HOW TO GET STRONG
taking care all the time that he have no pen or pencil in his hand. It is a matter of surprise that college faculties are not more alive to the defects of the gymnasium, conducted right under their very eyes. In every other branch they require a definite and specific progress during a given time; an ability to pass successfully periodical examinations, which shall show that progress; and, if the pupil fails, it tells on his general standing; and is an element which determines whether he is to remain in college.
But in the gymnasium there is nothing of the sort; and in many cases the young man need not step into it once during the four years unless he likes. This state of things is partly accounted for by the fact that too many of the professors in our colleges do not know anything about a gymnasium, and what it can do for a man. Indeed, often, if from practical experience they were better up in this knowledge, as well as better acquainted personally with the students, and more interested in doing them good, it would beneficially affect the reputation of their college as a live institution; and their own influence and effectiveness as well.
Often the director himself is not the right sort of man for his place. Either the faculty have no conception of what they need here; or they effectually drive off the man they ought to have by starving him. Professors' salaries are generally small enough; but the Director of the gymnasium seldom gets half so much as the poorest paid of his brother professors. Indeed, the latter do not regard him as an equal at all; and until they do so, with good reason, there is little prospect of improvement in this direction. A doctor as ill up to his work as the average college-gymnasium director would soon be without a patient.
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