Address on physical training : (given at Johannesburg on Tuesday, August 29, 1905, Sir Richard C. Jebb ... in the chair) / by Sir Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Address on physical training : (given at Johannesburg on Tuesday, August 29, 1905, Sir Richard C. Jebb ... in the chair) / by Sir Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the bursting of a blood vessel in the brain may completely destroy the most magnificent intellect, and reduce it to the level of the infant. The close connection between the mind and the body is also shown by a number of everyday observa- tions. A person who is unaccustomed to read will often move his lips involuntarily, silently framing the words, and thus helping his comprehension of what he is reading. A child learning to write, puts out his tongue, because the nerve centres for the tongue and fingers adjoin one another in the brain, and the excessive action of the one spreads to the other. This close connection was recognised by the ancient Greeks, and I have been informed by one of the greatest authorities on the subject, Sir Eichard Jebb, that during the most flourish- ing period of Greek literature and the highest range of Greek thoughts, not only was the winner at the Olympian Games regarded with the greatest admiration by the people as a very successful cricketer is at the present day amongst us, but that physical training was universal, every one having to go through it. It may be held that too much physical training interferes with mental activity and development, and no doubt excessive devotion to sport and exercise may have this effect, but this is a consequence of the abuse and not of the use of physical training, and Socrates thought no less philo- sophically because he had great powers of physical endurance, and would have gained a V.C. for the rescue of his friend Alcibiades if he had been serving now in the British Army. The Greeks have left us two models of physical development of entirely different kinds. The one is the Farnese Hercules, and the other is that of the Apollo Belvidere, and the sister statue the Diana of Versailles. The Hercules figures a man of enormous bulk with the muscles standing out like lumps upon his trunk and arms, yet he is leaning lazily, almost drowsily, on Ids huge club as if he could hardly support the weight of his own body. In the Apollo, on the other hand, we see a model of perfect symmetry, no muscles too large, none too small, every part of the body adapted to work harmoniously together, and co-operate with the eye in carrying out the dictates of the mind. In the Diana we see the same strength, lightness, pliancy, and
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