The one who sits and stands erect is more likely than others to breathe
properly. But the teacher should impress upon his pupils the importance
of deep breathing. Show how the healthy action of the respiratory
organs, assisting the circulation of the blood, invigorates the whole
system, excites the appetite, promotes digestion, and induces sound,
sweet sleep, thus not only refreshing the body, but soothing and
tranquilizing the mind. And while the importance of deep breathing is
shown, the practise should be insisted upon. Let exercises be given
which will promote this, and see that the habit becomes established.
[Sidenote: _Training of the Voice_]
The training of the voice has an important place in physical culture,
since it tends to expand and strengthen the lungs, and thus to ward off
disease. To insure correct delivery in reading and speaking, see that
the abdominal muscles have full play in breathing, and that the
respiratory organs are unrestricted. Let the strain come on the muscles
of the abdomen, rather than on those of the throat. Great weariness and
serious disease of the throat and lungs may thus be prevented. Careful
attention should be given to securing distinct articulation, smooth,
well-modulated tones, and a not-too-rapid delivery. This will not only
promote health, but will add greatly to the agreeableness and efficiency
of the student’s work.
[Sidenote: _Healthful Dress_]
In teaching these things a golden opportunity is afforded for showing
the folly and wickedness of tight-lacing, and every other practise that
restricts vital action. An almost endless train of disease results from
unhealthful modes of dress, and careful instruction on this point should
be given. Impress upon the pupils the danger of allowing the clothing to
weigh on the hips or to compress any organ of the body. The dress should
be so arranged that a full respiration can be taken, and the arms be
raised above the head without difficulty. The cramping of the lungs not
only prevents their development, but hinders the processes of digestion
and circulation, and thus weakens the whole body. All such practises
lessen both physical and mental power, thus hindering the student’s
advancement, and often preventing his success.
[Sidenote: _Cleanliness, Sunlight, Ventilation_]
In the study of hygiene the earnest teacher will improve every
opportunity to show the necessity of perfect cleanliness both in
personal habits and in all one’s surroundings. The value of the daily
bath in promoting health and in stimulating mental action, should be
emphasized. Attention should be given also to sunlight and ventilation,
the hygiene of the sleeping-room and the kitchen. Teach the pupils that
a healthful sleeping-room, a thoroughly clean kitchen, and a tastefully
arranged, wholesomely supplied table, will go farther toward securing
the happiness of the family and the regard of every sensible visitor
than any amount of expensive furnishing in the drawing-room. That “the
life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment,”[323] is a
lesson no less needed now than when given by the divine Teacher eighteen
hundred years ago.
[Sidenote: _Knowledge Put to Use_]
The student of physiology should be taught that the object of his study
is not merely to gain a knowledge of facts and principles. This alone
will prove of little benefit. He may understand the importance of
ventilation; his room may be supplied with pure air; but unless he fills
his lungs properly, he will suffer the results of imperfect respiration.
So the necessity of cleanliness may be understood, and needful
facilities may be supplied; but all will be without avail unless put to
use. The great requisite in teaching these principles is to impress the
pupil with their importance, so that he will conscientiously put them in
practise.
[Sidenote: _The Body God’s Dwelling-place_]
By a most beautiful and impressive figure, God’s word shows the regard
He places upon our physical organism, and the responsibility resting on
us to preserve it in the best condition: “Know ye not that your body is
a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and
ye are not your own.” “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall
God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”[324]
Let pupils be impressed with the thought that the body is a temple in
which God desires to dwell; that it must be kept pure, the abiding-place
of high and noble thoughts. As in the study of physiology they see that
they are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made,”[325] they will be
inspired with reverence. Instead of marring God’s handiwork, they will
have an ambition to make all that is possible of themselves, in order to
fulfil the Creator’s glorious plan. Thus they will come to regard
obedience to the laws of health, not as a matter of sacrifice or
self-denial, but as it really is, an inestimable privilege and blessing.
_Temperance and Dietetics_
“EVERY MAN THAT STRIVETH
FOR THE MASTERY IS TEMPERATE
IN ALL THINGS”
[Sidenote: _Plain Living; High Thinking_]
Every student needs to understand the relation between plain living and
high thinking. It rests with us individually to decide whether our lives
shall be controlled by the mind or by the body. The youth must, each for
himself, make the choice that shapes his life; and no pains should be
spared that he may understand the forces with which he has to deal, and
the influences which mould character and destiny.
[Sidenote: _Prevention of Intemperance_]
Intemperance is a foe against which all need to be guarded. The rapid
increase of this terrible evil should arouse every lover of his race to
warfare against it. The practise of giving instruction on temperance
topics in the schools is a move in the right direction. Instruction in
this line should be given in every school and in every home. The youth
and children should understand the effect of alcohol, tobacco, and other
like poisons, in breaking down the body, beclouding the mind, and
sensualizing the soul. It should be made plain that no one who uses
these things can long possess the full strength of his physical, mental,
or moral faculties.
[Sidenote: _Causes of Intemperance_]
But in order to reach the root of intemperance we must go deeper than
the use of alcohol or tobacco. Idleness, lack of aim, or evil
associations, may be the predisposing cause. Often it is found at the
home table, in families that account themselves strictly temperate.
Anything that disorders digestion, that creates undue mental excitement,
or in any way enfeebles the system, disturbing the balance of the mental
and the physical powers, weakens the control of the mind over the body,
and thus tends toward intemperance. The downfall of many a promising
youth might be traced to unnatural appetites created by an unwholesome
diet.
[Sidenote: _Stimulating Diet_]
Tea and coffee, condiments, confectionery, and pastries are all active
causes of indigestion. Flesh-food also is harmful. Its naturally
stimulating effect should be a sufficient argument against its use; and
the almost universally diseased condition of animals makes it doubly
objectionable. It tends to irritate the nerves and to excite the
passions, thus giving the balance of power to the lower propensities.
Those who accustom themselves to a rich, stimulating diet, find after a
time that the stomach is not satisfied with simple food. It demands that
which is more and more highly seasoned, pungent, and stimulating. As the
nerves become disordered and the system weakened, the will seems
powerless to resist the unnatural craving. The delicate coating of the
stomach becomes irritated and inflamed until the most stimulating food
fails of giving relief. A thirst is created that nothing but strong
drink will quench.
[Sidenote: _Self-Control the Safeguard_]
It is the beginnings of evil that should be guarded against. In the
instruction of the youth the effect of apparently small deviations from
the right should be made very plain. Let the student be taught the value
of a simple, healthful diet in preventing the desire for unnatural
stimulants. Let the habit of self-control be early established. Let the
youth be impressed with the thought that they are to be masters, and not
slaves. Of the kingdom within them God has made them rulers, and they
are to exercise their Heaven-appointed kingship. When such instruction
is faithfully given, the results will extend far beyond the youth
themselves. Influences will reach out that will save thousands of men
and women who are on the very brink of ruin.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Diet and Mental Development_]
The relation of diet to intellectual development should be given far
more attention than it has received. Mental confusion and dulness are
often the result of errors in diet.
It is frequently urged that, in the selection of food, appetite is a
safe guide. If the laws of health had always been obeyed, this would be
true. But through wrong habits, continued from generation to generation,
appetite has become so perverted that it is constantly craving some
hurtful gratification. As a guide it can not now be trusted.
[Sidenote: _Nutrient Value of Foods_]
In the study of hygiene, students should be taught the nutrient value of
different foods. The effect of a concentrated and stimulating diet, also
of foods deficient in the elements of nutrition, should be made plain.
Tea and coffee, fine-flour bread, pickles, coarse vegetables, candies,
condiments, and pastries fail of supplying proper nutriment. Many a
student has broken down as the result of using such foods. Many a puny
child, incapable of vigorous effort of mind or body, is the victim of an
impoverished diet. Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, in proper
combination, contain all the elements of nutrition; and when properly
prepared, they constitute the diet that best promotes both physical and
mental strength.
[Sidenote: _Selection; Combination_]
There is need to consider not only the properties of the food but its
adaptation to the eater. Often food that can be eaten freely by persons
engaged in physical labor must be avoided by those whose work is chiefly
mental. Attention should be given also to the proper combination of
foods. By brain-workers and others of sedentary pursuits, but few kinds
should be taken at a meal.
And overeating, even of the most wholesome food, is to be guarded
against. Nature can use no more than is required for building up the
various organs of the body, and excess clogs the system. Many a student
is supposed to have broken down from overstudy, when the real cause was
overeating. While proper attention is given to the laws of health, there
is little danger from mental taxation; but in many cases of so-called
mental failure, it is the overcrowding of the stomach that wearies the
body and weakens the mind.
[Sidenote: _Regularity in Eating and Sleeping_]
In most cases, two meals a day are preferable to three. Supper, when
taken at an early hour, interferes with the digestion of the previous
meal. When taken later, it is not itself digested before bedtime. Thus
the stomach fails of securing proper rest. The sleep is disturbed, the
brain and nerves are wearied, the appetite for breakfast is impaired,
the whole system is unrefreshed, and is unready for the day’s duties.
The importance of regularity in the time for eating and sleeping should
not be overlooked. Since the work of building up the body takes place
during the hours of rest, it is essential, especially in youth, that
sleep should be regular and abundant.
So far as possible, we should avoid hurried eating. The shorter the time
for a meal, the less should be eaten. It is better to omit a meal than
to eat without proper mastication.
[Sidenote: _A Social Season_]
Meal-time should be a season for social intercourse and refreshment.
Everything that can burden or irritate should be banished. Let trust and
kindliness and gratitude to the Giver of all good be cherished, and the
conversation will be cheerful, a pleasant flow of thought that will
uplift without wearying.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Benefits of Temperance_]
The observance of temperance and regularity in all things has a
wonderful power. It will do more than circumstances or natural
endowments in promoting that sweetness and serenity of disposition which
count so much in smoothing life’s pathway. At the same time the power of
self-control thus acquired will be found one of the most valuable of
equipments for grappling successfully with the stern duties and
realities that await every human being.
Wisdom’s “ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are
peace.”[326] Let every youth in our land, with the possibilities before
him of a destiny higher than that of crowned kings, ponder the lesson
conveyed in the words of the wise man, “Blessed art thou, O land,
when ... thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for
drunkenness!”[327]
_Recreation_
“TO EVERYTHING THERE IS
A SEASON”
[Sidenote: _Recreation; Amusement_]
There is a distinction between recreation and amusement. Recreation,
when true to its name, re-creation, tends to strengthen and build up.
Calling us aside from our ordinary cares and occupations, it affords
refreshment for mind and body, and thus enables us to return with new
vigor to the earnest work of life. Amusement, on the other hand, is
sought for the sake of pleasure, and is often carried to excess; it
absorbs the energies that are required for useful work, and thus proves
a hindrance to life’s true success.
[Sidenote: _Physical Inaction; the Child_]
The whole body is designed for action; and unless the physical powers
are kept in health by active exercise, the mental powers can not long be
used to their highest capacity. The physical inaction which seems almost
inevitable in the schoolroom—together with other unhealthful
conditions—makes it a trying place for children, especially for those of
feeble constitution. Often the ventilation is insufficient. Ill-formed
seats encourage unnatural positions, thus cramping the action of the
lungs and the heart. Here little children have to spend from three to
five hours a day, breathing air that is laden with impurity and perhaps
infected with the germs of disease. No wonder that in the schoolroom the
foundation of lifelong illness is so often laid. The brain, the most
delicate of all the physical organs, and that from which the nervous
energy of the whole system is derived, suffers the greatest injury. By
being forced into premature or excessive activity, and this under
unhealthful conditions, it is enfeebled, and often the evil results are
permanent.
[Sidenote: _Outdoor Life for Children_]
Children should not be long confined within doors, nor should they be
required to apply themselves closely to study until a good foundation
has been laid for physical development. For the first eight or ten years
of a child’s life the field or garden is the best schoolroom, the mother
the best teacher, nature the best lesson-book. Even when the child is
old enough to attend school, his health should be regarded as of greater
importance than a knowledge of books. He should be surrounded with the
conditions most favorable to both physical and mental growth.
[Sidenote: _Physical Inaction; the Student_]
The child is not alone in the danger from want of air and exercise. In
the higher as well as the lower schools these essentials to health are
still too often neglected. Many a student sits day after day in a close
room bending over his books, his chest so contracted that he can not
take a full, deep breath, his blood moving sluggishly, his feet cold,
his head hot. The body not being sufficiently nourished, the muscles are
weakened, and the whole system is enervated and diseased. Often such
students become lifelong invalids. They might have come from school with
increased physical as well as mental strength, had they pursued their
studies under proper conditions, with regular exercise in the sunlight
and the open air.
[Sidenote: _Mental Effect_]
The student who with limited time and means is struggling to gain an
education should realize that time spent in physical exercise is not
lost. He who continually pores over his books will find, after a time,
that the mind has lost its freshness. Those who give proper attention to
physical development will make greater advancement in literary lines
than they would if their entire time were devoted to study.
By pursuing one line of thought exclusively, the mind often becomes
unbalanced. But every faculty may be safely exercised if the mental and
physical powers are equally taxed, and the subjects of thought are
varied.
[Sidenote: _Moral Effect_]
Physical inaction lessens not only mental but moral power. The brain
nerves that connect with the whole system are the medium through which
heaven communicates with man, and affects the inmost life. Whatever
hinders the circulation of the electric current in the nervous system,
thus weakening the vital powers and lessening mental susceptibility,
makes it more difficult to arouse the moral nature.
Again, excessive study, by increasing the flow of blood to the brain,
creates morbid excitability that tends to lessen the power of
self-control, and too often gives sway to impulse or caprice. Thus the
door is opened to impurity. The misuse or nonuse of the physical powers
is largely responsible for the tide of corruption that is overspreading
the world. “Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness,” are as
deadly foes to human progress in this generation as when they led to the
destruction of Sodom.
Teachers should understand these things, and should instruct their
pupils in these lines. Teach the students that right living depends on
right thinking, and that physical activity is essential to purity of
thought.
[Sidenote: _Gymnastic Exercises_]
The question of suitable recreation for their pupils is one that
teachers often find perplexing. Gymnastic exercises fill a useful place
in many schools; but without careful supervision they are often carried
to excess. In the gymnasium many youth, by their attempted feats of
strength, have done themselves lifelong injury.
[Sidenote: _Tendency of Sports_]
Exercise in a gymnasium, however well conducted, can not supply the
place of recreation in the open air, and for this our schools should
afford better opportunity. Vigorous exercise the pupils must have. Few
evils are more to be dreaded than indolence and aimlessness. Yet the
tendency of most athletic sports is a subject of anxious thought to
those who have at heart the well-being of the youth. Teachers are
troubled as they consider the influence of these sports both on the
student’s progress in school and on his success in after-life. The games
that occupy so much of his time are diverting the mind from study. They
are not helping to prepare the youth for practical, earnest work in
life. Their influence does not tend toward refinement, generosity, or
real manliness.
[Sidenote: _Football and Boxing_]
Some of the most popular amusements, such as football and boxing, have
become schools of brutality. They are developing the same
characteristics as did the games of ancient Rome. The love of
domination, the pride in mere brute force, the reckless disregard of
life, are exerting upon the youth a power to demoralize that is
appalling.
Other athletic games, though not so brutalizing, are scarcely less
objectionable, because of the excess to which they are carried. They
stimulate the love of pleasure and excitement, thus fostering a distaste
for useful labor, a disposition to shun practical duties and
responsibilities. They tend to destroy a relish for life’s sober
realities and its tranquil enjoyments. Thus the door is opened to
dissipation and lawlessness, with their terrible results.
[Sidenote: _Parties of Pleasure_]
As ordinarily conducted, parties of pleasure also are a hindrance to
real growth, either of mind or of character. Frivolous associations,
habits of extravagance, of pleasure-seeking, and too often of
dissipation, are formed, that shape the whole life for evil. In place of
such amusements, parents and teachers can do much to supply diversions
wholesome and life-giving.
[Sidenote: _Simple Habits in Earlier Ages_]
In this, as in all things else that concern our well-being, Inspiration
has pointed the way. In early ages, with the people who were under God’s
direction, life was simple. They lived close to the heart of nature.
Their children shared in the labor of the parents, and studied the
beauties and mysteries of nature’s treasure-house. And in the quiet of
field and wood they pondered those mighty truths handed down as a sacred
trust from generation to generation. Such training produced strong men.
In this age, life has become artificial, and men have degenerated. While
we may not return fully to the simple habits of those early times, we
may learn from them lessons that will make our seasons of recreation
what the name implies,—seasons of true upbuilding for body and mind and
soul.
[Sidenote: _Outdoor Occupations_]
With the question of recreation the surroundings of the home and the
school have much to do. In the choice of a home or the location of a
school these things should be considered. Those with whom mental and
physical well-being is of greater moment than money or the claims and
customs of society, should seek for their children the benefit of
nature’s teaching, and recreation amidst her surroundings. It would be a
great aid in educational work could every school be so situated as to
afford the pupils land for cultivation, and access to the fields and
woods.
[Sidenote: _The Teacher’s Co-operation_]
In lines of recreation for the student, the best results will be
attained through the personal co-operation of the teacher. The true
teacher can impart to his pupils few gifts so valuable as the gift of
his own companionship. It is true of men and women, and how much more of
youth and children, that only as we come in touch through sympathy can
we understand them; and we need to understand in order most effectively
to benefit. To strengthen the tie of sympathy between teacher and
student there are few means that count so much as pleasant association
together outside the schoolroom. In some schools the teacher is always
with his pupils in their hours of recreation. He unites in their
pursuits, accompanies them in their excursions, and seems to make
himself one with them. Well would it be for our schools were this
practise more generally followed. The sacrifice demanded of the teacher
would be great, but he would reap a rich reward.
No recreation helpful only to themselves will prove so great a blessing
to the children and youth as that which makes them helpful to others.
Naturally enthusiastic and impressible, the young are quick to respond
to suggestion. In planning for the culture of plants, let the teacher
seek to awaken an interest in beautifying the school-grounds and the
schoolroom. A double benefit will result. That which the pupils seek to
beautify they will be unwilling to have marred or defaced. A refined
taste, a love of order, and a habit of care-taking will be encouraged;
and the spirit of fellowship and co-operation developed will prove to
the pupils a lifelong blessing.
[Sidenote: _Encourage Helpfulness_]
So also a new interest may be given to the work of the garden or the
excursion in field or wood, as the pupils are encouraged to remember
those shut in from these pleasant places, and to share with them the
beautiful things of nature.