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xiv cramming undigested facts into the helpless young memory. The cruelty of it! Were food forced into the body as facts are into the mind, so as to produce violent dyspepsia, parents would be compelled to stop. But they will not see the consequent mental dyspepsia and its vile train of intellectual, moral, and physical abnormalties. Improper education stores up useless knowledge as unhealthy living stores up stolid fat, instead of turning it into vigorous muscle.

"By accelerating the circulation of the blood," says a scientific authority, "it facilitates the performance of every function; and so tends alike to increase health when it exists and to restore it when it has been lost." For this changeless reason, the same to-day as a thousand years ago or a thousand years hence, play is a necessity of human nature; and for this reason also play is superior to any regulated form of uninteresting gymnastic exercise. Play is the gymnastics of nature; and that artificial exercise is best which comes nearest to it in interest and amusement. "An agreeable mental excitement has a highly invigorating influence."

Play also makes an equable distribution of action to all parts of the body; the action of gymnastics, falling on special parts, produces fatigue, and if constantly repeated, leads to disproportionate development.