President Kennedy has asked that we become a physically fit nation. If we wait until children are in junior high or high school, we will never manage it. To be fit, one has to start early with young children, and today the only person who really reaches such children is the teacher of dance. If the dance teachers of America make it their business to prepare their young charges for the gymnastics that must come some day if our schools are really responsible, we will be that much ahead. School teachers, all too unprepared for the job they must do, will need demonstrators. There should be youngsters who know how to do a headstand, and also how to help other children learn it. They should know simple exercises that could prepare less fortunate children for the sports we will demand be taught.

Dance teachers can respond to President Kennedy's request not only through their regular dance work, but also through the kind of basic gymnastic work that makes for strength and flexibility.

Very little in today's living provides the strength we need, and nothing provides the flexibility. Dancers do have flexibility. They often fail, however, to develop real abdominal, back, chest, shoulder and arm strength. Ask any group of ballerinas to do ten push-ups or three chin-ups and the results, considering the amount of physical training they have had, will be very disappointing. Even the boys will not be outstanding in these areas. This isn't surprising when we consider that over 29 percent of the 11 -- year old boys in America cannot chin themselves once, and that English school girls outdo them in almost every test (even dashes and endurance). The only area in which American boys hold their own is the baseball throw.