ANTHROPOMETRY 47 



status, can be given a strong desire for improve- 

 ment, and can even be brought to such a condi- 

 tion that they will sacrifice almost anything that 

 will tend to harm their physiques or that will pre- 

 vent the best development. 



These tables are planned to enable a physical 

 instructor or examiner, or even a teacher or a 

 parent, to find if a child is well-developed for his 

 height and type. Also, the whole system is 

 planned so that its application will be likely to 

 give a child a compelling interest in his physique 

 — an interest that will not only cause him to 

 desire to improve it and to perfect it, but that 

 will also cause him to abandon willingly bad 

 habits that will tend to hurt him physically. A 

 study of "boy psychology" indicates that a nor- 

 mal boy is more interested in his physical devel- 

 opment than in any other one thing, and that if 

 he has not this characteristic interest, it can be 

 aroused easily by measuring his "muscles," show- 

 ing him photographs of boys, or actual boys of 

 his own age, who have acquired first-class mus- 

 cular developments, by having him hear a talk or 

 two given by some prominent local athlete, and 

 by getting him to compete with other boys for 

 physical improvement or for the possession of 

 the best "all-round" physique. 



In Philadelphia, where this system has been 

 carried on experimentally for several years, com- 



