HEALTH AS A DUTY 



The perverse dislike and avoidance of 

 physicians is as unfortunate as it is common. 

 Much ill health and many deaths are trace- 

 able to it. To imagine illness is, of course, 

 weak, and the habit of resolute resistance 

 to threatened ailments is in general most 

 commendable. But this is often carried 

 fatally far. The wise way is, whenever ill 

 symptoms suspiciously persist, to call a phy- 

 sician or call on one. 



Blessed be gymnastic exercises, and, as a 

 rule, blessed be athleticism. The fact that 

 our colleges and universities are now health 

 factories is among the most promising data 

 in American life today. Call this a fad, if 

 you will ; a good-health fad is better than a 

 bad-health fad such as once prevailed. 



But hygienic exercises may easily be 

 made too set, formal, or concrete, and, with 

 many, they are certainly in danger of be- 

 coming too severe. Let us train for record 

 by all means, but let it be a health-strength- 

 and-longevity record rather than a pole- 

 vault, shot-putting or hammer-slinging 

 record. The writer always exercised in the 



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