HOW TO GET STRONG
was also urged that Dr. Sargent, who at Bowdoin, and later at Yale, had combined wide experience as a physical director with his education and skill as a physician, could not fail to do great good to our youth, were his field properly widened. President Eliot, of Harvard—quick to see whatever might benefit his university—at once secured him; and he has not only been at the head of that great gymnasium ever since; but has introduced widely his own apparatus, made with greater thought, care, and knowledge than any ever before known; has seen his pupils increase, till, from some 400 lockers in use by them when he entered, there are now over 2500. And he has done a thing of great advantage, not alone to the favored youth, who can spare the time and means for four whole years, in fifty or more studies, of storing, expanding and developing the mind; and of building a broad and stable foundation for the specialty to be built thereon, which is to be his life's calling; and his field in which to be of use to others. For he has urged that every student be minutely measured, upon an intelligent plan; and his weight and height taken; and all recorded. He has also introduced a system of examining especially the heart, lungs, and nervous system, to see if any weakness lurks in either, likely to unfit him for urgent or protracted call upon his strength or endurance; and, if so, warning him in time, and curing him if he can. He has carefully kept statistics of his work, till they new number hundreds of thousands. From these he has been able to deduce principles and rules of rare value to all interested in the architecture and welfare of the body; until this field is doubtless far better understood to-day, than ever before; not excepting even when Olympic and Isthmian plains resounded with the plaudits of all Greece, as her chosen sons contended in
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