726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fair way to solve for themselves the problems connected with them, 

 so as " to retain the good features and to hold the evil ones in 

 check." 



The danger to athletics — " VII. JBy depriving them of their efficacy 

 as a ineans of health " — is the only specification which might follow as 

 a corollary from making " excellence in achievement " their " primary 

 object." It is a danger, however, to which only a few men are liable 

 in the athletic exercises mentioned by Dr. Sargent. I think, also, that 

 it will be found that athletes in general are beginning to learn that to 

 excellence and success, even in any special kind ofexercise, a uniform 

 muscular development contributes quite as much as the training of a 

 few sets of muscles. 



As bearing on this part of the subject, the remarks and chart pub- 

 lished by Dr. Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst College, are here given. 

 As Dr. Hitchcock is the Nestor of physical culture in the colleges, his 

 observations have been very extensive, and his conclusions are well 

 worthy of consideration : 



*' One of the results of the anthropometric work of Amherst Col- 

 lege has been the appkoximate measurements and tests of the 

 AVERAGE COLLEGE STUDENT, as obtained from the 1,258 different men 

 observed during the past six college years. These are numerically 

 and graphically arranged on the preceding page. 



" The study of the present paper is to show the relation of 



THESE STATISTICS TO THE SAME IN THE ATHLETIC STUDENT. 



" The men from whom these have been obtained were either class 

 captains, the ball nine, the foot-ball team, or first prizes in the gym- 

 nastic exhibition and athletic games. Fifty-seven men in all. 



"A study in connection with these, is what physical conditions, if 

 any, specially characterize the athletic man in distinction from the 

 average man or student. The chart on the preceding page shows a 

 very close relation between the measurements of these two groups, but 

 a little broader one in tests of strength and capacity, the greater one 

 being in favor of the athletic man. The common consent of mankind 

 would probably place in the same category great size and great strength 

 of body, but, in feats of skill, our statistics do not confirm this com- 

 bination as a fact in nature. So far as Amherst College results are 

 concerned, they seem to show that the athletic men are not athletic 

 because of a greater height of body than the average, as the difference 

 between them in this feature is only a centimetre, or four tenths of an 

 inch. Of the fifteen men who took first athletic prizes in 1886, four 

 were above and eleven below the average height of the college ; and, 

 of the nine first-prize men at the gymnastic exhibition, three were 

 above and six below the average height. 



" Another grouping of these statistics shows us what items are 

 most alike in the make-up of these men. As already mentioned, the 

 heights are nearly the same. So are the lengths and other measures 



