Enthusiasm for an end or object that is unquestionably good sometimes defeats its own purpose by encouraging extremes of performance which damage rather than improve. This has doubtless often been true of athletics. Pursued ostensibly to promote personal welfare, physical exercise is not infrequently carried to a point of overdoing which results in ultimate injury rather than benefit.
At the present time the value of exercise in the development of good physique is being menaced, we fear, by the extreme claims of propagandists whose chief aim is to exploit the physical unfitness of the average American business man for their own personal advantage. Widely advertised systems of exercise, gymnasiums for the "busy man," physical training "institutes," and work-to-be-fit wonders have become part of an organized commercial effort to "save" the lethargic American gentleman.
Possibly many of these schemes represent a wholesome beneficial influence. A serious difficulty lies in the lack