TOO INTENSIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1939, Page 2

TOO INTENSIVE

PHYSICAL TRAINING OVERDONE. “Physical training has been common on the Continent for many years and has probably been practised more extensively in Germany, especially in Hitler’s time, than in any other country,” said Professor David Burns in his presidential address to the physiology section of the British Association. “The ’Hitler-Jugend’ is a movement designed to keep young Germany physically fit for its future duties to the State. There is no doubt whatever that the Hitler-Jugend, like our own Boy Scout Movement, which it superficially resembles. has caught the imagination of German youth and it undoubtedly gives a smart appearance to its members, but, either because it is taken too seriously or because of some lack of nutrition, endurance fails. Boys who seem physically alert in October look exhausted in December. The lesson to be drawn is that physical training in itself had been overdone, and that the responsibility of the future of the Fatherland, and consequently of civilisation itself, lies heavily on bodies, minds and.souls too immature to bear the strain. Recent athletic events where German schoolboys—the picture of health, beautifully poised and symmetrically developed—were pitted against lean, almost ungainly, British boys, showed the complete superiority of the latter.”