New-York tribune., 1902-12-28
WEAK NARROW cHEsTED CoNsMpTNE LOOKING MEN ARE TR

is. DR.. Dudley A. Sargent of Harvard. a mem
Der the executive committee of the society, says
TO promote the physical welfare of students ana
to encourage regular, systematic gymnasium work.
both for health and for exercise ''our society,".
he continues. lis branch of the American Or
ganizaton for the Advancement of Physical Edu-
cation, and meet, much as Latin and Greek
professors from the different colleges do, not TO
talk. but to do. No reports of what Is done at
meetings published, and the only results
that como from them are those which manifest
themselves unostentatiously in the system and
progress of different gymnasiums.
What DR.. Sargent says is more eminently true
than people begin to understand. Almost
all of the presen. schemes of training which are
IN vogue In American colleges were first sug-
gested by this little society, and more than one
owes his health his prosperity. If not his
life, to this band of physical experts. who, with
out cry oil ostentation meet year after year 10
discuss his welfare.
Dr. Sargent himself is one of the leading mem
bers of the society. and to him. perhaps, more
than to any one else is due the great advance
ment of the modern gymnasium. The present sys-
TEN OF strength tests which has been adopted by
almost every college in the United States is MS
idea: many of the latest and most improved meth
DDS of training come from him. He is the inventor
Of the inomotor probably the best exercise In ex-
istence, and his papers on physiological SUBJECTS
have put hundreds of people on the way to happi-
and health.
The world is past the point now that 1t marvels at
a weak, thin chested, consumptive man converted
into Hercules by few months of regular physi-
cal exercise Examples Of this sort of thing.
Dr. Sargent says, occur with such frequency that
they get to be commonplace. What we want to
know is the best methods for producing these
results and it is for this purpose that the Society
OF College Gymnasium Directors holds its meet
ings each year.
Possibly the greatest advance which has been
made in gymnasium work in the past few years
has been that change which has made indoor
work less of a grind and of peasurable
form of exercise. 4 new incentive has been given
new pleasure is offered Gymnasium work is
becoming less and less automatic. and although In
this as IN everything else, a certain amount OF
ro,.tine work is required, the aim for the most
part is to give present day gymnasium workers
an element of fun and pleasure in their work
DR. Sargent has been the chief exponent OF this
principle His inomotors, for instance, were IN
vented for this express ,purpose-to give their op-
orators something more than the ordinary exercise
of their muscles The idea of competition, of in
centive of actually doing something. is embodied
In them and it is for this that they are so
adjusted that men race each other across the
gymnasium floor, and by means Of registers inform
themselves just how much strength and speed
they are putting into their work.
In the same way with the strength test. For
rrerIy men worked pulleys rings, bars etc,
with the sole purpose Of getting strong 1t wac
slow tedious uninteresting work This how
ever has all changed. BY giving the man an in
centive-an intercollegiate competition in which
strength alone counts, and in which adequate re-
wards are held up for those who toll faithfully
and long-Hhat formerly work becomes play
Few people will walk just, for exercise; but give
them some errand or definite destination toward
which to proceed and pedestrianism becomes a