The events of the four years between the summer of 1914 and the winter of 1918 have brought us to a full realization of the real significance of physical education in the training of youth. America and her allies have had very dramatic reasons for regretting their careless indifference to the welfare of childhood and youth in former years. Only yesterday, we were told that the great war would be won by the country that could furnish the last man or fight for the last quarter of an hour. America and her allies looked with a new and fearful concern upon the army of young men who were found physically unfit for military service.
With the danger of war past, there is no lack of evidence that we and our allies will make practical application of this particular lesson. It will be fortunate indeed if the enlightened people of the earth are really permanently awake to the importance of the physical education of their citizens-in-the-making.
Governmental agencies have already started the movement to guarantee to the coming generation more extensive and more scientific physical education. Public and private institutions are joining forces so that the advantages of this extended program of physical education will be enjoyed by the young men and young women in industry and commerce as well as by those in schools and colleges.
It is to be hoped that the American college will do its full share and neglect no reasonable measure whereby the college graduate may be developed into the vigorous and healthy human being that the mentally trained ought to be. It must be admitted that our findings by the military draft boards, as well as other evidences secured through physical examinations, are not such as to make the American college proud of the quality or the extent of physical education which it has given in the past. We must express our keen disappointment at the prevalence of under-development, remediable defects, and unachieved physical and functional possibilities in our college graduates.
Aims of physical education
Physical training is concerned with the achievement and the conservation of human health. It has to do with conditioning the human being for the exigencies of life in peace or in war. Its standards are not set by a degree of health which merely enables the individual to keep out of bed, eat three meals a day, and run no abnormal temperature. Physical training is concerned with developing vigorous, enduring health that is based upon the perfect function, coördination, and integration of every organ of the human body; health that is not found wanting at the military draft; health that meets all its community obligations; health that is not affected by diseases of decay; and health that resists infection and postpones preventable death.
Formulations of aims and scope of physical education in official documents—By Regents of the State of New York
Official statements and information from reliable sources indicate that physical education and hygiene and physical training are regarded by authorities as covering about the same general field. The general plan and syllabus for physical training adopted by the Regents of the University of the State of New York in 1916 interprets physical training as covering "(1) Individual health examinations and personal health instruction (medical inspection); (2) instruction concerning the care of the body and the important facts of hygiene (recitations in hygiene); (3) physical examinations as a health habit, including gymnastics, elementary marching, and organized, supervised play, recreation, and athletics."
By national committee on physical education
In March of 1918 a National Committee on Physical Education, formed of representatives from twenty or more national organizations, adopted the following resolutions: