PHYSICAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN CHAPTER I THE WISDOM OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY Physical Efficiency as an Exact Science; Marks for Physical Efficiency; Statistical Study of the Physical Examinations of 160 Young Women; the Physical Status of the Women of To-day; the Reflex Action of the Various Impairments of the Entire Organism. “Circumstances,” said Napoleon, “I make circumstances.” Physical efficiency stands for initiative, endurance, success; it is the very keynote of modern life and has become one of the burning questions of the day. West Point and Annapolis have always recognized this, and in order that their graduates should measure up to the highest standard of efficiency a most rigid physical examination was and is demanded as a prerequisite for admission; and during the whole of the four years’ course physical training is systematically carried on so as to insure the most perfect physique possible, with the result that in addition to their great powers of endurance and initiative, is their distinguished carriage and elegance of bearing. To increase the safety of their passengers the railroad companies were the next to demand these same physical examinations to determine the efficiency of their applicants and employees. Other large corporations followed. So long as _women_ remained in the home, or were willing and content to accept any small wage that was doled out to them, the public did not seem especially interested in their physical condition. But when women, as a large teaching body or in any other public service, began to demand equal pay for equal work, the situation was materially altered, and in 1914 the English Royal Commission summed up the following conclusions: “Where the character and conditions of work performed by women approach those of the work of men, the pay of the women should approximate that of the men, but in so far as the _efficiency_ of men is higher, the salaries of men should remain higher.” This at once changed the complexion of the matter, and physical efficiency for women became a matter of paramount and equal importance to both employer and employee. Again, from the standpoint of social science, the physical efficiency of women is demanded because they are the mothers of the race, and on them, equally with the fathers, does the welfare of future generations depend, since it is believed that a child inherits equally from its parents—one-fourth from father and mother each, one-fourth from its grandparents, etc. The states are beginning to seriously take up the framing of laws for eugenic marriages, based on fixed standards of physical efficiency of the contracting parties. And the day is not far distant when women as well as men will have to undergo physical examinations to secure or hold any positions of importance.