Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 209, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1912 — FALSE IDEAS OF PERFECTION [ARTICLE]

FALSE IDEAS OF PERFECTION

Absurd Development of Muscle Hae Little Part in Production of Perfect Athlete. A recent portrait of a lumpy athlete, who invites others, and not without success, to try his system of physical development, shows that the fa&e idea of perfection which obtained for so many years, and which demanded huge and knobby muscles of Its disciples, has not yet quite died out. This type of manly perfection, once useful perhaps to hang armor upon, was thought to possess the sanction of the golden age of artistry when the lubberly Farnese Hercules came to light, to be hailed as a supreme product of the Greeks. We know it now for an example of decadent Greek taste, fit companion of the absurd and sensational Laocoon. It is naught but a type of the strong man of vaudeville with his clumsy masses of beef and his brain of a spoiled child, fit only to push his awkward dumb bells into the an enviable sum of achievement truly after a lifetime of work by a civilized human being. No less than strength, are speed and grace demanded of the ideal athletes, likewise a face of refinement and Intelligence to tell of a brain within to comprehend art, music and literature, and the ability to plan victories either of peace or war. Look upon the Apollo Belvidere, which embodies the true dreams of health and mental and physical efficiency, with its face of exquisite beauty above a form whose lines are tranquil poetry, yet shadow forth their readiness to start into sinewy vigor when the call for action comes. Even the Indian, the perfect savage, never resembled the Farnese monstrosity, the emulators of which find their place in modern life so much better filled by the derrick. —New York Medical Record.