“Degeneration. It is a fact that Americans are great money-makers, and the struggle for wealth has threatened to put an end to all efforts for health. Already the signs of such decay as has befallen other powerful nations in the past have begun to appear all over this broad land. Men are thin-legged, small-necked, narrow-chested, weak, bespectacled, dwarfed, undeveloped—and yet they seem quite unaware of the fact that they are lacking in the very points that go to make up perfect manhood.”
“You’re right,” nodded Walter. “Go on.”
“Our forefathers lived simpler and plainer lives, and therefore they were better developed, hardier, handsomer. Sometimes we hear that the span of human life has increased in the last decade—that men live longer to-day than formerly. This may be true, but it is because our medical skill is far greater, our homes are more comfortable, and we are less exposed to the things that destroy life. But take this generation and put it back into the conditions that existed sixty years ago and our weaklings would go to the wall by thousands. The time has come when somebody must sound the warning note and bring the young men and the boys of the land to a realizing sense of the danger that threatens.”
“That is sound truth and common sense!” cried Walter, “and you, Frank Merriwell, are just the one to do the work. Why don’t you take it up?”
“I have thought of it,” confessed Merry.
“Oh, what a grand thing that would be!” cried Inza.
“Grand, indeed!” echoed her brother. “Think of devoting a life to the improvement and elevation of humanity! Why don’t you do it, man? The boys of the country will listen to you when you speak, for they already recognize you as the representative and physically perfect young American. You can lecture——”
“That is first-rate, but I have a plan of reaching far more boys and young men than by lecturing.”
“How?”
“Through a book.”