ILLITERACY OF THE BODY

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21400, 16 February 1935, Page 17

ILLITERACY OF THE BODY

*- PROFESSOR JACKS'S VIEWS NEED FOR BALANCE IN EDUCATION (FROM OUH OWW CORRESPOSDEST.) LONDON, January 12. "There is something infinitely strange to my mind in the immense efforts that education has made to overcome illiteracy in the ordinary sense of the word, and the very little that has been done to overcome it in the physical sense." This statement was made by Professor L. P. Jacks, previously Principal of Manchester College, Oxford, and Professor of Philosophy, and editor of the Hibbert Journal. The next great step in human education, he said, should be in the direction of integrating the education of the mind and the education of the body and bringing them to the same level of efficiency and dignity. In both the public schools and the State-aided schools physical culture fell outside education proper and was regarded as a kind of beneficent extra. At one large and very expensive school the physical culture instructor was the janitor, and at a school he himself attended the games master took them for such long cross-country runs that they slept at evening "prep." The result was that the- Latin prose next morning was perfectly unspeakable. It was called "taking the devil out of them." It did, but unfortunately it quenched the divine spark at the same time . The physical culture instructor should first and foremost be a humanist and a psychologist. In schools where these new methods were being experimentally tried not only were the lessons more quickly learned and more effectively remembered, but the games also were more skilfully played. Muddled Life "Study a modern crowd, say, at a test match or race meeting and you will see that physical illiteracy is appalling. Physical illiteracy is bound to react unfavourably both on the mental and moral development. "I count physical illiteracy as one of the most distressing phenomena of our urban civilisation. Just as the mental illiterate is cut off from the world of knowledge by his inability to read so the physical illiterate is cut off from the world _ of skill by the undisciplined condition of his body. "The muddled life which so many people lead, muddled mentally and muddied morally, I see reflected in the world chaos. Is it fantastic to suggest that much of that muddle and chaos originated in a muddled condition of the body? "I do not -say that physical culture will turn everyone into a good citizen, but it will decrease the chance of people becoming bad citizens."