Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHYSICAL TRAINING A MEANS OF MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING ADDRESS BEFORE THE LADIES' PHYSIOLOGICAL INSTITUTE There is a fitness in discussing mental and moral education from the physiological point of view. We have long since learned that physiological conditions to a great extent determine the power and degree of mental activity; we know that the sound mind needs a sound body for its tool, no less than for its home. The air taken into the lungs must be pure, the circulation vigorous, the digestion healthy, in order to effectual mental activity. The brain must be nourished with good blood. We cannot make a hungry child attentive to study, nor a tired child think well; we cannot make the child that is ragged and dirty do good mental work, or respond to moral stimulus. We must have right physiological conditions in our schoolrooms : let the sunshine stream in, let plants grow and spread their verdure to purify the air, let the fresh air be poured in, and the foul air be driven out, that nature may be free to act in her bodily and mental connections as well as in moral growth and expression. The clothing must be easy and the posture natural, so that physical freedom shall insure the best activities of all kinds. When I go into a schoolroom and see the children listless or stupid, I at once look for the physical cause. What are the means of ventilation ? How does the thermometer stand ? Are the seats comfortable and adjusted to the need of the pupils? Is the air fresh ? Have they had a chance to work off their restlessness by any physical exercise ? Do they look sufficiently fed and properly clothed? If they are sleepy, there is some reason for it: what is it ? Not rarely I find that they have had far too little sleep. The young teachers, perhaps, do not think of all these ...