Part 8 (2/2)
_A Paper read before the Franklin Club of Grand Forks, North Dakota, December 1, 1910, and printed in the Grand Forks ”Daily Herald,”
Deceer necessary to offer an extended plea for a recognition of the value of physical training The hue where the body was looked upon as a hindrance to the soul in its aspirations We have likewise gone beyond that higher stage in which the attitude toward the physical being was ative, and have clearly reached an altitude upon which we recognize a well-defined relationshi+p between the physical man and the mental and spiritual man We kno that only as each is healthy and thus in a condition to do its oell, is the other able to act norlish philosopher, Locke, said, ”A sound mind in a sound body is a brief but full description of a happy state in this world”
This is a well-recognized article of our educational creed, not only, but even the conservative religious workers have accepted the principle, and we find inscribed over the entrances to our Christian association buildings the word ”body” as well as the word more coo back just a moment: let us consider it from the standpoint of mere physical betterment We know that a muscle unused means a ent, systematic use, with a definite purpose in vieill acco as to what a physical trainer can do with a bunch of raw foot-ball ymnasium can metamorphose a loose-jointed, lop-sided, stoop-shouldered, sha officer can do with the ”aard squad” In the one case as in the other, the physical training stands him upon his feet; it takes the kinks out of his back; it throws his head up; it unties the knots in his legs; it puts fire into his eye The good red blood courses thru his veins, and even shows itself in his cheeks He walks with an elastic step Every organ of his body is doing its duty He no longer needs liver pills, digestive tablets or wizard oil
I said ”mere physical betterment,” didn't I? Well, you can not have ”ested above, there is so why, or how, the young fellow, after the training suggested, in addition to being aflesh-and-blood her up on the ladder of ular Stearns grip He dares to say that his soul is his own And why? Because the life-giving oxygen is getting down into the long-neglected corners of his lungs Because his heart is forcing this purified blood thru his veins building up his syste off the waste and poisonous ans can really function And if that is true of the ”gizzard” it is likewise true of the brain He can feel more keenly, think more wisely But all this can be done by physical exercise alone Some of the best of these results can be obtained by the use of thearound the house, if you run often enough and fast enough; all alone with the duh, or even by walking out to the University on the railroad tracks and saving your street car nickels But taken thus, these exercises constitute a mere medicine And people don't take e reason they won't take this kind even then unless soood sized fee Why is it?
Sis in proportion to their cost?
Noant these results and even better ones And we don't want to pay the doctor's fees for this or any other kind ofto do about it? Isn't there so that we can put on to these physical exercise pills to make them a little more palatable? Can't we in so candy instead of taking quinine? For you know that we grown-ups have not lost all our powers of iination How often we play make believe, even yet! I'll tell you e can do Let's have this same physical exercise idea but introduce into it the element of sport which Webster defines as ”that which diverts and makes mirth” Let's do these stunts ”for the fun of it” instead of as a et double pay for our pains I fancy that the skiing and the skating, the snow-shoeing and the curling of which we are to hear, all have that element tucked away somewhere in their anatomy
But you may ask me what otten fro up the quinine with Mr Webster's molasses I've used Indian clubs and dumb bells by the hour; I've walked to the University in season and out of season; I've even run around the house--and as a result have experienced the exhilaration that coorous discipline I've been better for it, physically, and therefore, of course, en, better blood, fir better nourished brain cells, have done their beneficent work But yet, as I look back and seethru these various maneuvers, I am fully confident of the fact that all this ti else--that my poor brain cells, which really needed recuperation more than any other part of my body, that these brain cells were still at work, that I was all the tiht as exhaustive as tho I were seated inbefore my class in the recitation room More than one lecture, or address, have I worked out while walking to and fros for us to do is occasionally to stop thinking, or at least to stop thinking along our accustoive those few brain cells that are being made to work over-ti too fast Our lives are too intense We are running our h pressure, and so the results altho they are ale, new ones will have to take their places ere long The rate of speed of the life of the modern American business and professional man, the rate of speed of the life of theterrific We are wearing ourselves out before our ti, that we are losing all the joy of living We are at our own firesides so seldom and for such short periods that we scarcely know our own little ones Longfellow's ”Children's Hour” that came ”as a pause in the day's occupation,” is almost wholly unknown in most American homes There is no ”pause” in the day's occupation The occupation goes right on till after these ”children” are soundly asleep in their beds and begins again before they are awake in the ht here in this select circle, the ”favored ones,”a diatribe on American life, so will not pursue theto do is si _fast_--faster than our physical andstand; that we have already reached the danger point And what are we going to do about it? Well, we shall have to do s before the probleht relief, and to answer a question raised a little earlier in the paper, I a the sports--those activities that both rejuvenate the physical man and also ”divert andand our preaching and our oods of the merchant, the notes of the banker, the briefs of the lawyer, the annoyances of the teacher, and the cares of the housewife, alike, would all have to be left behind Therecreated An hour a day, in the open air, with fears and anxieties and schemes all cast aside, in companionshi+p with kindred spirits similarly divested of that which troubles and ed in recreative sports, would do , and civilly decent than all the pills of the doctors, all the texts of the preachers, and all the keys of the jailers!
In keeping with the world-wide movement in this direction our own people, in their civic capacity, have already acted and have thus become the possessor of splendid park facilities which offer ample opportunities, when fully developed, for a sane out-of-door life of a population e as ours at the present tiently and systematically upon this matter of development and improvement Much has already been done Very much more is fully outlined in the minds of the Park Board I think it is their purpose--and I fully believe that they will carry it out--to proceed in this matter of development just as rapidly as the people show, by their use of the facilities progressively offered, an appreciation
Nearly all the work done thus far, such as clearing away the rubbish, rounds, caring for the tennis courts, golf links, and other ga pavilions and other conveniences, has looked toward putting the grounds into condition for sumratifying As rapidly as the parks have been put into shape, they have been generously used by an appreciative people It has done ood, many times, especially on Sundays in the hot summer months, to see the nu the parks They have been the people, in a large s that the parks give
Thus far, as said, the plans for development have looked lad to note a recent improvement that shows that the Park Board has the winter use of the parks also definitely inrink in Riverside Park
It is a most commendable institution I very much hope that it will be extensively used, not only by the people living in that part of the city, but by those of all sections It belongs to all of us Here is an opportunity for a htful winter sport freely offered If appreciated, as shown by its use, I have no doubt that it will be duplicated next winter, and on a larger scale, in Lincoln Park And if we show that we appreciate this, other features will be added
Perhaps I should stop here, but I can not lose the opportunity of saying just a word to connect this topic with the great playgroundfacilities for winter and su people
Do you realize fully that the boys and girls of to-day--yours and mine, yes, and just as truly those less favored--those into whose lives there cooes but little nourishi+ng food, and into whose lungs, but little oxygen--do you realize, I ask, that these boys and girls are to be the men and women of to- upon their shoulders? Do ant them to enter upon the duties of life stoop-shouldered, flat-chested, spectacle-eyed? Do ant them to be anaemic, pessis and moral cowards? Do ant them even to approximate these conditions? No? Then, with all our provisions for their wants and their needs, let us be sure to develop those things which ely to the development of the opposite characteristics Prevention is not only cheaper than cure, it is also better Let us see that our parks are developed with provisions for our boys and girls as well as for the adults Let us see that playgrounds are scattered over our city and provision made for both winter and su rink, I wish the City Council or the Board of Education would establish one on the grounds of the Winshi+p school, another at the Central building, and still a third on the Belrounds This could be done at noive to all the children of the city to engage in this ive theorating, out-of-door air It would surround them with an emotional atmosphere that is at once nor Instead of these conditions, what do we find? Many of our young boys and girls and veryupon manhood and womanhood, when both emotional and physical at of habits and the choosing of ideals-- their entertainment and their relaxation (andafter a day spent in the poorly ventilated office or store) in the -picture show or at the vaudeville And in these places the air is apt to be both hot and i The emotional atmosphere, too, is sure to be abnor We find here, and in too large quantity to be a negligible factor, the atreatly to breed incorrigibles, truants, and laggards in our schools; that develop juvenile delinquents, hasty es, and early divorces; that send into the world paupers, grafters, and criminals Not all the conditions are such in all such places, it is true, but as affecting young life these are usually the do the theater It has its legitie place it is, in norainst these lower forain--these perversions of the true theater idea--these institutions that deal so largely in the sensational elely to the passions I am told that the cheap theater is the poor man's club I very much doubt if that is its chief function or, rather, that its chief result is a wholeso of the better nature of this poor man--that its chief accomplisher, thru either the relaxation or the instruction, to grapple with the difficulties of life I greatly fear that, as usually conducted, its influence upon the adult is at best but the te of an unhealthy and never-satisfied thirst, and that upon the child and the adolescent it is a distinct blunting of all the finer sensibilities and elements of character But even these lower forood in them to warrant an attempt at improvement rather than elimination They can be improved, made clean, and wholesome, and thus becoht character I doubt if it will be done, however, until soain shall be responsible for their reatly bettered if in some way those most deeply interested in the outcome could have a choice in the selection of the material to be used
One of the best ways to counteract the har picture show and the vaudeville is to develop so that contains the life-giving principles, so that will appeal with equal force to the impressionable youth, and yet be clean and wholesoround for the children, and the park syste hope? And, properly developed, would they not soon co, both physically and psychically, as a prevention, thus ht we not reasonably expect their use to tend towardless attractive, and so to the eventual abandonment of, many of these practises and for of both physical and psychical life?
IX
THE FUNCTION OF TEACHERS COLLEGE
_An Address delivered before the North Dakota State Teachers association on December 27, 1906 It later appeared in the January and February, 1910, issues of ”Education”_
A the various educational institutions of the United States to-day, the one which, as it seeent attention on the part of our educational thinkers, and the one upon the right solution of whose probleree, the success of our entire educational system, is the institution for the education of teachers For we all have come, finally, to accept as true the statement of the old German writer, ”School reform means schoolmaster reform,” also that other, used so effectively in the days of our own early educational revival, ”As is the teacher so is the school” And we are ready to-day to adraded rural school with its noticeable lack of needed equipraded school of the city with every facility that hue and university where scholarshi+p and culture are supposed to make their abode and contribute of their fullness For I care not, and you care not, what be the physical and material equipment of the school; I care not, nor do you, what be the scholastic attainments of the one called teacher; if he isn't able to teach, that is, to cause to learn, we all know that the school, in just thefurther we all know, and that is this: one plank in our great educational platform is belief in the necessity of an institution set apart for the preparation of teachers We are irrevocably committed to the idea It is a part of our educational creed Fortunately, in our educational evolution we have left far behind us the stage when the wisdoical forefathers, valiant explorers, discoverers, heroes, educational statese, Sheldon and others--have left us this priceless heritage It reree upon the respective functions of its various types, and then apply ourselves with intelligent vigor each to the solution of his own probleuish three distinct types of the institution under discussion The oldest, best known, and most numerous is called the state normal school It dates froht, the forurate theunbounded faith in Mr
Mann, provided the funds Nearly every state in the union has now one or ently at work All that have not, have practically the sa under another name--normal departments in connection with the state universities
The next type, in order of tiher educational institutions of the country It has various names, as ”Department of Education,” ”School of Education,”