100 PER CENT. EFFICIENCY

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1929, Page 3

100 PER CENT. EFFICIENCY

BUSINESS MEN NEED EXERCISE VALUE OF PHYSICAL CULTURE. “Practical application of the motto, ‘sincerity with efficiency,’ by application of • physical culture will produce 100 per cent, efficient business men,” Mr. Norman- Kerr, a physical culturist, told members of the Auckland Advertising Club at luncheon the other day. Intensely interesting as was the lecture, the practical demonstrations of the effect and mode of development of tho various muscles of the body and the means of improvement of health, given by Mr. Kerr, were even more keenly watched. He illustrated more effectively, too, well-known characteristic poses of sculptures, including those of the discus thrower, the shotputter and one of tho famous Eugene Sandow. In the rush to and from city business, asserted Mr. Kerr, the worker and the businessman generally claimed they could spare no time foi'. health-giving exercise, but one generally found they consequently lost more time by minor illnesses and maladies that could be warded, off by judicious development of physical. condition. The need for exercise must need be expressed through the mind, he declared.

Ho praised athletics as a means of physical development, declaring that the Dominion athletes who attended the last Olympic Games were the best propaganda that New Zealand could have. Those athletes had distinguished themselves in a number of countries and it was hoped that even better results would bo achieved.

Mr. Kerr appealed for the elimination of homework, and thus allow the children to enter into fresh, invigorating out-of-doors games that would build them up constitutionally, and produce a strong race of men and women of the future. Those parents who had tried this scheme had found that the pupils showed a decided improvement, not only in health, but in their school work. The extent to which women w r ere taking up physical culture was a matter for gratification, said Mr. Kerr, who claimed that the woman in the home had just as much responsibility to maintain her physical condition as the single girl.

Mr. Kerr referred to the awkwardness of many city people in walking, which was very apparent to the observer. People did not carry themselves upright and directed no attention to deportment. “Time and money spent in development of the body returns the greatest investment,” added Mr. Kerr. He illustrated the point by referring to the enormous saving effected by big American industrial enterprises in establishing medical and dental departments for the treatment of employees. Formerly each worker had lost an average of nine days annually through minor illnesses, but now the treatment had reduced the absences to a minimum.

Striking demonstrations of muscular development of the chest, arms, back, abdomen, .in relation to healthy vitality, concluded the address..