Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1937. PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 110, 19 February 1937, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1937. PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

Leaders in ali departments of the nation’s sports, including six women, are among the thirty-one members selected to serve on the national advisory council appointed by the British Government in connection with the plans for physical training and recreation. The movement, however, is specially directed to encouraging, not so much sports and games, already fairly well provided for, but what to-day is being called physical education. Lord Dawson of Penn recently emphasised that physical education and games should be regarded as complementary. Addressing the International Congress of Physical Medicine, he spoke of the damage done by games to boys and girls, whose spirit outstripped their strength. “Physical education belongs to school hours,” he said, “and games to the hours of recreation. Games cannot replace physical education — rather are they its fulfilment.” In fact there is just as much n6ed for teaching to enable young people-—and older people—to realise their bodily as their mental possibilities. Ever since the war Britain has been seeking to lift the reproach of breeding a C 3 population, and in the last year or two has been laying more and more emphasis on physical education. She has observed the superior physique of the younger generation in several Continental countries. particularly Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, although their standard of living is often below the British. Their secret resides in physical education. Britain accuses herself of neglecting this branch of learning. The pupils of her schools, she finds, may be mentally literate, but the majority are physically illiterate, to use Dr. L. P. Jacks’ phrase. “Not five per cent, of the children in this school,” said one headmaster, “know how to stand, to sit, to walk, to speak or to breathe. Britain is setting out to change all that. She is coming to see that it will be true national economy to teach fitness instead of supporting the unfit. An estimate that physical unfitness is costing Great Britain about £220,000.000 a year has been made by a professor of public health at Edinburgh. This is a huge sum, but when the known cost of hospital services, invalidity pensions and the like is taken into account it is clear that there are heavy charges for not keeping the body at par. Many New Zealanders are inclined to think there is less need in this country for physical education than in Britain. Certainly we have been greatly favoured — plenty of open space, playing fields, rivers, lakes and beaches, fresh air from the oceans, sunshine, plenty of good food and many other good gifts from nature. Yet, if the reports of school medical officers be read, or an observant eye kept on juvenile and adult physique, the conclusion cannot be escaped that standards are not as high— not nearly as high —as they should be and could be. The remedy appears to be the proper organisation of physical education.