46 PHYSICAL TRAINING 



to the three types mentioned. The writer is well 

 aware that in abandoning the usual chronological 

 age standard, or the age-height standard, there is 

 likely to arise a great deal of adverse criticism, 

 not so much because of any seeming fault in the 

 system herein proposed, but largely because we 

 have all grown up with the idea that children of 

 about the same age should be about the same 

 height, and have about the same girths. And 

 yet, no doubt, many children of a naturally slen- 

 der physique — a physique typical of their partic- 

 ular families — children who are perfectly strong 

 and healthy in their slenderness, have been 

 worried, or their parents have been worried, 

 because some ignorant physical instructor or 

 examiner, or even physician, has said that they 

 were ten pounds or more under weight, for 

 instance, or too narrow for their height, or far too 

 thin, and so on. And so it is likely, also, that 

 children who were considerably heavier than the 

 " average" for their age and height have been 

 induced to take weight-decreasing exercises, and 

 perhaps even encouraged to concern themselves 

 with special weight-reducing diets. 



The value of measuring should be the informa- 

 tion it can give concerning proportions and mus- 

 cular development, and the direct effect upon the 

 child measured; for by this simple process chil- 

 dren can be greatly interested in their physical 



