Athletic Sports (extract)

The Physical Proportions ofthe Typical Man hopes, as the data from different sources accumulate, to show the anthropologist, the naturalist, the physician, the surgeon, the artist, and the sculptor, the impor­ tance of the tables in the pursuit of their respective professions. To parents, in guiding the growth and development of their children; to teachers, in watching the effects of study and local conditions upon the health of their pupils; to superintendents of shops, mills, and factories; and to those who have charge of prisons, asylums, and penitentiaries, a knowledge of the typical proportions of the body are indispensable to the proper performance of their duties. To the soci­ ologist and statesman, in tracing the influ­ ence of occupation and of town and city life upon the health and strength of a people; to the civil-service examiner, in selecting those best qualified to serve in certain capacities; to the life-insurance ex­ aminer, in deciding what risks to accept, etc., a thorough acquaintance with the physical signs of health and approaching disease is of the greatest importance. In one or two subsequent papers I hope to show the influence of systematic train­ ing upon the growth and development of the young, to point out by means of the 46