EDUCATION AND SPORT AIDS TO HEALTH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3129, 7 August 1922, Page 7

EDUCATION AND SPORT AIDS TO HEALTH.

The annual Congress of the Royal Institute of Health, held at Home at the beginning of June brought into prominence the need for education and true sport as aids in promoting the health of a nation. The first of -these was urged in order to banish ignorance and the second as a means of physical development. , , , Viscountess Astor, who was unable to attend, sent an interesting letter, which she pleaded until she had a little breathing space. She pleaded for increased educational work, and added. “I believe at one time it was considered rather relined to suffer from delicate health, especially for ladies of fashion. Perhaps there are still some people who find something positively attractive about ill-health, and something really thrilling about symptoms. A lois there has been a. general awakening to the need of raising the national standard of health there is still nmc U> done to arouse people to the duty of health, and to arouse the State to the duty of looking after public health. Among working mothers there is a vast amount of sickness and weakness t at should not, and need not, exist, borne of it is due to want of rest, some o it due to bad social conditions, ai u . of it to ignorance and lack ol '• 1 hygiene. Much depends in u^ cal days on co-operation b^vvecu m tions, and some of I ; !,'* problems can only be solved by intt ""surglSuLd* Digte Ml »; cated physical training and' in the interests ot nubhc healih and the correct method to be followed. ~ this was taken in hand it vvouW bed*astro us for the country, and the 11 oiai. the race were suffering beITof this neglect from birth of the first particle of protoplasm. Til® P • cal fitness of the people, had hem' 1 c glected more and more as thetor cramming the 'brain giew. T ■ for straining the mentality of the masses was becoming an obsession, almost amounting to a disease. 10- (1 ‘ they lived in a perfect whirl of mten. - excitement, and all of it was havang - serious effect on the nang Something was needed to-day to o&et this. Labor-saving devices ami ti-vv - ling facilities were depriving then youth of exercise. We have lost our national character through professionalism, he said. They had a good illustration of that in the war. In the first twelve months all sportsmen lomed up, b'd thc war lasted longer and we had to have conscription. The real spirit of sport which made British sportsmen men ol honor is forsaking us as .a nation to the detriment of our national character. It is due to the overpowering strain of this mental era. the spirit of sport did not pervade the masses. Parents to-day wished their children to learn more and more, and the chddien Ivad no chance to play games’. When thev did their games were not controlled. and they developed into nmsv squabbles and fights in the street. A national council should be» lorined to cnsSiire properly organised physical cxerrises and recreation. The question should be studied. _ This mental era. lie added in conclusion, with its enforced education of children, and its evils of poring over liooks and hunching over desks has caused us, as a race, to” be predisposed to weak backs and curved spines, with consequent deterioration of physical health, and has l produced a> backward and forward curving of spine which, is so common as to be legarded as a normal curve in leading works of anatomy.