PHYSICAL IDEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 February 1939, Page 5

PHYSICAL IDEAL

IN ANCIENT & MODERN TIMES. The matter of testing in physical education has made much progress in the United States of America. In the "Research Quarterly" (published by the American Physical Education Association) Dr Hyman Krakower states that anthropometry (measurement of the human body) has been used in relation with physical education since the days of Greece. where the youths were trained to withstand the fatigue of the long march in heavy armour, and to wield with tireless skill the spear, the sword, and the shield. A statue was constructed called the Doryphoros, or Spear Thrower, picturing the perfect man as a broad-shouldered, thick-set. and square-chested individual. As the arts of civilisation became more gentle, the desire for a more slender type became greater. The scenes of the palaestra replaced the fields of war. It was grace rather than strength that began to appeal to the Greek. This change indicated a passing from the pioneer struggle for national existence, in which brute force was dominant, to the keener and more intellectual conflict of a closer community life. However, it has been only within recent years that the subpect of bodily proportions has been approached from the standpoint of the anthropologist rather than the artist, with the object of determining the relationship between body form and function, rather than the design of the human figure which may be portrayed most esthetically.