If any evidence of the accuracy of this opinion were needed, it is necessary only to consult the records of the United States War Department. The following table shows the number of applicants for enlistment in the United States army, furnished by the several recruiting districts, together with the number accepted or rejected in said districts, fiscal years ending June 30, 1911 to June 30, 1915: ====================+==========+====================+==================== | | | ACCEPTED | REJECTED |TOTAL +---------+----------+---------+---------- |NUMBER OF | |Per cent | |Per cent |APPLICANTS| Number |of total | Number |of total | | |applicants| |applicants --------------------+----------+---------+----------+---------+---------- Total for five years| 747,704 | 157,043 | 21 | 590,661 | 79 ====================+==========+=========+==========+=========+========== In order, therefore, that all citizens may be properly trained and prepared to perform effectively all their duties, no matter what they may be, we recommend and strongly urge that the necessary steps be taken to provide for all the schools of the state a complete and thorough system of physical training. This system should be compulsory for all pupils, and should include carefully selected exercises adapted to the different ages of pupils, and designed to protect their health, stimulate bodily functions, and promote physical strength. It should apply to all girls as well as boys. It should aim to prevent bodily abnormalities or deformities, or to correct them if they are found to exist. It should include personal and community sanitation, first aid in emergencies, bandaging, and all forms of instruction in personal safety. It should encourage outdoor activities. It should provide abundant games for all pupils in which group activities are prominent, and in which appeal may be made to the spirit of competition. It may include those features of military drill which properly serve the purposes of physical training, but which must be regarded as subordinate to these purposes. It may even include practice with the miniature or the service rifle, if such practice is regarded as necessary to develop steadiness of nerve, bodily control, and accuracy of sight. In the case of such exercises the educational error does not lie in their use, but in the exaggerated military purpose which they are made to serve. All the features and exercises of the thorough course of physical training which we recommend should be intimately connected and interrelated, on the one hand with the moral or character-forming instruction of the