Physical education / by Frederick Treves.

  • Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physical education / by Frederick Treves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not possessed of mere rude health and strength. The main pride of the early navigator was his reckless courage and his sturdy endurance. The greatest commander would have proved a man of straw had he not at his call men who shirked no hardship and who felt no fear. It may not be a graceful acknowledgment, but it is none the less true that the power of the English people has depended in no little degree upon those very humble qualities which make ‘ a good animal.’ There is an instinct which impels the human being to seek health in muscular exercise and pleasure in physical exertion. The very restlessness of the child is an expression of this. It is often said of a child that he or she is never still. It is an excellent feature. It is as unreasonable to expect a young lad to keep quiet as to expect him not to cough when he has a cold. The infant jumps and kicks and crows; the child shows its natural promptings by incessant restlessness. The schoolboy, if he be vigorous and healthy, appears to have acquired the art of perpetual movement. The mad rush of a crowd of schoolboys from the schoolroom the moment they are free is characteristic enough and pleasant to witness. The limbs and muscles which have been so long still feel the need of movement as a half suffocated man feels the need of air. The boy who is the first to reach the open air beyond the schoolhouse door has probably not an evil future before him ; he has at least made a good beginning. He, on the other hand, who crawls out last, who feels no irresistible impulse to jump and shout, is in some way abnormal; he is ill in health or imperfect in construction. He may prove an excellent scholar, but the terrible earnestness of the race of life is not best met by mere scholarship. Throughout life there exists in all healthy bodies this natural craving for exercise, and a man may consider that he has reached an unfortunate period in his career when he has ceased to feel that impulse. Muscles can grow only by exercise and by the simple expedient of using them. The disused muscle wastes, and becomes fatty and ansemic. Mus- cular tissue occupies nearly every part of the body, from so delicate a piece of mechanism as the eye to so simple a structure as the biceps humeri. Exercise implies not merely the development of the muscles of the limbs, it implies also the healthy use of the muscle of the heart, of the muscles of respiration, of the muscular tissue of the arteries, and of the muscular ele- ments of all parts capable of movement. Such movement carries with it of necessity an activity in the nervous system, an activity in the secreting organs and in the organs of excretion. Movement, indeed, within proper bounds is essential to the full develop- ment and perfect maintenance of the health of the body. The body is a machine with the peculiar attribute that the more it is used, within reason- able limits, the stronger and more capable it becomes. It gathers strength by movement, and that strength is to be gauged, not by mere muscular force, but by the perfect functional condition of every part and of every organ. Physical Education involves exercise and movement. We know of no other means of developing any portion of the organism, provided that the supply of food and of air be sufficient. Exercise means growth, functional vigour, and the maintenance of a high standard of organic life. Undue rest imphes decay, feebleness, and a debased standard of functional value. Absolute rest is found only in death. Of artificial means of attaining physical perfection there are none. Every structure and tissue must be duly and accurately exercised and kept in proper movement; and this applies as well to the ciliary muscle of the eye as it does to the great flexors of the leg, as well to the peptic glands of the
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