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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![moral. Some years ago the country awoke to the necessity of having mental training for every one of its citizens, and the Government insisted upon universal and compulsory education. Into your hands boys and girls of the rising generation are put, and you are required to teach them at least the rudiments of learning. But in making this demand upon you it seems to me that in many cases the Government of Great Britain has been imitating the conduct of Pharoah of old, who demanded that his subjects should make bricks without straw, and you are required to turn out boys and girls up to a certain standard of learning when their feeble bodies and impoverished brains are incapable of assimilating the knowledge you impart. But how is this difficulty to be amended ; how are the children to become stronger and better in body and mind so that they may learn ? Here, again, when we try to answer this question we come back to the teachers. As shown by the report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, three of the most potent factors for evil are (1) over-crowding, (2) alcoholism, and (3) insufficient or imperfect food ; and it is in your hands, ladies and gentlemen, that the remedies for these, evils in very great measure lie. The conditions of overcrowding may no doubt be lessened by legislative measures, but, as the report says, the permanent difficulties that attach to the problem reside in the character of the people themselves, tlieir feebleness and incompetence, their reluctance to move, their incapability of learning, and in the obstacle this presents to the best directed efforts on the part of the local authority to employ their powers. It is almost hopeless to deal with grown up people who present these qualities. You cannot remake them, and one's great hope lies in the next generation, in teaching the children while at school the benefits of fresh air, the necessity for ventilation, and the advantages of exercise Migration fkoji the Country. The overcrowding is ])artly, at least, consequent upon the great immigration from the country into towns. This is so great that, as the report says, for every person wlio in 1851](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21358497_0098.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
