man of the service needs expansion of chest capacity, which adds to his
resistive power; a stronger, better-developed back; and suppleness and
quickness and mobility of trunk. To develop these qualities we must have
exercises which may be continued on board ship or near the front, and
which can be carried on without apparatus.

[Illustration: LEG-RAISING]

[Illustration: SIDE-FALLING. THIS ARM AND BODY WORK PLACES A HANDICAP ON
A HEAVY MAN]

The ordinary system of setting-up exercises has been growing out of
favor for some time. Athletic trainers have come to look with
considerable suspicion upon the gymnasium-made candidate with big biceps
and large knots of muscles. It was also found that, outside of
weight-lifting and inordinate "chinning" and apparent great strength on
the parallel bars, these men were not so valuable as the lesser muscled
but more supple candidates. To put it briefly, it was found in actual
practice that what was under the ribs was of more value than what lay
over them.

A CALL FOR WORK THAT WILL COUNT

Even at the risk of repetition, some facts should be driven home.

We are now working under conditions that should especially emphasize the
fact of time-saving. We must take ourselves seriously, whether we are in
the lines or behind the lines.

In the eight million men in this country between the ages of forty-five
and sixty-four are the country's greatest executives and financiers. We
can no longer give these executives and financiers two months in the
South in the winter and a long summer vacation. We can no longer let a
Plattsburg camp be a strenuous sifting out, a mere survival of the
physically fittest. We need every man whom we can make available, and we
need him with his vitality fully preserved and his endurance appreciably
heightened. Some are stronger, naturally, than others. In football
parlance we are no longer trying to pick a team out of a squad of two
hundred men; we are trying to get a hundred and seventy-five out of the
two hundred that can stand a fair pace and have enough left to fight
with when they get there. Any one who has been in touch with affairs in
Washington, any one who has been engaged in our munition-plants and in
our factories, any one who has worked upon Liberty Bond drives or Red
Cross fund-raising, knows that if we are to support our boys on land and
sea, these men who are trying to solve the problems of executive
management, and who have the task of rai