HOW TO GET STRONG
machinery and hired help do the heavy work. Yet in that day gymnasiums at the colleges were almost unknown; while now they are becoming general.
Does the gymnasium, then, pay? Yes, like a bathtub—if used, and used sensibly and systematically; but if not, not. Then, as it is used so little, is it worth having?
Suppose the director on the joining of a pupil, recorded, on a page set apart specially, the age, height, general physical characteristics, weight, girth of calf, thigh, hips, waist, lower chest, upper chest—both at rest and inflated chest capacity;—neck, upper arm—extended and drawn up—and the forearm, hand, and wrist; and care is taken to note the time of day when the measurements were made; also a photograph of the man as he then appeared in exercising costume is sometimes—and should always be—taken. Suppose that outside of the ordinary requirements as to method, decorum, order of using apparatus, and so on, the director refused to take any pupil who would not expressly agree to two things: first, to be at the gymnasium, stripped and ready for work, exactly at such a moment, four days out of the seven; second, to obey implicitly the director's orders, both as to what work he should do, and what omit.
Suppose the director could tell, both from the looks and measurements of the man, where he was physically lacking; and that he so arranged his classes that all whose left hands and arms were weaker than their right had left-handed work only until they were equalized up; that weak thighs, calves, abdominal muscles, chests, and backs had special work given them, bringing the desired parts directly into play, lightly as each needed at first, and then gradually working upward, the stronger parts, meanwhile, being at rest. Suppose this were continued
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