, capable of
enlisting all the energy and enthusiasm we have to put into it.
The people who accomplish things are the people who play the game.
They let themselves go; they are not afraid. Under the stimulus
and enthusiasm of play muscles contract more powerfully and longer
than under other conditions. Blood pressure is higher in play. It
is far more interesting to play the game than to work at it. When
you work you are being driven, when you play you are doing the
driving yourself. We play not by jumping the traces of life's
responsibilities, but by going so far beyond life's compulsions as
to lose sight of the compulsion element. Play up, play up, and
play the game.

CHAPTER XIII

VITALITY TESTS AND VITAL STATISTICS

Two things will disclose the strength or weakness of a bank and the
soundness or unsoundness of a nation's banking policy, namely, a
financial crisis or an expert audit. A searching audit that analyzes
each debit and each credit frequently shows that a bank is solvent only
because it is not asked to pay its debts. It continues to do business
so long as no obvious weaknesses appear, analogous to measles,
adenoids, or paralysis. A frequent disorder of banking results from
doing too big a business on too little capital, in making too many
loans for the amount of cash held ready to pay depositors upon demand.
This disorder always comes to light in a crisis--too late. It can be
discovered if looked for in advance of a crisis. Many individuals and
communities are likewise physically solvent only because their physical
resources are not put to the test. Weaknesses that lie near the surface
can be discovered before a crisis by physical examination for
individuals and sanitary supervision for communities. Whether
individuals or communities are trying to do too much business for their
health capital, whether the health reserves will pay debts that arise
in a crisis, whether we are ill or well prepared to stand a run on our
vitality, can be learned only by carefully analyzing our health
reserves. Health debits are compared with health credits for
individuals by vitality tests, for communities by vital statistics.

Of the many vitality tests none is practicable for use in the ordinary
class room. Scientific training is just as necessary for such tests as
for discovering the quality of the blood, the presence or absence of
tubercle bacilli in the sputum, diphtheria germs in throat mu