Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/489

Rh are involved, so that individual skill must be subordinated to the good of the whole body of players. The individual must repress and control self and observe law. Children have the same discipline in their play when they engage in games requiring the observance of rules.

This mental element in games assigns to them the first place in any rational system of physical culture. The grind of the gymnasium is so distasteful to the generality of people that gymnastic exercise, whether free or with apparatus, is only sought as a last resort. But gymnasium work can be made interesting by variety and by competitions. By being made also a preparatory training for athletic sports, gymnastic exercises can be given an interest and a power which they would fail to possess if taken only from a sense of duty.

The more complete the exercise is for the whole system, the more complete is this development of the mind through the body. Therefore all supervision of the exercise of children should be in the line of removing obstacles to the free exercise of every muscle of the body. Care should be used to guard against the compression of any part of the body by tight clothing. Badly fitting, uncomfortable shoes often make the movements of the feet and lower limbs a torture, affecting, unfortunately, the carriage of the whole person, and producing ungraceful habits of walking.

The connection between the body and mind is so close that the working of every (even the smallest) muscle of the body must leave some trace in the mind. The education of the mind through the body is defective to the extent of every unused muscle. We see this plainly, according to Dr. Luys, quoted by Dr. Faries in his paper read last April: "When a limb has lost its function there is atrophy of certain parts of the gray matter of the brain, due to defective action of the motor cells." So that muscular exercise, besides conducing to the strength of the body, is necessary to the storing of force in the brain and nervous system. But this is not all. The brain has a great deal of its development in consequence of directing and controlling the use of the body through the muscular system. The more extensive this use of the muscles, the more complete the education. Interfere with this education by directing the will too early in life to conscious cerebration by means of books, and you not only check the development of the brain, but you deprive it also of a growth more important than knowledge can give it, and one which no subsequent effort can supply.

In support of this theory of the growth of mind and true brain power during the period of immaturity through the muscular system, I quote from Dr. Ladd's work on Psychology: "All our study hitherto has led us to emphasize greatly the influence