Collected papers on physical and military training / by Sir Lauder Brunton.
- Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
- Date:
- 1915
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Collected papers on physical and military training / by Sir Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![had unconsciously begun to work. When a few notes had been made in. this way the skeleton of a speech lay before everyone, and not to deliver it was to suffer from that acute disease which is epidemic in the House of Commons— suppressed speech. Before the evening was over almost everyone had said something. For nearly three hours the discussion went on, at times two or three persons trying to talk at once, and when the end came the subject was left unwillingly. This surely was a triumph. And the opinions of such men as the Bishop, Lord Grey, Lord Glenesk, Sir Henry Craik (the president of the recent Scottish Commission on Physical Education), Sir Frederick Maurice, Mr. Maxse, and Professor Clifford Allbutt were worth hearing. The Bishop dealt chiefly with the alleged decline of the birth-rate all over the Empire. He did not say it was proved; he said it was a proper and urgent subject for inquiry. Is the decline a sign of greater thrift and prudence ? Is it due to the postponement of marriage ? If so, he argued, there is nothing to say. But is it not possible that sterility increases with civilisation ? If so, we face the fact that in this Imperial age the races which Imperialism wishes to see grow are dwindling or are stationary, while the very races which Imperialism wishes to see dwindle are increasing. As for our physique, the Bishop spoke chiefly of the rush to the towns, certainly a contributory cause to deterioration which has the advantage of impressing itself at once on the popular fancy. Another speaker hoped to see the conveyance of power by electricity make it possible to scatter our factories—the interesting view of the wholesome optimist which that speaker often declai-es himself to be. But he was prepared to go any lengths to repopulate the country, even the length of abandoning Free Trade, which he professed to cherish. Soon the discussion settled on food, and there was a point made here which did not appear in your recent articles on physical training—namely, that proper feeding is not merely the necessary pi-ecedent to proper physical exercise, but that ])hysical exercise is the necessary precedent to the proper assimilation of food in tlic body. Tl^e Qost of milk-feeding was a subject on wlucli tl^cre](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21358497_0088.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
