Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 203
and that the general drift is toward physical improvement.
It is true that most colleges have some gymnasium
requirement and that a considerable proportion of students
do something at it.
My observation and inquiry' lead me to the conclusion,
however, that it is desultor>% more or less interrupted, and
without any definite plan of physical culture.
The stimulus to marked phj^sical exercise has been interrupted
by the limitations upon the numbers who can compose
a team.
The notion of conspicuous contest and victory having
become the prominent and determining motive, it follows
that the incentive to the less capable students is gone.
There is no place to show. There is no eclat. There is no
decisive issue. Hence, what is the use?
Stimulus has disappeared with opportunity. Whether
one can declare that it is the result of this, or not, one can
declare with fairness the fact, that the general physical
quality of college students is far below its normal possibilities,
and almost every individual can be strongly criticized
in some direction or other as to his physical life.
It might be objected that it is absurd that the mere
lack of exhibition opportunity should snuff out the natural
impulse of youth to physical growth; that it is crediting
youth with altogether too small initiative and principle.
It must be borne in mind that the youth in question is
at the most impressionable age, most susceptible to strong
suggestion, and that gregarious youth is as resistant to force
and as hopeless in its inertia as anything that one can
picture.
What can be done with youth, can be done only through
ideals, never through coercion, and it is the ideal in question
with which I contend; and this leads me again to call attention
to my statement. Not that college athletics do not
adequately foster physical education, but that they are
distinctly a hindrance thereof.