Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

strangers in the great city. They met in a now historical room in the draper's shop. A group of young men with kindred needs joined them. It was in the American cities that the Association first recognized that one of the greatest needs was in the physical lives of men. Many men were below par, physically; many were down and out. This is strikingly illustrated by Major Orr, a medical officer of the army, who tells us that formerly two or three out of every four applicants for the regular army were rejected as being physically unfit. The examinations of the Life Extension Institute show only one man in a hundred wholly free from disease. Heart disease kills three times as many as it did forty years ago.

The Association created a great new profession in its physical directorship. At first these directors of physical education were possibly professional athletes, circus performers, or stunt artists of a similar nature. They de

veloped big muscles and freak stunts rather than all around physical efficiency. Today the Y. M. C. A. physical director is a community leader. The Association has supplied seventy per cent of the male directors of physical education in schools and colleges of North America.

From the outset in meeting the emergency physical needs of younger men, it has been the practice in the Y. M. C. A. that before admission into a gymnasium class a man should receive a careful physical examination by the director in order that exercise may be prescribed to meet his needs and to correct his defects. He has, also, been given a medical examination by a doctor to discover what degree of exercise the system would permit. During this examination in the private room of the physical director, far-sighted men in this profession have traced back to their causes the physical limitations of the man. Therefore, the physical director has

[graphic]

A Group About the Fireplace in the Lobby of the Y. M. C. A.

become more than an emergency man. He has thought in terms of causes and prevention.

It is a good thing to square the shoulders, fill out the chest and stimulate the physical life of a gymnasium of, say, fifty men, but it is a greater thing to insure that every child in the schools know the significance of diet and exercise. The professional leaders of the Y. M. C. A. have aspired to multiply the Association's usefulness by laying the foundation for vigorous physical manhood through the home, the school, and other community avenues and to decrease by whosesale the need for correction of physical defects.

The gymnasium class justifies itself a hundred fold, but that is a matter of addition. The community propaganda for health is a matter of multiplication. It is a great thing to minister as the Association does to thousands of groups of men and boys, who can

never live their maximum lives unless they shake off depression and inertia and sleeplessness and other symptoms. But unless community life at its inception, in its children, has a chance to develop a normal physical existence, then only has our obligation been discharged.

It is said that in the process of determining the sanity of patients in a sanitorium the test was made of turning on the faucet, giving the patient a dipper, and telling him to dip the water out of the basin. The insane patient dipped and dipped, while the sane patient turned off the faucet. A sane community will determine that the child must not only be able to analyze a Shakesperean play correctly, but that he shall be an instrument in the home for sanitation, diet, and health.

The Association early took note of the fact that less than two per cent of the boys of America ever attend col

[graphic][merged small]

lege. It is now calling attention to the fact that in our population of more than 100,000,000, there are only 600,000 boys who enter high school. Sixteen out of every hundred boys reach high school. Five out of the hundred graduate. One goes to college. One in 1000 of our boys learns a trade. Yet, there are six boys who work to every one in high school. Nine out of ten who work have no idea of investing their lives for the benefit of society. To meet the emergency the Association provided for the great multitude of young men in the twenties, and younger, who awaken to the fact that they are forever handicapped unless their education be increased.

The Y. M. C. A. pioneered the greatest system of night education for men who needed just a little help in getting started toward the goal of their ambitions, that the world has known. But, in this case, as in others where the Y. M. C. A. has met an emerg

ency, it has realized the necessity of striking at the cause of the emergency need. Back of the physical bankruptcy of many a man was a youth of ignorance with reference to the laws of the physical life. Back of a condition which limits the college education to virtually one per cent of the male population, there is a serious condition in community life.

So the Association educational program has developed beyond the reading room, which was formerly such a big feature, and beyond even the night school, which justifies itself a hundred fold every year, it has become an organized propaganda agency for education. It has traced the causes leading boys to leave school. It has found that sometimes the cause is traceable to home needs which could have been overcome; oftener it is to parential indifference.

Then it went into shops and factories and homes where tens and hundreds.

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« ПретходнаНастави »