HALF-BUILT BOYS
on almost every one of those days in the hundred in which he is not rowing.
The years roll by till the whole four are over, and he is about to graduate. He looks back to see what he has done. In physical matters he finds that, while he is a skilful, and perhaps a winning oar; and that some of his girths have much improved since the day he was first measured; others somehow have not come up nearly as fast; in fact, have held back in a surprising way. His chest-girth may be three or even four inches larger for the four years' work. Some, if not much, of that is the result of growth, not development; and, save what running did, the rest is rather an increase of the back muscles than of front and back alike. Strong as his back is—for many a hard test has it stood in the long, hot home-minutes of more than one well-fought race,—still he has not yet that grand thing to have—a fully developed, roomy chest. No doubt his legs have improved, if he has done any running. (In some colleges the rowing-men scarcely run at all.) His calves have come to be full and shapely; so have his thighs; while his loins are noticeably strong-looking and well muscled up, as is indeed his whole back. But if he has done no other arm-work than that which rowing called for; his arms are not so large, especially above the elbow, as they ought to he for a man with such legs and such a back. The front of his chest is not nearly so well developed as his back; perhaps is hardly developed at all; and he is very likely inerect, with head and neck canted somewhat forward; while there is a lack of fulness, often a noticeable hollowness, of the upper chest, till the shoulders are plainly warped and rounded forward.
With professional oarsmen, who for years have rowed
21
