ideas and movement has been recognized by many of our schools of physical education, and in all of our exercises we should endeavor and insist upon real enthusiasm and real purpose before any attempt at expression is allowed.、 The child must have a definite notion of the exercise, and having this definite notion must enter into it with enthusiasm, so that the exercise will accomplish the most possible for him.

I stated that quickness is one of the qualities that should characterize every lesson in physical education. If we do not develop an alertness, not only a physical alertness, but a mental alertness, we are failing signally in our endeavors; if we are not developing grace then we are failing dismally to make more and more possible a ready co-ordination of the muscles as expressive of mental states. Without precision our exercise will be in vain. If the exercises do not promote quickness we are developing as a result a brain lethargy or brain slowness. If our exercises do not develop a certain marked physical grace there is, as a result, a brain slovenliness. If they are not carried on with precision there is, as a result, a brain disorderliness which cannot be eradicated by ordinary schoolroom methods.

Your physical education, to be educative, must have in mind first of all the development of mental symmetry; in the second place you must have in mind development of mental force; in the third place your exercises, to be fruitful of good results, must promote an increased mental activity. These three mental symmetry, mental force, mental activity must enter into every lesson if that lesson is to be educative.

Some have the idea that physical exercises in the schools should be simply ornate or recreative, rather than educative. Many schools have provided for physical exercises in the grades without an intelligent notion of the educational function that this provision is to afford. We are prepared, however, to make this broad declaration, and not without careful thought: that those physical exercises which do not have a part in the real education of the child, the education of his mind and brain, as well as a mere employment of muscles for a few minutes, the ornate movements so fully elaborated without any definite idea of their educational content or purpose, are not only negative as far as educational results are concerned, but are injurious and harmful. Just as some mental exercises are extremely beneficial to the child of ten, and other exercises are negative,and still others are injurious, so certain methods and lessons in physical training may be beneficial to the child, may be totally without result, or may be harmful.

The one supreme test that should measure every lesson in physical education is the educational test. Does this or that exercise give the child a better co-ordinated brain life, a better mental symmetry, increased mental force, accelerated mental activity? Are we developing his brain into that hair-trigger condition that will enable it to respond quickly to outside stimulus as he pursues his other lessons in the school? Are the physical exercises we plan for him of neceseity going to result in a better

sense discrimination, a brighter eye, a keener ear, more delicate touch, better attention, and more tenacious and more spontaneous memory, more accurate judgment and reasoning? If they have not these ends in view then are our efforts misdirected.

My one word to you this afternoon is that our work in physical training should he educative rather than merely recreative, or, better, should be educative and recreative, recreating those impoverished brain cells by furnishing them with rich, newly-oxygenated blood that has been rejuvenated as a result of intelligent lessons in physical education. Not only can these exercises be made to develop and maintain a high order of brain integrity, but it is also true that these physical exercises may be made to obviate mental abnormalities that have already fastened themselves upon the child. The effects of good physical training in the school are to diminish the number of cases of brain disorderliness and the number of dull children. During the past five years I have gathered sufficient evidence to demonstrate that it is unquestionably a fact that in the school without physical training the number of both boys and girls with abnormal nerve signs, such as weak hand balance, lordosis, bagginess under the eyes, spontaneous finger twitches, and wandering eye movement is much larger than in a school with physical training; and furthermore it is true that in the schools without physical training there is always a larger proportion of boys and girls classed by their teachers as "dull pupils," and this cannot be attributed to other causes, such as low nutrition, because the social conditions obtaining in the two schools were the same. It can only be ascribed to the absence of physical training. Physical training, if it is educative, always tends to improve the brain condition of children, prevents and even remedies brain disorderliness, promotes healthy activity of both mind and body, and develops, not only physical grace, quickness, and precision, but develops, furthermore, a mental symmetry, increased mental force, and mental activity. Our physical exercises, to be educative, must be so devised and adjusted as to exercise all parts of the brain. We know that when a muscle is supplied with good blood and is stimulated to action it grows. We also must recognize that the nerve centers of the brain, which stimulate the muscle and initiate its action, are affected at the same time, and that these nerve centers will act on future occasions with more exactness and with greater quickness when the same exercise is to be carried out.

The object of physical exercises in any class in physical training must be to control this or that group of nerve centers in the brain, increasing in this manner the quickness, precision, and association of their activities together. As a result of this, with the proper range of physical activities appealing to all of the brain centers, a well-organized system of physical education cannot help but result in a firm building of a healthy brain, that will always act with integrity.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN OUR

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

HENRY HARTUNG, M. D., MEMBER OF BOARD OF EDUCATION, CHICAGO, ILL.

Physical training in its numerous aspects has gradually come to be a prominent feature in most of our educational institutions, as well as a daily requirement in the life of people of culture. Bicycling, lawn tennis, golf, rowing, swimming, the various ball games, and other popular forms of athletics known and practiced for many years by a privileged few, are more and more indulged in nowadays by the masses. Penal and reformatory institutions have introduced gymnastic exercise as a factor for the moral and physical improvement of their inmates, and have recorded splendid results therefrom. Military schools and academies have made it a part of the training of their pupils. There is hardly any up-to-date physician who does not employ physical exercise, in active or passive form, for many bodily ailments, defects, or functional disturbances. of the different organs of the body.

Business-men, laborers, and people engaged in professional work, men and women, young and old, flock to the gymnasium or practice at home for the purpose of recuperation, stimulation of bodily development, or to counteract the effects of a more or less one-sided health-impairing occupation, to regain that physical vigor, strength, and mental equilibrium which is absolutely necessary for every individual in his everyday struggle for existence.

Our higher institutions of learning have special departments of physical training, placed under the supervision of well-qualified professors, who, by special measurements and prescribed exercise, aim at the physical perfection of every student and prepare the better ones for contests in team work and the higher forms of athletics. At last physical education is also being recognized as a matter of necessity for the education of our children, and is slowly but steadily gaining admission to the curriculum of many school systems.

This great variety of application of physical training naturally implies manifold requirements and ideals, attained only by methods and means specially designed for such special purposes. Thus it can readily be seen that the aim which the physician has in mind does not coincide with that pursued by the college athlete, and that aims and methods adapted to a military training school would not be appropriate for the worn-out business-man who looks to gymnastics for recreation and recuperation only. And again it is obvious that the principles guiding us in the physical training for school children must be different from those that govern any of the other cases.

Unfortunately, tho, we see in many instances our schools invaded

by all sorts of physical-culture enthusiasts and self-constituted specialists, apt to harm the cause of physical education more than to further it. It is thru such people, lacking all qualifications for this particular work, and their faulty, one-sided, and inadequate systems of training, that this important educational branch has come to be looked upon in some cities as a fad, and been justly criticised and ridiculed.

The condition in which we find ourselves at present in regard to physical training may be likened somewhat to that of medicine, where the true and rational art of healing, as practiced by the regular physician, finds itself surrounded by innumerable systems of isms and paths, all-cure people, quacks, and humbugs, who each one detracts as much from the dignity of the medical profession as physical-culture quacks injure the cause of bodily training.

Since we still find a great diversity of opinion as to the fundamental principle for a perfect system of physical culture for our school children, it seems timely and advisable for teachers of this special branch to agree upon some common, rational basis which meets all ordinary requirements for the average graded school of our country.

ITS PROPER PLACE IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

One of the first and most important requirements is to give physical education its proper place in the school curriculum. Our educational ideals are still footing too much in the antiquated conceptions of medieval civilization, when there was no education but that of the mind, when the body belonged to the devil, and was just good enough to be maltreated and chastised by all sorts of tortures. Slowly and gradually this emancipation of the body from its bondage has taken place, and as years advance and progress enlightens we hope that the body will receive its due consideration. It has been in the interest of a certain class of people to keep mankind in darkness and confusion in regard to the proper relationship between body and mind. The world has been taught for centuries that mind and body were two separate beings, existing side by side, and created for independent activities and purposes; the one the slave, the other the master.

Modern science has taught us that man is an organic unit and that there exists a mutual relationship and interdependence between mind and body. It is just as true that mental activities may exert an influence on the body as that physical activities may produce corresponding effects on the mind.

To mention only one instance of the truth of this statement, permit me to call attention to the results of the child-study investigations as carried on with thousands of pupils of St. Louis and Chicago, which have established the fact that there is a distinct relationship, in school children, between physical conditions and intellectual capacity, the latter varying directly as the former.

It is only recently that educators have paid more attention to this process of correlation between physical and mental activities and have begun to recognize it in their methods and theories of teaching.

In all those schools where physical training has been given a permanent place and a fair trial, its great value has been demonstrated and acknowledged. May it suffice to quote in proof hereof a few words from one of the foremost educators and thinkers that America has ever produced, the late lamented Colonel Parker:

It may never be known scientifically what a tremendous influence the body and all its organs, every nerve and muscle, vein and artery, exert upon the brain, and consequently upon the intellect, and the more I see of the good work (of physical culture) in the school, the more I believe in it; the more I study psychology, especially physiological psychology, the stronger my belief becomes in physical training.

AIMS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE SYSTEM

Being convinced of its absolute necessity and extreme value as a factor in modern education, we demand that physical education, with its manifold powers of sensory, motory, and intellectual training, be given just as much attention as mental education, and only when this demand is realized can we ever hope to do justice to the growing child, produce a more harmoniously developed race, and reach a plane of civilization such as had been established thousands of years ago by the people of ancient Hellas.

To attain this lofty ideal it is, first of all, necessary to lift physical culture, or whatever goes by this name at present in many of our school systems, from that inferior position as a remedial or therapeutic agent, as a repair department for sins committed by faulty and obnoxious school methods and ways of living, to a higher level, and place it on a sound foundation as a truly educational department.

Therefore, we consider it the first and foremost requirement of any good system of physical education for our public schools that it have for its aim and object the harmonious development of all the different elements and organs of the child's body, according to well-defined physiological, psychological, and pedagogical laws. As such it must furnish the foundation upon which all the higher mental and moral faculties may be built up. The results to be aimed at by such a rational system of training must be:

1. Health, by which we understand the proper activity of all the organs of the body. 2. Grace and agility, implying the correct carriage of the body, and such control over the neuro-muscular systems as to perform movements of trunk and limbs with the least expenditure of energy and time.

3. Vigor or strength, by virtue of which we train and test the powers of the body to such a degree as not to endanger its health or structures.

4. Training of the special senses, mainly those of sight, hearing, and touch, endeavoring to acquire a multitude of conceptions and correct judgments based on such sensory impressions.