356 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
the use of cold water. No good effects were séen to follow its use. There 
was a certain degree of shock attending, and an aversion to the bath was 
inspired. The opposition by some of the men toward the bath is almost in- 
credible. At first it was a matter of surprise, but later we came to regard 
It simply as the displayed opposition to a radical change of habit. Three 
baths per week appeared a work of supererogation, particularly to those 
whose habit it had been to dispense with a general bath throughout the 
winter months, and whose general person never came in contact with 
water from fall to sheep-washing time in the country, and from the 
slosing to the opening of the public baths in the city. To many country 
ooys the plunge bath was particularly repellent, and persuasion, command, 
and sometimes force were necessary to get them into it for the first time. 
The question is frequently asked, How do your men enjoy the gym- 
nasinm ? Some throughout the entire time they are there are interested 
and heartily cotperate ; others, when the charm of novelty has passed 
away, do their exercises perfunctorily and examine themselves as they 
never did before in the hope of finding some overlooked and latent dis- 
qualification. Some are interested in the apparatus and class work and 
-ndifferent in the games, while others attempt to shirk the former and 
display great interest in the latter. What is distasteful in the work is 
not excused. It is considered a part of the man’s education to do the work 
that is set before him, even though it be displeasing, to the end that what 
was originally unpleasant may become a pleasure as proficiency is attained. 
Ihere is scarcely a day but what some men, not in the gymnasium, re- 
quest to be placed there, and those who are already there ask to be trans- 
‘erred to other activities. Generally, in either case, the request is ill- 
considered and arises from a morbid desire for change. Some even go 
so far as to discredit the work of the gymnasium and make it appear they 
are deriving no benefit, but, on the contrary, are sustaining an injury 
from the continuance of physical training. They may even go so far as 
‘0 provoke fictitious disease, decrease their weight, induce pallor and a 
juickened pulse through the ingestion, sometimes habitually, of soap, tar 
paper, rosin, chalk, vinegar, and molasses in excessive quantities, sucking 
copper, etc. 
And again we are asked : Are the men you treat in the gymnasium 
benefited sufficiently by physical training to justify the additional expense 
incurred, and is an equivalent returned equal to the interest upon the 
money in the building ? It is a wise man who can figure out in dollars 
and cents a net return resulting from an expenditure of money for 
hygiene and educational purposes. We are probably as successful as our 
neighbors in assisting those whom we treat to structural amplification, 
to gain in strength, to increased functions, vegetative and intellectual, 
to greater range of codrdinated action, and to subordination of animal to 
che ethical and intellectual. It is impossible to gauge the full measure