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

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 205
That these things are true I
have no time to undertake
to demonstrate, but without hesitation or quaUfication I
assert them.
that it is true.
All physical trainers and students of the subject know
As a rule college curricula take some cognizance
of the facts and are measurably adjusted thereto.
Why, then, is it that so little is accomplished and that
the drift is not noticeably toward better things?
Again I invoke the influence of ideals. The notion of
physical perfection has little ground in our modem conception.
The obligation of an individual to be at his best
physically is hardly recognized even by the most intelligent.
That a man should make the most of himself mentally
or be punctilious morally is
but that he is
to make his physical life
a well settled principle of life,
under obligation from an ethical standpoint
as good as possible rarely enters
the mind of anybody. It is this that is the foundation of
the whole argument.
There must be introduced into the lives of young men,
and especially college men, a new ideal as to physical ethics,
and out of that, and only out of that, perhaps, \v\\\ spring
the reconstruction of the general conception of this matter,
by the people.
It seems to me that the attitude and conduct of colleges
in this field ought to be a determining influence upon the
general public. That the general public is suffering from
the same perversion of physical ideals, is clear enough.
To what extent this is due to college example is questionable,
but that college example, as a high-grade demonstration
of the true course, could and would react favorably
on the general public, I believe there can be no question.
Two things make it imperative that colleges should
realize this necessity. On the one hand, their students have
none of the corrections of normal and necessary labor leading
them to more or less automatic cultivation of the physique.
Hence schools fail in immediate obligation.