If there is any virtue in advertising, and a journalist should be the last person to say that there is not, the American nation is rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency the likes of which the world has probably not seen since the days of Sparta. In every American newspaper and every American monthly magazine there are countless illustrated advertisements for "physical culture specialists" who guarantee to make every organ of the body perform its duties with the mighty precision of a 60-hp car that never breaks down.