This system can arouse youth to the greatest pitch of zest in watching their own rapidly multiplying curves of growth in dimensions and capacities, in plotting curves that record their own increment in girths, lifts, and other tests, and in observing the effects of sleep, food, correct and incorrect living upon a system so exquisitely responsive to all these influences as the muscles. To learn to know and grade excellence and defect, to be known for the list of things one can do and to have a record, or to realize what we lack of power to break best records, even to know that we are strengthening some point where heredity has left us with some shortage and perhaps danger, the realization of all this may bring the first real and deep feeling for grow^th that may become a passion later in things of the soul. Growth always has its selfish aspects, and to be constantly passing our own examination in this respect is a new and per- haps sometimes too self-conscious endeavor of our young col- lege barbarians, but it is on the whole a healthful regulative, and this form of the struggle toward perfection and escape from the handicap of birth will later move upward to the intellectual and moral plane. To kindle a sense of physical beauty of form in every part, such as a sculptor has, may be to start youth on the lowest round of the Platonic ladder that leads up to the vision of ideal beauty of soul, if his ideal be not excess of brawn, or mere brute strength, but the true proportion represented by the classic or mean temperance balanced like justice between all extremes. Hard, patient, regular work, with the right dosage for this self- cultural end, has thus at the same time a unique moral effect.
The dangers of this system are also obvious. Nature's intent can not be too far thwarted, and as in mental training the question is always pertinent, so here we may ask whether it be not best in all cases to some extent, and in some cases almost ex- clusively to develop in the direction in which we most excel, to emphasize physical individuality and even idiosyncrasy, rather than to strive for monotonous uniformity. Weaknesses and GROWTH OF MOTOR POWER AND FUNCTION I95 parts that lag behind are easiest overworked to the point of re- action and perhaps permanent injury. Again, work for cura- tive purposes lacks the exuberance of free sports, and it is not inspiring to make up areas, and therapeutic exercises imposed like a sentence for the shortcomings of our forebears bring a whiff of the atmosphere of the hospital, if not of the prison, into the gymnasium.
These four ideals, while so closely interrelated, are as yet far from harmonized. Swedish, Turner, Sargent, and Ameri- can systems are each, most unfortunately, still too blind to the other's merits and too conscious each of the other's short- comings. To some extent they are prevented from getting to- gether by narrow devotion to a single cult, aided sometimes by a pecuniary interest in the sale of their own apparatus and books or in the training of teachers according to one set of rubrics. The real elephant is neither a fan, a rope, a tree nor a log, as in the fable the blind men contended, each thinking the part he had touched to be the whole. This inability of leaders to com- bine causes uncertainty and lack of confidence in and of en- thusiastic support for any system on the part of the public. Even the radically different needs of the sexes have failed of recognition from the same partizanship. All together repre- sent only a fraction of the nature and needs of youth. The world now demands what this country has never had, a man who, knowing the human body, gymnastic history, and the va- rious great athletic traditions of the past, shall study anew the whole motor field, as a few great leaders early in the last century tried to do; who shall gather and correlate the literature and experiences of the past and present with a deep sense of responsibility to the future; who shall examine martial training with all the inspirations, warnings, and new demands, and who shall know how to revive the inspiration of the past animated by the same spirit as the Turners, who were almost inflamed by referring back to the hardy life of the early Teutons and trying to reproduce its best features; who shall catch the spirit of, and make due connections with, popular sports past and present, study both industry and education to compensate their debili- tating effects, and be himself animated by a great ethical and humanistic hope and faith in a better future. Such a man, if he ever walks the earth, will be the idol of youth, will know their 196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE physical secrets, will come almost as a savior to the bodies of men, and will, like Jahn, feel his calling and work sacred, and his institution a temple in which every physical act will be for the sake of the soul. The world of adolescence, especially that part which sits in closed spaces conning books, groans and travails all the more grievously and yearningly, because unconsciously, waits for a redeemer for its body. Till he appears, our culture must remain for most a little hollow, falsetto, and handicapped by school-bred diseases. The modern gymnasium performs its chief service during adolescence and is one of the most benefi- cent agencies of which not a few but every youth should make large use. Its spirit should be instinct with euphoria, where the joy of being alive reaches a point of high, although not quite its highest, intensity. While the stimulus of rivalry and even of records is not excluded, and social feelings may be ap- pealed to by unison exercises and by the club spirit, and while competitions, tournaments, and the artificial motives of prizes and exhibitions may be invoked, the culture is in fact largely individual. And yet in this country the annual Turner f est brings 4,000 or 5,000 men from all parts of the Union, who sometimes all deploy and go through some of the standard ex- ercises together under one leader. Instead of training a few athletes, the real problem now presented is how to raise the general level of vitality so that children and youth may be fitted to stand the strain of modern civilization, resist zymotic diseases, and overcome the deleterious influences of city life. The almost immediate effects of systematic training are sur- prising and would hardly be inferred from the annual incre- ments tabled earlier in this chapter. Sandow was a rather weakly boy and ascribes his development chiefly to systematic training.
We have space but for two reports believed to be typical. Enebuske reports on the effects of seven months' training on young women averaging 22.3 years. The figures are based on the 50 percentile column.
Lung Strength Strength Strength Strength of Strength of Total capacity, of legs. of back, of chest, r. forearm. 1. forearm, strength.
By comparing records of what he deems standard normal growth with that of i88 naval cadets from sixteen to twenty- GROWTH OF MOTOR POWER AND FUNCTION 197 one, who had special and systematic training, just after the period of most rapid growth in height, Beyer concluded that the effect of four years of this added a little over an inch of stature, and that this gain was greatest at the beginning. This increase was greatest for the youngest cadets. He found also a marked increase in weight, nearly the same for each year from seventeen to twenty-one. This he thought more easily influenced by exercise than height. A high vital index or ratio of lung capacity to weight is a very important attribute of good training. Beyer ^ found, however, that the addition of lung area gained by exercise did not keep up with the increase thus caused in muscular substance, and that the vital index always became smaller in those who had gained weight and strength by special physical training. How much gain in weight is desirable beyond the point where the lung capacity increases at an equal rate, is unknown. If such measurements were applied to the different gymnastic systems, we might be able to compare their efficiency, which would be a great de- sideratum in view of the unfortunate rivalry between them. Total strength, too, can be greatly increased. Beyer thinks that from sixteen to twenty-one it may exceed the average or normal increment fivefold, and he adds, *T firmly believe that the now so wonderful performances of most of our strong men are well within the reach of the majority of healthy men, if such performances were a serious enough part of their ambition to make them do the exercises necessary to develop them." Power of the organs to respond to good training by increased strength probably reaches well into middle life.
It is not encouraging to learn that, according to a recent writer,^ we now have seventy times as many physicians in pro- portion to the general population as there are physical directors, even for the school population alone considered. We have twice as many physicians per population as Great Britain, four times as many as Germany, or 2 physicians, 1.8 minister, 1.4 lawyer per thousand of the general population; while even if all male teachers of physical training taught only males of the military age, we should have but 0.05 of a teacher per thousand, 1 See H. G. Beyer. The Influence of Exercise on Growth. Am. Phys. Ed.
* J. H. McCurdy. Association Seminar, March, 1902.
198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE or if the school population alone be considered, 20 teachers per million pupils. Hence, it is inferred that the need of wise and classified teachers in this field is at present greater than in any other. But fortunately while spontaneous, unsystematic ex- ercise in a well-equipped modern gymnasium may in rare cases do harm, so far from sharing the prejudice often felt for it by professional trainers, we believe that free access to it without control or direction is unquestionably a boon to youth. Even if its use be sporadic and occasional, as it is likely to be with equal opportunity for out-of-door exercises and especially sports, practise is sometimes hygienic almost inversely to its amount, while even lameness from initial excess has its les- sons, and the sense of manifoldness of inferiorities brought home by experiences gives a wholesome self-knowldge and stimulus.
In this country more than elsewhere, especially in high school and college, gymnasium work has been brought into healthful connection with field sports and record competitions for both teams and individuals who aspire to championship. This has given the former a healthful stimulus although it is felt only by a picked few. Scores of recfords have been estab- lished for running, walking, hurdling, throwing, putting, swimming, rowing, skating, etc., each for various shorter and longer distances and under manifold conditions, and for both amateurs and professionals who are early accessible. These in general show a slow but steady advance in this country since 1876, when athletics were established here. In that year there was not a single world's best record held by an Amer- ican amateur, and high-school boys of to-day could in most, though not in all lines, have won the American championships twenty-five years ago. Of course, in a strict sense, intercolle- giate contests do not show the real advance in athletics, because it is not necessary in order for a man to win a championship that he should do his best, but they do show general improve- ment.
We select for our purpose a few of those longest kept. Not dependent on external conditions like boat-racing, or on im- proved apparatus like bicycling, we have interesting data of a very different order for physical measurements. Inter- collegiate data down to present writing — revised to December, GROWTH OF MOTOR POWER AND FUNCTION 199 1902 — are as follows: For the 100-yard dash, every annual record from 1876 to 1901 is 10 or 11 seconds, or between these, save in 1896, where Wefers' record of 9I seconds still stands. In the 220-yard run there is slight improvement since 1877, but here, too, the record of 1896 (Wefers, 21 J seconds) has not been surpassed. In the quarter-mile run, the best record was in 1899 (Long, 49! seconds), but in 1891 this was nearly equaled ( Shattuck, 49 J seconds). The half-mile record, which still stands, was made in 1890 (Dohm, i minute 57 J seconds); the mile run in 1895 (Orton, 4 minutes 23! seconds). Hurdling under fixed conditions shows more steady improve- ment, the best record being in 1900 for the 120-yard race, and in 1898 for the 220-yard race. The running broad jump shows a very steady improvement, with the best record in 1899 (Kraenzlein, 24 feet 4I inches). The running high jump shows improvement, but less, with the record of 1897 still standing (Windsor, 6 feet 3 inches). The college record for pole vaulting, corrected to January, 1902, is 11 feet lo^ inches (Clapp); for throwing the 16-pound hammer in a seven-foot circle, 54 feet 4^ inches (Plaw); for putting the 16-pound shot, 44 feet 8 J inches (Sheldon); the standing high jump, 5 feet li inches (Crook); for the running high jump, 6 feet 5f inches (Page); for the one mile run, 4 minutes 23! seconds (Orton). We also find that if we extend our purview to in- clude all kinds of records for physical achievement, that not a few of the amateur records for activities involving strength combined with rapid rhythm movement are held by young men of twenty or even less.
In putting the 16-pound shot under uniform conditions the record has improved since the early years nearly 10 feet (best at present writing, fall, 1902 — in 1900 Beck, 44 feet 3 inches). Pole vaulting shows a very marked advance culminating in 1899 (Clapp, II feet 5 inches). Most marked of all perhaps is the great advance in throwing the 16-pound hammer. Be- ginning between 70 and 80 feet in the early years, the record is now 154 feet 4 inches (Plaw, 1900). The two-mile bicycle race also shows marked gain, partly, of course, due to improve- ment in the wheel, the early records being nearly 7 minutes, and the best, including 1901, being 5 minutes 18 J seconds (Goodman, 1894). Some of these are world records, and 200. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE more exceed professional records. These, of course, no more indicate general improvement than the steady reduction of time in horse-racing suggests betterment in horses generally.
In Panhellenic games as well as at present, athleticism in its manifold forms was one of the most characteristic ex- pressions of adolescent nature and needs. Not a single time or distance record of antiquity has been preserved, although Grass- berger ^ and other writers would have us believe that in those that are comparable ancient youthful champions greatly ex- celled ours, especially in leaping and running. While we are far from cultivating mere strength, our training is very one-sided from the Greek norm of unity or of the ideals that develop the body only for the sake of the soul. While gymnastics in our sense, with aparatus, exercises, and measurements independ- ently of games, was unknown, the ideal and motive were as dif- ferent from ours as was its method. Nothing, so far as is known, was done for correcting the ravages of work, or for overcoming hereditary defects, and until athletics degenerated there were no exercises for the sole purpose of developing muscle.
On the whole, while modern gymnastics have done more for the trunk, shoulders, and arms than for the legs, it is now too selfish and ego-centric, deficient on the side of psychic impul- sion, and but little subordinated to ethical or intellectual devel- opment. Yet it does a great physical service to all who cultivate it, and is a safeguard of virtue and temperance. Its need is radical revision and coordination of various cults and theories in the light of the latest psycho-physiological science.
Gymnastics allies itself to biometric work. The present academic zeal for physical development is in great need of closer affiliation with anthropometry. This important and growing department will be represented in the ideal gymna- sium of the future — First, by courses, if not by a chair, devoted to the apparatus of measurements of human proportions and symmetry, with a kinesological cabinet where young men are instructed in the elements of auscultation, the use of calipers, the sphygmograph, spirometer, plethysmograph, kinesometer to plot graphic curves, compute average errors, and tables of per- centile grades and in statistical methods, etc. Second, anatomy, ^ Gymnastik der Alten Helenen.
GROWTH OF MOTOR POWER AND FUNCTION 20i especially of muscles, bones, heart, and skin, will be taught, and also their physiology, with stress upon myology, the effects of exercise on the flow of blood and lymph, not excluding the de- velopment of the upright position, and all that it involves and implies. Third, hygiene will be prominent and comprehensive enough to cover all that pertains to body-keeping, regimen, sleep, connecting with school and domestic and public hygiene — all on the basis of modern as distinct from the archaic physi- ology of Ling, who, it is sufficient to remember, died in 1839, before this science was recreated, and the persistence of whose concepts are an anomalous survival to-day. Mechanico-thera- peutics, the purpose and service of each chief kind of apparatus and exercise, the value of work on stall bars with chest weights, of chinning, use of the quarter-staff, somersaults, rings, and in- ometer, clubs, dumb-bells, work with straight and flexed knees on machinery, etc., will be taught. Fourth, the history of gym- nastics from Greece to the present is full of interest and has a very high and not yet developed culture value for youth. This department, both in its practical and theoretical side should have its full share of prizes and scholarships to stimulate the seventy to seventy-five per cent of students who are now unaffected by the influence of athletics. By these methods the motivation of gymnastics, which now in large measure goes to waste in en- thusiasm, could be utilized to aid the greatly needed intellectuali- zation of those exercises which in their nature are more akin to work than play. Indeed, Gutsmuth's first definition of athletics was " work under the garb of youthful pleasure." To so de- velop these courses that they could chiefly, if not entirely, sat- isfy the requirements for the A. B. degree, would not only be to coordinate the work of the now isolated curriculum of the training-schools with that of the college and thus broaden the sphere of the latter, but besides its culture value, which I hold very high, such a step would prepare for the new, important, and as we have seen very inadequately manned profession of physical trainers. This has, moreover, great but yet latent and even unsuspected capacities for the morals of our academic youth. Grote states that among the ancient Greeks one-half of all educations was devoted to the body, and Galton urges that they as much excel us as we do the African negro. They held that if physical perfection was cul- 202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE tivated, moral and mental excellence would follow, and that without this national culture rests on an insecure basis. In our day there are many new reasons to believe that the best nations of the future will be those which give most intelligent care to the body.
IV. Play, sports, and games constitue a more varied, far older, and more popular field. Here a very different spirit of joy and gladness rules. Artifacts often enter but can not sur- vive unless based upon pretty purely hereditary momentum. Thus our first problem is to seek both the motor tendencies and the psychic motives bequeathed to us from the past. The view of Groos that play is practise for future adult activities is very partial, superficial, and perverse. It ignores the past where lie the keys to all play activities. True play never practises what is phyletically new, and this, industrial life often calls for. It exercises many atavistic and rudimentary functions, a number of which will abort before maturity, but which live themselves out in play like the tadpoles tail, that must be both developed and used as a stimulus to the growth of legs which will otherwise never mature. In place of this mistaken and misleading view, I regard play as the motor habits and spirit of the past of the race, persisting in the present, as rudimentary functions some- times of and always akin to rudimentary organs. The best in- dex and guide to the stated activities of adults in past ages is found in the instinctive, untaught, and non-imitative plays of children which are the most spontaneous and exact expressions of their motor needs. The young grow up into the same forms of motor activity, as did generations that have long preceded them, only to a limited extent, and if the form of every human occupation were to change to-day, play would be unaffected save in some of its superficial imitative forms. It would develop the motor capacities, impulses, and fundamental forms of our past heritage, and their transformation into later acquired adult forms is progressively later. In play every mood and movement is instinct with heredity. Thus we rehearse the activities of our ancestors, back we know not how far, and repeat their life work in summative and adumbrated ways. It is reminis- cent, albeit unconsciously, of our line of descent, and each is the key to the other. The psycho-motive impulses that prompt it GROWTH OF MOTOR POWER AND FUNCTION 203 are the forms in which our forebears have transmitted to us their habitual activities. Thus stage by stage we reenact their Hves. Once in the phylon many of these activities were elab- orated in the life and death struggle for existence. Now the elements and combinations oldest in the muscle history of the race are re-represented earliest in the individual, and those later follow in order. This is why the heart of youth goes out into play as into nothing else, as if in it man remembered a lost paradise. This is why, unlike gymnastics, play has as much soul as body, and also why it so makes for unity of body and soul that the proverb " man is whole only when he plays " suggests that the purest plays are those that enlist both alike. To address the body predominantly strengthens unduly the sar- cous elements, and to overemphasize the soul causes weak- ness and automatisms. Thus understood, play is the ideal type of exercise for the young, most favorable for growth, and most self-regulating in both kind and amount. For its forms the pulse of adolescent enthusiasm beats highest. It is uncon- strained and free to follow any outer or inner impulse. The zest of it vents and satisfies the strong passion of youth for in- tense erethic and perhaps orgiastic states, gives an exaltation of self- feeling so craved that with no vicarious outlet it often impels to drink, and best of all realizes the watch- word of the Turners, frisch, frei, frohlich, from.
Ancient Greece, the history and literature of which owe their perennial charm for all later ages to the fact that they represent the eternal adolescence of the world, best illustrates what this enthusiasm means for youth. Jager and Guilder- sleeve, and yet better Grassberger, would have us believe that the Panhellenic and especially the Olympic games combined many of the best features of a modern prize exhibition, a camp- meeting, fair, Derby day, a Wagner festival, a meeting of the British Association, a country cattle show, intercollegiate games, and medieval tournament; that they were the *' acme of festive life " and drew all who loved gold and glory, and that night and death never seemed so black as by contrast with their splendor. The deeds of the young athletes were ascribed to the inspiration of the gods, whose abodes they lit up with glory, and in doing them honor these discordant states found a bond of unity. The victor was crowned with a simple spray of 204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE