Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 78.djvu/279

Rh the hearth-stone, into a mere abiding-place, whence the least as well as the greatest must fare forth to earn money for necessities, or, it may be, for useless luxuries. It is true, the best motor education is supplied in the ideal home, on howsoever humble a basis, as that of the pioneer, the farm laborer, the small farmer. Here there is a constant supply of normal stimuli to action, made convenient and necessary by communal interests. Each one, to the youngest child, is called upon to do such things as lie within its capabilities, thus contributing proportionally to the common welfare. This, in its better aspects, can not be surpassed as an educative groundwork. The poorer city dweller, subsisting on ready-made foods and with no outdoors but the street, finds no scope for the primitive actions of digging, chopping wood, carrying water, hence can not develop symmetrically. Even among the well-to-do things are little better. The street, with its many perils from "devil-wagons," trolley cars, etc., is becoming more and more unfit for a playground. The schoolhouse yards sometimes provide space wherein the scholars can give vent to motor impulses, but at best these are wholly inadequate. Even the very rich city dweller is poor in opportunities in comparison with the country child, who has access to a bit of woodland and a farm-yard.

Look at any lot of city school children and you will find, with only moderate scrutinizing, a pitiable array of asymmetries, local weaknesses, evidences of inadequate development. They are handicapped from the cradle; weighed down with damaging tendencies to stoop, to slouch, to impair the chest, in which the heart and lungs must have space; to tilt downward the pelvis, which is the key to the nutritive organs.

No fuller argument is needed to establish my contention that all children, especially those of the cities, require not only ample opportunities to expand and develop, especially by exercise, as in plays and games, but also specific motor training to correct the perpetual tendency to minor deformities.

The most thorough method of acquiring both mental and physical efficiency is by systematic motor education. We may then outline how this can best be achieved. Always the play impulse should be encouraged. Amusement-games alone, however, often lead to listlessness, spiritlessness, impassivity, aimlessness, at best but negative qualities. Competitive games accomplish much more where there are able leaders to animate and direct action. The most educative factor is to stimulate the motor centers by enforcing precision of movement. A few exact movements conscientiously performed accomplish more for accurate coordination than hours of listless, half-hearted movements. Routine, monotony, repetitions, weary minds and fatigue bodies. Always it is the degree of spontaneity, the heartiness of response, the candor of cooperation, which make for progressive invigoration.

Hence the ideal educational agency, not only of gross motion, but