Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/488

474 is fitted with other muscles to roll it in the socket and to direct it on objects which the will commands it to see. Then, too, there is the sense of touch, which, with sight, gives us knowledge of the outside world. How could it give us such complete information of our environment were it not supplemented by the muscles of the outstretched arm and the feeling hand? Our hearing is better because we have muscles to enable us to turn the head that we may listen. Smell and taste are more efficient because they are supplemented by muscles appropriate to their functions.

Then, if we take our social life, how large a part of it is dependent on speech! And speech itself would be impossible without the muscular power of taking and expelling breath and the movement of the muscles of the larynx. Without muscles the hand of the writer could not produce our books any more than the cunning hand of the artificer could work out the inventions of this inventive age. Knowledge itself, then, is dependent on muscles and the power of muscles on motion.

It is, therefore, a wise provision of Nature which implants in children a desire for play. By their very instincts they seek motion, and the exercise and growth of their bodies through motion.

But does the good effect of exercise end in the body? Is that simply larger and stronger? The mind, too, has its share of good. In the first place, the brain and nervous system are supplied with blood and more of it. The repair of the waste is more completely made. This of itself is one great gain. But in all use of the voluntary muscles there is, as the term implies, a necessary putting forth of will. The mind is exercised while the body works. And this is especially true in all exercises which require skill, in which the mind has an object to gain through the skillful use of the body. This mental element comes in very early in a child's life—as, for instance, in learning to walk, to swim, or to write. All through the years of childhood it accompanies motions in games, most mind being required in those games which require most skill. So those gymnastic exercises which call for combinations of muscles in action, and need quickness and exactness, are more useful for the majority of children and men than those requiring the use of strength alone. For, to attain success in games or exercises of skill, not only quickness of body is needed, but an alertness of mind, and often, too, quickness of the senses of sight and hearing. This mental element in certain athletic games explains, in a measure, their fascination. They furnish an exercise not for the body alone, but for the whole man every part of his being, including his mind, his social nature, and even his moral nature, coming into play. This is particularly the case in games in which a number of players