We notice with satisfaction that the Manchester Guardian is lending
its powerful aid to the elucidation of what it is no
exaggeration to say is the most pressing and most serious of our social problems,—the problem of how to stop the physical degeneration of the race in our towns. Even when the urban population was in the minority the matter was important. Now that the town-bred people are in so great a majority their degeneration is an evil which must either be faced and cared or the nation will succumb. The first article in the series, which appeared on Monday, is by Mr. J. B. Atkins, who shows plainly the need for national physical training. He very properly does not rest his demand on the military aspects of the case and the bad physique of the recruits. The matter is far more serious and of far wider significance than that. The difficulty of getting strong and healthy recruits is merely a striking indication of the perilous physical degeneracy of a great part of the population. Lord Charles Beresford followed Mr. Atkins on Tuesday with a vigorously worded but thoroughly sensible plea for physical training for our boys. He meets very successfully the argument that those who demand that physical training should be compulsory, just as literary training is now, desire to introduce militarism. Of course they desire no such thing. Nothing is more likely to prevent militarism than a sane and healthy population. The Jingo, as a rule, is physically a degenerate.
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