Student body

“ Any large body of students stifles the student. No man can instruct more than half-a-dozen students at once. ”

“ Third, that the training of the bodily system should form a regular part of our common-school education,—every common school being provided with a well-instructed teacher of gymnastics; and the growth and development of each pupil's body being as much noticed and marked as is now the growth of his mind. The same course should be continued and enlarged in colleges and female seminaries, which should have professors of hygiene appointed to give thorough instruction concerning the laws of health. ”

“ Although no effort has been spared to bring this work within the comprehension of the pupil, its success in the classroom will depend largely upon the method of handling the subject by the teacher. It is recommended, therefore, that the relations which the different organs and processes sustain to each other, and to the body as a whole, be given special prominence. The pupil should be impressed with the essential unity of the body and should see in the diversity of its activities the serving of a common purpose. ”

“ Hygiene, nature study, civics, manual training and domestic science have all been called upon to enrich the elementary school curriculum.
The nineteenth century physiology—names of muscles and bones, symptoms of diseases and the like—has been replaced in the twentieth century schools by a physiology which aims to teach that the body is worth caring for and developing into something of which every boy and girl may be proud. ”

“ After six or seven years of age, both boys and girls are to be consigned over to schoolmasters of a mild and benevolent disposition; as such persons will impart instruction to them in a cheerful manner, and without constraint; for relaxation of the mind contributes much to the growth of the body. Boys twelve years of age should go to teachers of grammar and geometry, and get their bodies hardened by gymnastic exercises. ”

“ The school, recognizing this fact, is making a vigorous effort to break the shell of custom, which has confined its activities to purely intellectual pursuits, and provide a physical training which will lead the school child to perfect normal body growth, as well as normal growth of mind. Even in its intellectual activity the school is recognizing the importance of making the child mind an active machine for thought, rather than a passive storehouse for information. Though less emphasized, the training for sensual growth is becoming of ever increasing importance in the new education. ”

“ We cannot escape the fact that children have bodies. The first duty of the schools, therefore, is to recognize the existence of these bodies by giving them due attention, particularly at the crucial periods of physical [46] growth. Therefore every school must provide as much physical training as is necessary to insure normal body growth at each particular age. ”

“ After a few years thus passed in corresponding and healthful development of the mind and body, the pupil is prepared for admission to the advanced schools, where he can submit, with perfect safety, to greater mental requirements even than are now made. ”

“ On the contrary, it is probable that the teacher's opportunity will make even a stronger appeal to competent men and women after physical soundness and vitality are made conditions of teaching,—after we all believe what leading educators now believe, that the highest fulfillment of human possibilities requires a normal, sound body, abounding in vitality. ”

“ In such recently founded institutions as Leland Stanford and Chicago Universities, the chair of physical training has been among the first to be filled, and the gymnasium has followed close upon the library.
The wisdom of this new departure in college education is apparent. Many a student is physically defective when he enters upon the course of study. ”

“ I desire and direct that the physical training of the scholars shall be carefully attended to, that they shall have proper exercise and recreation, so that so far as such a result can be brought about by training and care, each one may grow up with a sound mind in a sound body. ”

“ As a school of posture for art, its varieties are extremely manifold and by no means developed, for it contains every kind of emphasis of every part and calls out every muscle group and attitude of the human body; hence its training is most generic and least specialized, and victories have been won by very many kinds of excellence. ”

“ Teachers are responsible for right habits of posture. If seats need to be adjusted, the teacher should note the fact and notify the principal. Although special cases may demand expert advice and care, the teacher must hold herself responsible for the posture of the majority of the class. Defects of vision may be either the cause or the effect of improper position of the body, and should bring from the teacher an urgent appeal for careful examination and correction. ”

“ All students of the college have a full course of instruction in the outlines of human anatomy and physiology, with so much of hygiene as there is time for; and this has been done in the college for nearly half a century. We do not profess to be a medical college, or to train physicians, but no student leaves us without a fair knowledge of his own bodily system. ”

“ Ill-constructed benches may not only distort the body, but, by reflex influence, the mind as well. Conditions like these seldom fail to disgust the learner with his school, and neutralize the best efforts of his teachers. On the other hand, neat, comfortable places for study may help to awaken the associations enchaining the mind and the heart to learning and virtuous instruction with links of gold brightening forever. ”

“ The moral effect of a physical requirement would be to throw the responsibility for physical condition back upon the parent, the preparatory schools and teachers, as well as upon the pupil himself. In my opinion a large part of the community is already prepared to meet this responsibility, as is indicated by the improved physical condition of the average student when he enters college. ”

“ Gymnasiums for the body, conducted by men who have made themselves masters of anatomy and physiology, should be an essential feature in every school, so that ignorance and the desire to excel may not lead to putting a strain upon the system calculated materially to injure organs which need careful and judicious development. Plays, games, dancing, marching and the gymnasium all require the careful supervision of a teacher well versed in a practical knowledge of the human system, and thoroughly appreciative of the great truth, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.” ”

“ Another point for which the school looks in recommending its students is physical fitness, which shows itself in many different ways: in voice, in carriage, in attractiveness, [Pg 111] in staying power. One teacher who had an excellent record as a student and was, besides, a fine girl, had so unpleasant and absurd a voice that her students were in a continual state of amusement and would learn nothing from her. A great many teachers have lost in power because of a poor voice, strident, or lifeless, or husky, or falsetto. ”

“ While all schools realize the importance of healthy pupils, the possibilities of using the activities of the child that are employed in giving him a strong healthy body, for general educational purposes, are not so well understood. As yet it is the pioneer in education who realizes the extent to which young children learn through the use of their bodies, and the impossibility291 of insuring general intelligence through a system which does not use the body to teach the mind and the mind to teach the body. ”

“ When the importance of physical culture is as well understood as it should be, there will be a course of training for pupils of all ages in every girls’ school in the land. In the larger cities and towns, provision is now made for physical instruction in many of the High Schools, but in the middle and lower grades, where the foundation should be laid and the work begun, the subject is almost wholly neglected. ”

“ While every effort is made by those in charge of the school to make the students happy and contented, there is yet, an earnest belief in such strictness of discipline, compliance with regular duty, vigorous work with mind and body as shall train the character and fit the students for the important work that is before them in actual life. ”

“ SCHOOL SPIRIT Among the forces which shape young men and women in our educational institutions, none is more potent than that indefinable, intangible, powerful thing we call school spirit, or college spirit, as the case may be. Students are often mistaken in the expression of it, but the spirit is right, though the expression may be wrong. School spirit always represents an unselfish attitude of the student. ”

“ It should be borne in mind that all physical training is a failure unless the aim is to maintain and develop health, to make the student symmetrical, strong, graceful and better fitted for the duties of living. ”

“ The school, as at present constituted, cannot do much for physical education; and it must, as a necessity and a duty, graduate its demands to the physical as well as the intellectual abilities of its pupils. ”

“ When visiting four of these Institutions, we heard that the pupils are not only instructed in the various branches of a first-class education, but that the young ladies are carefully trained in a knowledge of housekeeping also, and of the numerous domestic duties connected with home life. By turns, they each do the portion of the daily work of the establishment assigned to them, both for the sake of learning how it should be done properly, and also that physical exercise may be healthfully combined with the culture of the mind. ”

“ But it is quite possible, as some of you know, to enjoy in the highest degree all healthful sports, and at the same time to be industrious and conscientious in your studies. I am deeply concerned that the boys in this college shall be boys of the best, the highest type; that they “shall walk in the truth.” There are, alas, many boys who have gone through this college, and fully equipped (as well as their teachers could equip them) , have been launched out into life and come to naught. ”

“ After sitting at her desk until her head was hot and her feet were like ice, she would go and look at the blooming young girls exercising in the gymnasium of the school, and feel as if she would give all her knowledge, all her mathematics and strange tongues and history, all those accomplishments that made her the encyclopaedia of every class she belonged to, if she could go through the series of difficult and graceful exercises in which she saw her schoolmates delighting. ”

“ This is true because of its intimate and impressive influence upon all the fundamental organic functions of the body. Physical exercise in the American college is provided either as organized class work in the gymnasium, or by means of voluntary recreational opportunities, or through athletics. ”

“ These examinations should apply to every student in a college or a university, regardless of the division to which he belongs. The need for health instruction or for the establishment of health habits, in order that one may be physically trained for the exigencies of life, is not peculiar to any student age period or to any academic or technicological group, or to a college for men or a college for women. ”

“ Physical fitness in a girl of twenty may, during one short year of teaching, give way to physical unfitness. Therefore the need for periodic tests by principal, superintendent, and school board, to determine the continuing fitness of a teacher to do the special task assigned to her, based upon physical evidence of her own vitality and of her favorable influence upon her pupils' health and enjoyment of school life. Shattered nerves due to overwork may explain a teacher's shouting: "You are a dirty boy. Your mother is a dirty woman and keeps a dirty store where no decent people will go to buy." ”

“ Dear reader, do you remember the boy of your school who did the heavy falling through the ice and was always about to break his neck, but managed to live through it all? Do you call to mind the youth who never allowed anybody else to fall out of a tree and break his collar bone when he could attend to it himself? Every school has to secure the services of such a boy before it can succeed, and so our school had one. ”

“ The prime purpose of collegiate physical training, then, is to furnish the student such information and such habit-forming experiences as will lead him to formulate and practice an intelligent policy of personal health control and an intelligent policy of community health control. ”

“ To promote interest in other Universities, their aims and student life, the compulsory physical training, and methods of working their ways through college, for example, being valuable points for investigation. ”

“ Aside from the curriculum, what is the atmosphere that a boy breathes as soon as he sets foot on a college campus? Is he trained in honesty, in politeness, in high ideals of speech, in lofty conceptions of character? Does he have to obey orders? Is he taught to be neat, prompt, and industrious? Such questions are of things too often taken for granted, and too often lacking. ”

“ The student who has seen the application of class health talks to his everyday problems is likely to be influenced to the practice of consequent health habits, particularly if those short lectures serve to correlate his various habit-forming experiences while in college. ”

“ To pick out one of the many social relations which the child bears, and to define the work of the school by that alone, is like instituting a vast and complicated system of physical exercise which would have for its object simply the development of the lungs and the power of breathing, independent of other organs and functions. ”