THE PHYSICAL FACTOR IN EDUCATION.

Evening Star, Issue 6951, 10 July 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PHYSICAL FACTOR IN EDUCATION.

The following is the'paper read by Dr Colquhoun at the "meeting of the Otago Institute last week : In considering the results of the education of youth there are three factors to be taken aecounS- tho moral, the mental, and the physical. These three are intimately related; but it is not the purposo of this paper to attempt to define the scope of the first and second. I shall, however, fry to explain what is meant by "the physical factor in education." It includes a consideration of the mechanism of the human body, with which you, as teachers, have to deal in your daily work, and of the influences which tend to encourage, retard, or check its growth and development. My apology for venturing to address you on such a subject is that there are many different ways of looking at the same thing. No two blades of grass are exactly alike, and probably no blade of grass is exactly the same to any two persons. All we see takes form and color in our minds from all we know. Tho schoolmaster and the doctor look at the schoolboy and schoolgirl from diffetent points of view, and an interchange of opinions may not be unprofitable. aiECHAFIISiI OF THE. HUMAN BODY. A very brief sketch of the physical structure of the body is all that is possible or desirable now. Whatever may be the differences that separate man from the rest of the animal kingdom, it is certain that On the structural side he is very closely allied to other vertebrate animals. He is subject to the same laws of growth, decay, and dissolution. Only a slight knowledge of anatomy and physiology is required to convince in that there *re no organs found in man that are not found in some shape or other in the lower animals ; and that, like them, his well-being and life itself depend upon conformity to the laws of Nature. The body has been likened to a very perfect machine. It is covered all over with a perfectly waterproof envelope and heat-regulating apparatus—the skin It is padded with fat, which also serves as a mean 3 of storing up fuel for the body, whence it may ba taken as it is needed. The muscles form a perfect system of mocMnism, whereby all tho complex movements of tho body are effected. The bones are tho solid framework upon which the rest of the body is built; their " joints of cunning workmanship" move under the influence of the muscles with certainty and efficiency. The whole organism is permeated with ir.numerable blood channel?, which convey to every part the requisite nourishment and take away the waste material. The stomach and ifcs dependencies receive tho fuel or food, and prepare it for absorption by the blood and other channels. The lungs are the bellows which sui ply air for the combustion which is constantly going on in every part of tho body in proportion to the amount of work done, and which has for one of its results the production of the internal heat necessary for life. The heart is a pumping apparatus which drives the blood in an unceasing stream throughout the body; and tho whole organisation is governed by the brain and spinal cord, which, by means of nerve cords extending to all parts, receive information, wid are instantly engaged in sending out orders, which are at once obeyed—setting muscles in motion, exciting glands to pour out their secretioDF, contracting or dilating blood vessels, conserving or liberating heat, making tho heart and lungs act slowly or quickly as the needs of the body at large determine. Special nerves in special receptacles convey to the*brain the vibrations o"f air we call sound, the vibrations of ether u e'call light, the qualities of things to which we give of taste, smell, form, and substance. This is the complex mechanism wo have to deal with. The perfect harmony of all its parts we call health. Disorder of any part we call disease. Each paiticle of this organism is subject to what we may call the fir.-t great law of life common to the whole organic world: "Life involves a constant waste and repair of tissue." We can no more move a muscle without consuming a part of it than we can move .a steam-cngino without consinning fuel. The effort of thinking uses up nerve tissue as surely as in writing this paper I have used up ink. The supply of fresh material must equal the demand, and the excretory organs must get rid of the waste matter siV<ey and effectively, or the ■ body poisons itself. The so-called animal organs are of as much importance to life as the nervous structure. If the brain is imperfectly developed or diseased a man may become an idiot, a maniac, or a criminal, or the controlling power over the body may be los 1 ; and life ceases, or is not worth having. If the heart or lungs, .or digestive system, fail to do their work tiie brain cannot cirry on its functions unaided, and Me become? impofs ; bJc. The body of man might belmore fitly described as a great commonwealth, in which the wollbeing of the whole depends on the prosperity of all its parts than as a machine.

But our special business to-night is to consider the human body duiing its periods of most active changes, from about the fifth to tho fifteenth year of its existence. The master fact of this period of life is that it is preeminently the period of growth. The most dangerous five years of life have bken passed. Out of 5,740 deaths recorded in New Zealand in 1834, 2,1'J4 —or rather more than 38 per cent of the total—died under five years of age; and even this large mortality is more favorable than that of any other Australasian colony, and much more favorable than that of the Home countries. From five to ten yeais the total number of deaths was 248—0r rather more than 4 per cent, of the total death-rate, which is about the average of each quinquennial period up to eighty years The body of tho child is like the body of the man, but with differences. The bones are more flexible, and are still partly in the form of cartilage or gristle to allow of increasing growth. The muscles are fully formed, but combustion is more active in them. They are more easily tired, and quicker to recover, than the muscles of adults. The process of dentition commences, for the second and last time, at about the age of six years, and is mainly carried out during the next four years, although not finally completed until the eighteenth or twentieth year, or later. The digestive system is undergoing a change along with the appearance of tho second teeth. It becomes more developed, and capable of harder tasks., Not ouly are the changes of tissue rapid attbisptriod, but increase in bulk is also going on, and assimilation of new material must keep pace with it, and abundance of suitable food is 'a necessity for every part of the body. The brain and nervous system are growing physically with the other organs of the body. With increased nervous development come the manifestations of nerve energy. Tho eye conveys to the awakening nerve centres images of various objects, the ear conveys sounds,'and from all its various feolers in different parts of the body the brain gathers knowledge of the external world, and, with more or less tenacity, retains the impressions. Now, the child is "wax to receive and marble to so far as its faculties'extend. It has great adaptability, physical and mental. If you give it free p!ay it will grow, but it is sensitive to eveiy influence around it. You rememb.r that Topsy, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was asked "Who made you?" She answered "Specs I growed." Happy Topsy 1 How many children could say truly 1 , if they had only the power of utterance, " I have never been allowed to grow." The high death-rate among children, mostly due to preventible causes, and the damaged frames of many, of the survivors prove this. Their instincts demand food, bub they must be taught what to take and what not to take ; they have an imperious necessity of movement, but you must teach'them to walk and to use their muscles to fit them for the struggle for existence ; their senses are alive to external things, but they must be taught how to observe and retain the thiDgs most desirable for them to observe and retain.

They are as vulnerable to evil influences as they are susceptible to good. Their bodies with their quick changes are peculiarly liable to many diseases, to irritation from improper food, to cold and heat; they are less resisteut to the attacks of various germs which cause disease than are maturer frames. Their minds are as open to bad influences a3 their bodies. You must lead out their facilities in the right direction, as experience has determined. You must educate them, or the generations to come will lose the advantage of the labors of the generations that have preceiied them ; but above all things you must let them grow. If the physical frame is not allowed to have its full expansion, or if one part—be it the nervous or be it tho muscular—is unduly developed at the expense of the others, the education, so far as the individual is concerned, has been a failure. I shall now try to consider aomo of the chief influences which are apparently at work to form, develop,' or destroy the individual. I need hardly re mind you that such an address as this absolutely forbids anything but the briefest outline of the subject being attempted. First and most potent of all in the formation of the body we are considering is HEREDITY. The character of the offspring is determined by the character of the parents and more remo' c ancestors. The individual is only tho last of a series. .We recognise this easily as far as the broad points of anatomy and physiology arc concerned. We recognise the distinction of race, of class, of species. It is no less true of minor distinctions. The stupid and degraded do not become the parents of clever or good children. AVeakly parents do not have strong children Tendencies to bodily disease are ic-' produced in offspring with fatal regularity. Tendencies to moral and mental diseases are similarly reproduced. Many children aro born into the world only to die at the threshold of life ; others struggle on with varying success to youth or adult life, laden with the burden of inherited disease. This burden becomes more

certain when both father and mother are similarly tainted. Of hereditary diseases the most common are consumption and nervous weaknesses. But these do not close the list. Some families inherit a special predisposition to cancer, to rheumatism, to gout, to fever of various kinds. On the intellectual, as apart from the purely physical side, evil tendencies are no less fatally handed down. It is recorded of ono pair of convicts who came to Sydney in the early days of colonisation, that their descendants now number some hundreds, most of whom have been criminals. The v f-.eling of despair with which we look upon such facts is, however, tempered by the knowledge that good influences are constantly battling against the evil. The vice of the father may often, with proper education, become the virtues of the sort. Alterations in social conditions may cause tendencies to disease to become latent in children, which have proved destructive to parents, and sources of strength may awaken under favorable circumstances, which had been unsuspected or unnoticed. The broad fact remains, however, that your pupil is the resultant of forces of unspeakable complexity, that his ancestry extends back to the dawn of life on this planet, that all kinds of obscure elements enter into the formation of his character, but that the main impulses come from his immediate progenitors. You cannot alterthese facts. You can only recognise their existence. The capacities of the child, physical and mental, are limited by its parentage. Education can bestow no new powers; it can only train and direct those which Nature" has given. Along with the effects of heredity in the individual, we must also recogniso the importance of accidental variations of type. A child may be born blind, or deaf and dumb, or an idiot. The child of honest, God-fearing parents may turn out a drunkard or a criminal. For these and other variations it is often impossible to find any explanation, and we call them accidental; but that is merely a provisional word. The variations are often of a higher type, and consist of an exaltation of the ordinary faculties of men. By these -variations we get marvels of physical strength, of intellectual genius, of moral character. Such variations are beyond the ordinary laws of education. The lower types are often unaffected by it —the higher types find out means of education' for themselves, and outstrip their teachers. Between the idiot or the weakling and the genius or the athlete there are innumerable gradations. It is perhaps a fault, but an unavoidable one, of our educational system, that all kinds of children are turned into one educational mill, and stamped with one standard pattern. What is called stupidity is often constitutional infirmity. Another speaker will tell you how common are impairments of the eyes and of the ears, and how often it happens that these defects are overlooked, and children are unjustly blamed for not seeing or hearing what they cannot see or hear. Other defects are not less common. In some children the circulation of the blood is languid, and all the physical and mental processes are slow or imperfect. Some, whose lungs are imperfectly developed, but who can work well and profitably if they are supplied with plenty of fresh air, become poisoned by the close air of a crowded' school-room, and brain and body a ike perform -their functions imperfectly. While it is true of children generally that they are quickly tired—which means, in other words, that tho available working material of muscle, nerve, etc., gets quickly exhausted—and that they are quick to recover, it is also true that there are marked differences in this respect among them. In some, nervous force is predominant. Of this type arc the children who "work until they drop," who are eager and ambitious for prizes and commendation. These need no urging to do their work; they want, in many cases, to have the brake' put on if thero is not to be a physical collapse. Other children are of the sanguine type—full-, blooded, eager for movement, careless of lessons, with chests'well developed, hlood-vessels full of healthy blood, stomachs acting perfectly. These, carefully guided, will go far, to use a Scotch phrase. The thinkerß may come from the other cla=s, the workers will come from this. The' danger with them is that the purely physical part of them will get the upper hand—that they will be great at football and at cricket, but weak in knowledge. If the brain is looked after as well as the rest of the body it is good for them and their generation. They carry into the' world energy, action, and good sense.

Still another tvpe, fortunately not so common here as in some other countries, is the ricketty or strumous child, weak in body, sluggish in mind, or tometimes preternaturally acute. Bad air. bad food, and bad clothing have produced them, and they tend to disappear under more kindly surroundings. The intelligent teacher recognises the dilfeiences among individuals, and makes allowances for them; but it must always be amongst the most difficult of his tasks" to estimate the force and capacity and probable future of hi 3 various pupils. Another large group of influences at work on the individual may be classed ander the heading of LOCAL ENVIRONMENT. In this group we shall consider the various forces which, apart from hereditary tendencies • and accidental variations, help to mould tlio individual. And first I shall say something about ctlmate. In New Zealand we are particularly fortunate in living in what is perhaps the healthiest climate in the world. The death-rate shows a lower percentage thin any other country. In Otago the death-rate is between ten and eleven per 1,000 of the population per annum, or something like half that of England. We aro fortunate in possessing no large towns which inevitably tend to tho physical deterioration of the people. There are no extremes of heat or cold. There is abundance of rain and wind to clean the air and make the ground fruitful. There are no malarial marshes, nor arid plains, nor deathdealing jungles. One of the most interesting problems of the future will be the determination of the condition of the Anglo-Saxon race under these circums'anccs. Most favorable estimates-have been given, notably by Froude in his latent work "Oceana"; but it must be remembered that, with the struggle for existence made easier, many will survive who, in a more rigorous climate, would have succumbed, and it .is not yet certain that a weaker race than the parent stock will not be the result. When the struggle against natural forces is too great, as-in Arctic Europe, man's whole energies arc devoted to keeping himself alive, and there is no room for higher development. When, as in Africa, he finds in every palm tree food, clothing, and shelter, ho -jemains a savage, because he has no wants sufficient to urge him to exertion. In temperate climates only does he attain his full development, and we can at least look hopefully to the future. So far as natural influences can mould New Zealand youth, they are well situated. They are brought up with sea and lake and mountain round about them. OUR CHIEF DANGERS. There are few countries in the world which possess so many natural beauties with so much fertility as New Zealand, and her chief danger lies in her very abundance of .good things. But tho best climate in the world will be of little service to those whom we are considering, if the habits of life are bad. Tho first essentials of life are food, clothing, and shelter, and the need of these must be satisfied before the mind can be free to consider other things. These must be the foundations and niainwork of the building, however gorgeously you may afterwards furnish the ,rooms. .Starvation, fortunately, is not a thing that has much to be dreaded in this country. Food is abundant and .cheap. The danger rather lies in over-feeding children than the reverse. You are interested as teachers in this question because you cannot get the proper amount of work done by badlyfed children. Here, ai in training physical and mental, children cannot bo _ left to their own unaided instincts. Their imitativencss will lead them to do as they see their elders do, they will consume sweets to excess and spoil their teeth and digestive organs; they will drink tea and coffee and eat heavy meat meals when thoy should be taking porridge and milk, if they are not properly guided. The healthiest children I have seen in New Zealand have been brought up on bread and milk. The withdrawal of milk from many rural districts in England for use in the large towns has been productive of the most serious consequences. Children grow pasty and thin, and suffer from sickness of all kinds when other foods are substituted for this their natural food for the first, year of their life, and what ought to be the main poition of their food for at least five or six years liter. There can be no doubt that meat is consumed to excess by nearly all classes at all ages in the colonies. The fault is no doubt on the right side. When hirdwork is being done; when people live much in the open air and in cold weather, a liberal meat diet is useful and necessary, both for children after the age of ten years and adults ; but for grown-up people and children who are loading sedentary lives meat once a day, well cooked and in moderate quantity, is as much as is eithor .useful of wholesome. Another point, which is of great importance as regards children, is regularity of meals and due and proper mastication of food. It is to be regretted 'that children are often hurried at breakfast, and hurried at their mid-day meal, by the necessity of going long distances to school; ar.d whenever it can be done, arrangements should be made to have the children's mid-day meals taken at or near the school, so as to allow plenty of time for eating and necessary rest afterwards. Nothing is perhaps so prolific in producing children's ailments as the hurried dinner and the quick rush back to school to be in time for lessons or a fe.w minutes in the playground. I have no intention of attempting to inflict on you a children's dietary. There can be no difficulty in getting the necessary information if it is wanted. I only wish to call attention to one way in which your human