Miscellaneous Suggestions. 357 



disapproval of his friends. Everything which human 

 ingenuity could devise and the most liberal expenditure 

 could accomplish, had been done for the moral and in- 

 tellectual welfare of the nation, but for its physical well- 

 being, worse than nothing. 



That day is past. Wisdom is the child of experience; 

 and, as one after another of the most promising in the 

 race of life dropped from the contest, solely from lack 

 of physical stamina to make use of the ability which 

 natural aptitude had given and careful training had 

 fostered, the eyes of this people opened. That a steam- 

 engine, though perfect in design and faultless in con- 

 struction, is worthless when coupled with a worn-out 

 boiler, is now generally accepted as a truth applicable 

 to the conduct of life. Though but in middle age, it 

 seems to me I can recognize a marked improvement in 

 the physique of the rising generation over that of my 

 own. 



Athletics and out-of-door sports have been, and will 

 continue to be a priceless boon to this nation. It has 

 applied, and it is now applying a remedy to a disease 

 which escaped the notice and comment of no intelligent 

 foreigner who visited our shores. Though we hear it 

 no more, it must not be forgotten that but a few years 

 since the pessimist doomed us to extinction as a people, 

 and that solely from pure physical decay. 



To the progress of physical education among us, no 

 true lover of his country can maintain an attitude of in- 

 difference. In the hope that I might perhaps add some- 

 thing to the impetus of this, as it seems to me, all-im- 

 portant movement, this book has been written. 



