It is not encouraging to learn that, according to a recent writer,[2] we now have seventy times as many physicians in proportion to the general population as there are physical directors, even for the school population alone considered. We have twice as many physicians per population as Great Britain, four times a many as Germany, or 2 physicians, 1.8 ministers, 1.4 lawyers per thousand of the general population; while even if all male teachers of physical training taught only males of the military age, we should have but 0.05 of a teacher per thousand, or if the school population alone be considered, 20 teachers per million pupils. Hence, it is inferred that the need of wise and classified teachers in this field is at present greater than in any other. But fortunately while spontaneous, unsystematic exercise in a well-equipped modern gymnasium may in rare cases do harm, so far from sharing the prejudice often felt for it by professional trainers, we believe that free access to it without control or direction is unquestionably a boon to youth. Even if its use be sporadic and occasional, as it is likely to be with equal opportunity for out-of-door exercises and especially sports, practise is sometimes hygienic almost inversely to its amount, while even lameness from initial excess has its lessons, and the sense of manifoldness of inferiorities brought home by experiences gives a wholesome self-knowledge and stimulus. In this country more than elsewhere, especially in high school and college, gymnasium work has been brought into healthful connection with field sports and record competitions for both teams and individuals who aspire to championship. This has given the former a healthful stimulus although it is felt only by a picked few. Scores of records have been established for running, walking, hurdling, throwing, putting, swimming, rowing, skating, etc., each for various shorter and longer distances and under manifold conditions, and for both amateurs and professionals, who are easily accessible. These, in general, show a slow but steady advance in this country since 1876, when athletics were established here. In that year there was not a single world's best record held by an American amateur, and high-school boys of to-day could in most, though not in all lines, have won the American championship twenty-five years ago. Of course, in a strict sense, intercollegiate contests do not show the real advance in athletics, because it is not necessary for a man in order to win a championship to do his best; but they do show general improvement.