A brief test of this method of helping children, such as is now being made by several boards of health at the instance of the National Bureau of Labor, will prove conclusively that parents are grateful for the timely discovery of these defects which handicap because of their existence, not because of their discovery. Of the cadets preparing for war at West Point, it has recently been decided that those "who in the physical examinations are found to have deteriorated below the prescribed physical standard will be dropped from the rolls of the academy." Shall not cadets preparing for an industrial life and citizenship be given at least a knowledge of an adequate physical standard? To allow the school child to deteriorate whether before or after going to work is only to waste potential citizenship. Citizens who use themselves up in the mere getting of a living have no surplus strength or interest for overcoming incompetence in civic business, or for achieving the highest aim of citizenship,--the art of self-government for the benefit of all the governed. CHAPTER XXI PERIODICAL PHYSICAL EXAMINATION AFTER SCHOOL AGE Governor Hughes, in his address to the students in Gettysburg College, pleaded for such lives that strength would be left for the years of achievement. How many men and women can you count who are squandering their health bank account? How many do you know who are now physically bankrupt? The man who is prodigal of his health may work along all right for years, never realizing until the test comes that he is running behind in his vitality. The test may be hard times, promotion, exposure to cold, heat, fever, or a sudden call for all his control in avoiding accident. If his vitality fails to stand the test, his career may be ruined, "all for the want of a horseshoe nail": because of no health bank account to draw upon in time of need,--failure; because of vitality depleted by alcohol, tobacco, overeating, underexercise, or too little sleep,--no power to resist contagious diseases; because of ignorance of existing lung trouble,--a year or more of idleness, perhaps poverty for his family; or there is neglected ear or eye trouble,--and thousands of lives may be lost because the engineer failed to read the signals.