34 L[HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
sary, so that at the close of his college career, instead of cumulative 
abnormal development, as in the case of the professional strong man, 
he has built up an evenly-balanced physical machine. 
Hxpert Opinions—The athletes are nearly unanimous in endors- 
ing cross-country running (as distinguished from cross-country 
racing), as a safe and valuable form of exercise, but the same unanim- 
ity is not shown when we come to the consideration of distance 
racing—880 yards to two miles. Ten per cent. of the men oppose 
racing of any kind, on the ground that it involves too much strain. 
Eighty per cent. of them approve it, nearly one third of these, how- 
ever, qualifying their approval by saying, “if not overdone, if under 
proper training, if sound at the start, if sufficiently mature, etc.” 
These various qualifications, insisted upon by so many of the athletes, 
indicate a pretty general feeling by men who know the game, a feeling 
arising from their own personal experience or through observation of 
others, that distance racing is not free from risk except under com- 
petent supervision. Their letters indicate that without such super- 
vision immature boys, and men physically and constitutionally weak, 
will take up the game; that they, as well as those who are fit to run, 
will train improperly and will be lkely to overdo it. They insist upon 
a preliminary examination by a competent physician; they are opposed 
to the practise of running more than one hard race on the same day, 
a practise common among school boys, who, as a rule, have no com- 
petent trainer to advise them; they are opposed to boys taking up the 
game until they are seventeen or eighteen years of age, although recog- 
nizing the difficulty of setting any fixed age limit, since the strength 
and development of an individual must determine his fitness. Many 
believe that one mile should be the limit for schoolboy contests. ‘There 
is a very pronounced feeling among them that school-boys gener- 
ally overwork. These opinions, held by men who know, can not be 
disregarded in an effort to discover and set forth the facts. They point 
to the dangers which lie in the path of the inexperienced athlete, and 
which bring adverse criticism upon the sport. And yet, notwithstand- 
ing these dangers, all avoidable, it will be apparent to any one who 
reads their letters that they approve the sport if properly supervised, 
considering it in that case not only safe but of great benefit. Almost 
all of the men, even those who are opposed to racing, even those who sus- 
tained injury while at it, claim to have been benefited by their athletic 
experience. This can mean but one thing, namely, as one of them ex- 
presses it, “ the increased health and vigor resulting from training 
more than compensated for any injury due to racing.” The exceed- 
ingly small number of permanent injuries revealed by this investigation, 
and the vigorous health enjoyed to-day by the athletes almost without 
exception, sustain this view especially since it must be borne in mind 
that a large proportion of the men quit running years ago, before the 
