 

 racing of any kind, on the ground that it involves too much strain. 

 Eighty per cent, of them approve it, nearly one third of these, how- 

 ever, qualifying their approval by saying, " if not overdone, if under 

 proper training, if sound at the start, if sufficiently mature, etc." 

 These various qualifications, insisted upon by so many of the athletes, 

 indicate a pretty general feeling by men who know the game, a feeling 

 arising from their own personal experience or through observation of 

 others, that distance racing is not free from risk except under com- 

 petent supervision. Their letters indicate that without such super- 

 vision immature boys, and men physically and constitutionally weak, 

 will take up the game; that they, as well as those who are fit to run, 

 will train improperly and will be likely to overdo it. They insist upon 

 a preliminary examination by a competent physician; they are opposed 

 to the practise of running more than one hard race on the same day, 

 a practise common among school boys, who, as a rule, have no com- 

 petent trainer to advise them; they are opposed to boys taking up the 

 game until they are seventeen or eighteen years of age, although recog- 

 nizing the difficulty of setting any fixed age limit, since the strength 

 and development of an individual must determine his fitness. Many 

 believe that one mile should be the limit for schoolboy contests. There 

 is a very pronounced feeling among them that school-boys gener- 

 ally overwork. These opinions, held by men who know, can not be 

 disregarded in an effort to discover and set forth the facts. They point 

 to the dangers which lie in the path of the inexperienced athlete, and 

 which bring adverse criticism upon the sport. And yet, notwithstand- 

 ing these dangers, all avoidable, it will be apparent to any one who 

 reads their letters that they approve the sport if properly supervised, 

 considering it in that case not only safe but of great benefit. Almost 

 all of the men, even those who are opposed to racing, even those who sus- 

 tained injury while at it, claim to have been benefited by their athletic 

 experience. This can mean but one thing, namely, as one of them ex- 

 presses it, " the increased health and vigor resulting from training 

 more than compensated for any injury due to racing." The exceed- 

 ingly small number of permanent injuries revealed by this investigation, 

 and the vigorous health enjoyed to-day by the athletes almost without 

 exception, sustain this view especially since it must be borne in mind 

 that a large proportion of the men quit running years ago, before the 



