Tenth annual report of the Department of physical training... Bates college ...

Front matter

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DEPARti^gNT: or

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Preface

After ten years of service as Director of Physical Training and Hygiene at Bates College, I have this month handed in my resignation.

At this time I have three definite objects in publishing my tenth annual report and sending it to the alumni and officers of Bates College.

First. I believe the college will be benefited by a plain statement of facts, made directly to those interested in the progress of the college.

Second. I wish all the alumni to understand clearly that I have always stood squarely for clean athletic sports, free from commercialism, with a standard of scholarship for all athletes; that when I have offered suggestions, I have done so only when I thought I could advance the best interests of Bates College.

Third. I want my successor to escape some of the unpleasant experience in overcoming extreme conservatism. I want him to have the support necessary to conduct this department. Believing this can be accomplished only when the alumni and officers of the college clearly understand the existing conditions, I have obtained from some of the leading men in the United States their opinions as to the duties of a Department of Physical Training and Hygiene. I also present a plain statement of the athletic conditions in three colleges, with a view of showing some of the difficulties that have to be met by the head of this department.

The best interests of Bates College prompt me to make a plain statement of facts, together with suggestions which, as an alumnus, I firmly believe, if carried out, will be a great benefit to the future progress and growth of Bates College,

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL TRAINING AND HYGIENE.

What constitutes a Department of Physical Training and Hygiene? What should be the duties of the Director of Physical Training in regard to exercise and the hygienic conditions of the college? What is the tendency of modern medicine?

The answer to the first two of these questions depends somewhat on the existing conditions. I shall confine myself to conditions existing in the college of from 300 to 500 students.

The basal object of this department is the maintenance of the health and the physical development of the students. Among the first essentials for the maintenance of health are hygienic surroundings, good water, properly prepared food, first class ventilation and systematic exercise.

The duties of the Director should then be to see that the surroundings are hygienic, and then instruct those under his care in the laws governing health, not only personal hygiene, but also the laws of sanitation, that include ventilation of the buildings and rooms. The Director should see that their food is prepared according to the requisites of a suitable diet. This demands not only the proper amount and proportion of the proximate principles, but the diet must be adapted to the individual and the amount of work he performs, and be supplied in a digestible form. He should see that every student exercises regularly and systematically.

It seems to me that one of the duties that ought to come under this department is to inspect, at regular intervals, all the college buildings and to report to a committee on hygiene or to correct unsanitary conditions.

This should include, where a college boards students, inspection of ice-chests, serving-rooms, food during preparation, and serving. The equipment of every club ought to be such that food could be properly kept, served hot and in an attractive manner. The proper preparation and service of food is almost as important hygienically as a correct choice of a balanced ration, which should vary according to the season of the year.

After the Director has examined a student, the kind and amount of exercise should be outlined, and the required amount taken by each strident.

The Director of Physical Training should be the executive head of this department, and should receive the unanimous support of the faculty in all matters pertaining to the physical condition of the students.

As to the hygienic and therapeutic value of regulated exercise, there is bat little difference of opinion to-day. Intelligent physicians are each year coming to depend less on drugs and more and more upon general hygiene, in the treatment of disease.

I quote from Dr. White of University of Pennsylvania. *'It w^ould scarcely be too much to say that the intelligence of a physician might be accurately estimated by his understanding and application of the effects of climate, environment, occupation, diet, and exercise, as compared with his use of drugs."

In our advancing civilization, we have come to neglect many fundamental hygienic principals. Disease has been lessened by the discovery of technical methods of prevention and cure ; but the needs of the body, the essential and primitive requirements of health, old as the race itself, are constantly forgotten or ignored. The air breathed by crowds, the dust and dirt of great cities, the covering of tlie body surface so as to exclude the direct rays of the sun, the substitution of sedentary and slothful habits for a life of incessant activity, the modification in diet and drink, changes in environment, with little or no change in the organism, are responsible for many diseases.

Education to-day is far more general than ever before, is begun earlier, is continued later in life ; examinations, with attendant nervous tension, have multiplied. All this occurs during the developmental period, when the foundations of health and strength should be laid. With all the good that comes from the comparatively wide defusion of education and of knowledge, there comes the counter-balancing evil, the increased percentage of brain diseases, associated undoubtedly with the substitution of mental for physical strain in the struggle for existence, and having its foundation too often in the period devoted to education.

Organic nature demands the four most primitive requirements of health — sunlight, oxygen, food to replace worn-out cells, and motion or exercise.

The demands of civilization — clothing, habits and houses, have cut us off from all but an infinitesimal proportion of the sunlight in which the entire bodies of our ancestors were bathed continuously. The supply of oxygen to the individual has been dangerously reduced by the greatly increased time spent indoors, often in poorly ventilated rooms, often amid crowds of his fellow-beings, who have vitiated the atmosphere he is breathing.

The ease with which food may be procured has led to overeating as a race habit, disease instead of health. Vigorous exercise as a means to a livelihood has become less and less necessary ; as a result, muscles have become flabby, respiration shallow, circulation less active, oxygenation of the blood more imperfect, and susceptibility to disease greater.

We may believe with Herbert Spencer that, as vigorous health and its accompanying high spirits constitute the largest elements of happiness, the teaching how to maintain them is a teaching that should yield in importance to no other. Many begrudge themselves the hours taken from study, from books, or from lessons, for the purpose of exercise. Fortunately the association of mental and muscular development has been shown by modern scientific research to be closer than was formerly suspected by the most earnest believer in exercise. This has been satisfactorily explained by physiologists of to-day. The intellectual value of exercise has been placed upon the same logical and scientific basis as its physical value. It is asserted that <' there is no brain stimulus except that which comes through muscle."

It is thus that the increased beneficial effect of exercise associated with games is reasonably explained. It is through the reciprocal effort of muscle and mind that the activity of one is translated into corresponding activity of the other. Apply this principal to a specific game, football. Some intelligent persons condemn this game and express wonder at the interest and enthusiasm it excites. That interest and that enthusiasm, as manifested by hundreds of thousands of Americans to-day, are based on an instinctive appreciation of the fact that in a large sense this game meets the reqirements existing in our colleges. Boys from childhood onward are surrounded by the enervating influences of the times, protected not only from pain but from discomfort ; guarded not only against danger but against inconvenience; want, privation and genuine toil are mere words ; luxury, such as was not dreamt of a few generations ago, are familiar circumstances. What wonder that a game which demands from its players self-subordination, obedience to orders, quick and accurate thinking coincident with extreme physical effort, absolute freedom from even a tinge of cowardice, indifference to fatigue, to pain, to danger, loyalty to an ideal; what wonder that such a game should arouse and hold the interest of the people of this country to whom, in spite of extrava-

REPORT.

gance and self-indulgence, the manly virtues appeal as to no other people since the days of Sparta.

Let us sum up the conditions as they exist to-day and and observe why the officers of every educational institution should assign hours for agreeable exercise and for pleasurable athletic gilmes, and why they are acting for the very best interests of the students physically, intellectually and morally by requiring regular systematic exercise.

Circumstances have deprived the human race of most of the sunlight and much of the oxygen to which our ancestors for centuries were accustomed ; have much reduced the necessity for exercise for the purpose of mere maintenance of life and have made food so easily procurable that more is eaten than is required for the repair of waste, additional strain thus being thrown on the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, bloodvessels, skin and brain.

Associated circumstances make the present demands upon the nervous system, which should include the mind and the morals, far greater than in times past, both during the educational period and in later life.

In the period extending from childhood to early life, must, if ever, be laid the foundations of the health and strength without which later effective work becomes impossible. No thinking or observant educator, who has been so situated as to know of the personal life of large numbers of boys and. of young men, can fail to recognize the value of strenuous physical endeavor in aiding them to avoid various pitfalls which beset the steps of youth and adolescence, as well as more advanced age.

It is certain that exercise is one of the most important therapeutic agencies at the command of the physician in the acquirement and preservation of health ; that it can be prescribed on as rational a basis as any of the drugs ; that in appropriate cases it increases not only the muscular strength and general vitality, but also the activity and vigor of the brain ; it thus augments the working power of the individual, and by means of the health and strength which it confers makes it possible for him to equal or excel with ease any less strong or less healthy business or professional rival.

These conditions existing, the following requirements should be made by every college in the land :

(1) That when the weather permits, almost daily for a healthy youth, some part of each day shall be spent in the open air, in the practice of some game, sport, or feat of skill or strength. This will not only strengthen the body but will maintain health. The brain will at the same time be educated in many important directions.

(2) At other times the same period should be spent carrying out a graded and systematized series of exercises in a well-lighted, well-ventilated gymnasium. Without this no educational institution is fitted to discharge its functions.

(3) All sports and exercises should be adapted to the needs and capability of the individual ; proper advice should at the same time be given as to diet, clothing, and general hygiene with reference to existing defects or probable inheritance.

(4) All competitive sports should be encouraged, as highly important factors in securing outdoor exercise for the greatest possible number of young men. It is true that evils exist with competitive sports, but when clean athletics and scholarship are maintained, such evils as exist are more than counterbalanced by the good effects of these sports on body, mind and morals.

METHOD OF CONDUCTING WORK IN PHYSICAL TRAINING.

ThQ first duty of the Director should be to see that every student takes regular exercise.

At Bates not over twenty-five per cent, of the (men) students attain positions on the athletic teams, nor over fifty per cent, ever try for them. That leaves about half of all the (men) students at Bates without any motive for physical training such as appeals to them in other departments of college activity. To be sure, there should be one grand motive, the attainment of health and physical perfection for its own sake.

If we are to be practical, we must have the physical department on the same basis as the other departments of education; we must adopt the same method of stimulating pupils to active efforts. That is, we must furnish them with some immediate and imperative motive for action. Give credit towards the degree for work done in Physical Training. The credit should be on the same basis as that given for a laboratory period.

The adoption of credit for work done would insure the student athletes against carrying their athletics to such an excess as to lower their rank and mental standing, and scholarship men against carrying their mental work to such an excess as to impair their health and physical standing.

Shall there be one department? Or shall there be two: (1) Gymnastics and general exercise, and (2) Athletics? If two, what shall be the object of each, and the relation of the Director of Physical Training to each?

I recommend two departments. This would require an athletic coach for foot-ball and base-ball, as an associate or assistant to the Director of Physical Training. The Director should be the executive head of this department.

The Director of Physical Training is paid to instruct students in rational exercise, physiology and hygiene; to protect the students from an over-zealous coach who might play men unfit and out of condition, or use such drugs as strychnine, belladonna and alcoholic stimulants to win a contest.

The following quotation is taken from H. B. Needham's article published in the June number of McClure's Magazine. "The Coach is paid to win. If he develops a winning team, his services will be retained; if his team meets with defeat, there is something radically wrong with his methods. He has not 'delivered the goods.' No coach can lose two or three seasons and hold his position: the students lose confidence and take into consideration only one fact: he failed to win."

The Director should not be held responsible for victories and defeats of any athletic team. He should make the physical examinations, and decide whether a man is in condition to enter a contest or not; have charge of the condition of the men; conduct the gymnasium work; teach physiology and hygiene, and supervise the college health.

The Athletic coach should instruct the men in the technique of foot-ball, base-ball and track athletics; should be held responsible for the field work of the teams; assist the Director in some of the routine work of the department.

The Director of Physical Training should be paid by the College, and be held responsible for the health of the students: the Athletic coach should be paid by the Athletic Association and be held responsible for the field work of the teams.

Unless Bates College is to neglect the fifty per cent, of her students who most need to increase their physical efficiency, two men must be employed. If our students are to receive equal training with the other colleges, a track coach is needed from four to six weeks. It is impossible for one man to look after the physical exercise of 360 students and give the three athletic teams technical training in their respective sports. In charge of the mental and moral development of the students are eighteen men, — a number far too small. For the department of physical training and hygiene, two regular men, with a track assistant for a month, to look after the physical development of all the students and the technical training of athletic teams of the college, are needed for effective work.

In order to obtain the opinions of the leading men in the country on the organization of a Department of Physical Training and Hygiene, 1 sent a questionare to twelve colleges and schools. Eleven replies have been received to date. Ten inquiries were sent to colleges, one to Y. M. C. A. Training School at Springfield, Mass., one to a large, wellequipped preparatory school at Lawrenceville, N. J.

The questions asked were as follows:

Should the Director be considered the executive head of the department? Should he be held responsible for the success or failure of any inter-collegiate team?

Should the Director teach Physiology and Hygiene?

Should the Director have charge of the construction and equipment of gymnasiums and other atheletic buildings?

Should the ventilation, water, lights and oversight of food, when the college board students, be under the general control of this department?

How many coaches do you think advisable or necessary, where the college (300 to 500 students) engages in foot-ball, base-ball, tennis, track and field games, also requires gymnasium work?

Should coaches be considered as assistants and under Director's control?

Should the Director have charge of the athletic field and track, including repairing of the track, base-ball diamond, etc. ?

Should the college control the finances of the athletic association by faculty treasurer or alumni treasurer?

What conditions exist at your college? Will you kindly give me the basal conditions?

The answers were uniform, all basal conditions the same. In order to give a correct idea, I quote the answers received from four.

R. Tait McKenzie, M. D., University of Pennsylvania, President of the Society of College Gymnasium Directors, answered as follows :

" I do not think the director should be held responsible or have anything to do with the success or failure of any inter-collegiate team. His official responsibility should end when the men are certified as being sound physically, and in fit condition to take part in athletics. He, after all, represents in his person the responsibility taken by the college for students under their care, and the question of winning or losing has nothing to do with that except in so far as he will naturally be interested in their success, and from his position will have an opportunity of helping a good deal in their efforts.

*'I do not see why a course in physiology or hygiene should not be a part of any college course, just as astr»)nomy or mathematics.

"The construction and equipment of gymnasiums and other athletic buildings, I believe, should be under his direct charge.

* The ventilation, water, light and food, I do not think should come under control of this department necessarily. It would seem more appropriate to have that in charge of a committee of Trustees, of which the Director should be a member.

"Where possible I believe that coaches should be considered as assistants, and under the director's control. That is a difficult matter, however, where the coach is engaged by private subscription, or gives a very limited amount of time for a short season. The health and condition of students taking part in athletics should, of course, be absolutely under the direction and control of the director, who, I believe, should have the power of removing a man from active training where he is sure it is advisable.

I think it is better to make the Athletic Association as nearly automatic as possible, with sufficient control to prevent the worst abuses."

W. G. Anderson, M. D., Directoi of Yale University Gymnasium, answered as follows:

"The director should be the executive head of the department. He should not be held responsible for gains or losses of the teams.

*'The director should teach physiology, hygiene, nutrition and dietetics. I imagine a one year's course in physiology would be sufficient. That at Yale covers forty hours, junior year.

"The director should certainly have charge of the construction and equipment of the gymnasium.

"The physical director should certainly supervise college health and hygiene.

"If the different teams are self-sustaining they should have special coaches. It is desirable that these coaches be graduates of your college. Tennis might be excepted. This in addition to the required gymnastics.

"The coach should be an assistant if he is not well educated; if a college graduate, he should be an associate. It is dangerous to place him under a physical director. I say this in case there are two distinct departments of athletics and gymnastics.

"I prefer an alumni treasurer. The college should not have full control of the finances or of the athletic business. There should be co-operation between the college and the students.

"At Yale there are two separate departments. I have absolute charge of the gymnasium and its work. The athletic department is controlled by the Athletic Union. I am an advisor and an associate by courtesy. I believe in student supervision of the work in combination with faculty and graduates."

F. N. Whittier, M. D., director at Bowdoin College, answered as follows:

"I think that the head of this department should be the executive officer to exercise whatever control of athletics is assumed by the college. Here at Bowdoin we have always taken the ground that athletics were student activities not to be interfered with by the college except as the larger interests of the college might demand oversight and restriction. For instance, all athletic schedules of games must be passed upon by the committee on athletics, of which I am chairman. Again, in case a student through ill health is not in condition to take part in athletics, I have authority to prevent his playing or practicing.

*'I believe that the head of this department should teach the required Hygiene and Physiology. I teach a short course in Hygiene here.

"I think that the head of this department should have charge of the construction and equipment of the gymnasium and athletic building. Sargent Gymnasium was finished and partly equipped when I was appointed gymnasium director at Bowdoin. Since my appointment I have had charge of all building and equipment for gymnastics or athletics.

"I think that under most conditions the head of this department should have general oversight of the hygienic condition of the college. This would include ventilation of college buildings, heating and lighting. Here at Bowdoin these matters are under a committee of the Boards, the building and grounds committee. As a matter of fact, however, I do much of the work referred to above, working with this committee.

"I think that the head of this department should have charge of the athletic field and track, if they are owned by the college. The college owns our track and field and I have charge of both."

Wm. W. Hastings, M. D., at present of Y. M. 0. A.

Training School, of Springfield, Mass., formerly of University of Nebraska, answered as follows:

"The director should be the executive head of the department, and the coaches of various events held responsible for their work.

"I approve the teaching of physiology and hygiene, or at least hygiene, by the director. I think that the course in hygiene should be required of all students, and that it should contain preferably about thirty lectures. As to the physiology, I think that depends more upon the character of the institution. Ninety hours is not too much for a good course in physiology."

In answer to the question, "Should the Director have charge of the construction and equipment of gymnasiums and other athletic buildings?" Dr. Hastings says, "Most assuredly. "

"The general health of the college student should be under the general supervision of the Physical Department, and assistants who have charge of the matters as affecting health should be held responsible in some way to the physical director, either officially or unofficially.

"I think that in the spring at least two coaches are necessary, one for baseball, another for track and field sports. rhe football coach might be one of these two men. It would seem to me advisable that the gymnasium director be left free to supervise and to see that every student had some form of sport in which he was enthusiastically engaged.

"Coaches should be considered as assistants and under the director's control in an institution organized in the most successful way. This, however, I should not think practicable in the East. New methods are more acceptable and can be more easily developed in the West.

"The director should have control of the janitors or other help who take care of the repairing of all athletic fields.

•' We used the method of control of the finances of the Athletic Association through the assistant treasurer of the University with great advantage. All funds over |5 in amount were available only through an order drawn on this treasurer by order of the sub-committee in charge of the particular sport for which the money was desired.

" In the University of Nebraska, where I remained for four years, I was secretary of the athletic board, and the athletic board consisted of five student members and five faculty members. The physical director and commandant of the University were members of the board by virtue of their office. The other three faculty members were elected by the student members. The five student members were elected by Australian ballot, each year in May, by such of the student body as paid regular membership fee of the Athletic Association. The athletic board had charge over all the athletic interests of the University. By the ruling of the athletic board all candidates for the track team were required to pass a physical examination satisfactory to the physical director and to have taken regular training for at least one semester previous to competition on university track team, or in the annual class field day exercises. The candidates for all teams were required to pass a physical examination satisfactory to the physical director. Regular systematic training for any sport was credited as so much preliminary training for competition in field day exercises. The regular orders of this training were kept by the managers of the various sports. While the sentiment of the University had not yet become strong enough to warrant the passing of a regulation requiring the same rigid training preliminary to football and baseball seasons as was required preliminary to competition in track and field events, nevertheless we were w^orking toward that end, and by the end of the third year I had practically all of the leading athletic men, baseball and football, in the University training solidly through the year, more than 100 in all. This by their own election.

"It is possible, in my opinion, in the West, for any man who sets his stakes high enough and works consistently toward the ends outlined in my answers to bring about a measure of this ideal method of organization of the college physical department. The most essential thing is a coherent plan and persistence. It takes this to overcome college prejudices.

"We were enabled not only thoroughly to cleanse the athletics of the University of Nebraska, an institution of about 2000 students, but to organize in the second year of my stay there, a State Inter-collegiate Athletic Association and a State Inter-scholastic Athletic Association and to aid materially in the cleansing of athletics in the State of Nebraska."

For some time past certain persons have criticised the methods employed in this Department. There are two standard theories in regard to the arrangement of vvork in a gymnasium. One of these applies to the Universities, the other to the small colleges. (1) In many Universities and the largest of the colleges, where there is no required work in physical training, where there are different men in the same class on each day, the method employed is as follows: Every day a new kind of work is taken up, different j)ieces of apparatus are used so that a student receives work on the different appliances or goes through the same drill only once in five or six days. This is the University idea and necessitates a large and varied equipment. The object of this kind of work is hygienic, less attention being paid to educational and corrective gymnastics. The students learn no definite drills or series of movements but simply take exercise.

(2). The small college j)lan is as follows: Each class nas a certain series of exercises, drills and apparatus work, graded in such a way that every student in the squad or class learns the series of movements given in each drill and on each piece of apparatus. The work is progressive from year to year. With this class of work each student, if he attends regularly, learns certain definite exercises arranged in accordance with the laws of physiology and hygiene.

At the College Gymnasium Directors' Meeting held in New York (^ity last December these two methods were under discussion for a long time; the University Directors advocating the first plan and the College Directors the second plan. Each has its advocates.

In a College where each class meet separately, the best method is the second plan, because with this method each student learns a definite series of exercises that will be useful in after years. This is the system I have been using at Bates for the last ten years.

The results accomplished by those who have taken the work regularly have been very satisfactory. Every year several students have accepted positions in preparatory schools where they were required to teach gymnastics or coach athletic teams. All students, who have received a first-class recommendation from me and been elected, have carried on the work to the satisfaction of the schools where they have been employed, and they have been elected to their positions for a second year.