Excerpt from Report on Physical Training: Submitted to the Board of Regents, June 26, 1888

Gentlemen: In accordance with the resolution adopted at a meeting of the Board of Regents, held May 8, 1888, and which read: "Resolved, that Lieutenant Harrison, Professor of Military Science and Tactics, is hereby invited to report to the Board the result of his observations on methods of Physical Culture, in its application to students in military and other colleges, " I have the honor to submit the following:

Although feeling that this task might have been submitted to much more competent hands, I gladly undertake to comply with the request of the Board, for the following reasons:

First. - I am a member of the Standing Committee of the University on Gymnasium.

Second. - I was, at the request of the Board of Regents, sent by the General Government, before reporting for duty at the University, to West Point, to investigate the system of gymnastic training in use at the United States Military Academy.

Third. - As the head of the Department of Military Science, I am much concerned and interested in what pertains to the physical development of the young men of the University.

Fourth.- The great and manifest need to the student body of such course of training.

I am disposed to think that no demonstration is necessary to convince those who have given the subject consideration that a course of physical training is not only of the highest importance, but is an indispensable adjunct to every well regulated modern institution of learning. There is no evading the fact that the strain on the mental fibre of the average student, who makes an honest endeavor to master the advanced and comprehensive curricula of the colleges and universities of the present day, is calculated to undermine the strongest constitution.

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