The Average Man

"The average man" is :i pbrase frejuently employed, Imt the conception of which it is the symbol is apt to In; exly shadowy. 1' aained för Dr. Sargent of Cambridge to endow the conception with concrete form. With extraordinary industry ho has applied himself to meastiring chests and necks and hips by the thousands, and biceps and calves by the tens of thousands. He has calculatcd the strength, expressed in foot pounds, of unnumbered forearras and backs. The results of his labors consist of two nude figures modeled in clay. The first figure is the average, or "composite," of more than 5,000 Harvard men at the age of 21. This type is 5 f eet 8 inches in height. He weighs 138 pounds. He has a lung capacity of 240 inches. His breadth of shoulders is 17 inches. His girth of natural chest is 33.8 inches; of inflated chest 36.3. His stretch of arrns is 70.02 inches, which is 2.2 inches greater than his height. Thus one idol after another is 6mashed with the hammer of cold fact, for the rigid law of ancient art was that the stretch of arms should always exactly equal the height. The girth of the type's head is 22.3 inches, of his hips 35.1 inches. The Btrength of his forearm is 110 pounds, and of his back 308 pounds. Standing squarely, clean limbed, strong necked, he looks rather like a runner than a rower, but there is nothing sordid, nothing warped, nothing to indícate the deterioration of a civilization of too many wheels, the stunting and abnorinal, one eided development due to factory or city life. In consuïering the other figure reluctant gallantry must give place to veracity, and it ïnust be admitted that the man is the finer figure of the two. The face of the average college girl, like that of the other figure, is a "composite" one, and the best that can be said of it is that it is depressingly solemn in expression. The type is 5 feet 5 inches tall. She weighs 115 pounds. Her breadth of shoulder is 17 inches. The girth of her natural chest is 30.5 inches. ühecan expand that about two inches. Her girth of hips is 35.4 inches. Her girth of head is I 21.5 inches. Her stretch of arms is 63.5 inches. As the college girl is too sensible ! to constrict her waist to any considerable 1 degree, so she is wise enough to give her feet plenty of freedom. The type's foot is 9J inches long. Her waist is 2-1 inches in circumf erence. Her legs are not well developed. Her girtl of calf is only 13J inches. In truth the figure has more f ragility than that of her counterpart, without a corresponding gain in grace. It is when he finishes the results of his observations as to temperament, however, that Dr. Sargent approaches most closely to dangvrous grouml, for he declares that the typical college girl student is distinctly nervo-bilious. Thia seems like a maliciously devised scheme on the part of the doctor to forestall criticism from the girls. The shrewd, scientific expert bas doubtless conceived the notion of putting their very criticisms in ovidence to prove his svveeping assertion. Ho will scarcely sueceed, however, in propitiating the ladies by the deprecatory remark that his lay figure is not that of an 80 or 90 per cent girl; that it representa merely 50 per cent of their good points, and is halfway from the best to the worst.- Philadelphia Record.