being at the same table for two weeks with a talented man whom he admired, he acquired the latter's habit of constantly twitching his shoulder and making certain gestures. These habits in turn quickly produced a nervousness that interfered with his power to reason straight.

Nervousness is often confused with aggressiveness, initiative, confidence. "Think twice before you jump, and perhaps you won't want to jump" is a very difficult rule to follow for any one whose bodily movements are not under perfect control.

It is said that the confusion of city life causes habits of nervousness. Unfortunately no one knows whether the city children or the country children have the highest percentage of nervousness. There is a general feeling that city life causes an unwholesome degree of activity, yet one finds that those people in the city who least notice the elevated railway are those whose windows it passes. City noises irritate those who come from the country, or the city man on returning to the city from the country, but a similar irritation is felt by the city-bred man on coming to the country. Mr. Dooley's description of a night in the country with the crickets and the mosquitoes and the early birds shows that it is the unusual noise rather than the volume or variety of noises that wreck nerves. At the time of the opening of the New York schools in 1907 a newspaper published an editorial on "Where can the city child study?" showing that in New York the curriculum, the schoolhouse, and the tenements are so crowded and so noisy that study is practically impossible. Lack of sleep, lack of a quiet place in which to study at school and at home, are causes for nervousness, whether these conditions are in the city or in the country. What evidence is there that the country curriculum is less crowded or country work better adjusted to the psychological and physiological age of the country pupil? The index is there; it should be read.

In breaking habits of nervousness the first step is to explain how easily habits are formed, why their effects may be serious, and how a little attention will correct them. When a habit loses its mystery it becomes unattractive. Children will take an interest in coöperating with each other and with the teacher in curing habits acquired either at home or at school. My pupils greatly enjoyed overcoming the habit of jumping or screaming after some sudden noise. I told them how, when a boy, my imagination had been very much impressed by one of Thackeray's characters, the last remnant of aristocratic traditions, almost a pauper, but possessing one attribute of nobility, -absolute self-control. When his house burned he stood with his ankles crossed, leaning on his cane, the only onlooker who was not excited. For months I imitated that pose, using sticks and rakes and fork handles. The result was that when I taught school, a scream, a broken desk, or unusual noise outside reminded me of my old aristocrat in time to prevent my muscles from jumping. In a very short time several fidgety and nervous girls and boys had learned to think twice and to relax before jumping.

One test of thorough relaxation in a dentist's chair proves the folly of tightening one's muscles. When in school or out the remedy for nervousness is relaxation. The discipline that prohibits a pupil from stretching or changing his posture or seat is as much to be condemned as that which flourishes the rod. It has been said of our schools that children are not worked to death but bored to death. Wherever a room must be stripped of all beauty and interest to induce concentration, wherever the greater part of the teacher's time must be spent in keeping order, there is confession either of inappropriateness of the present curriculum or of the failure of teacher and text-book to present subjects attractive to the pupils. Nervous habits will be inevitable until the pupil's attention is obtained through interest.

Sustained interest will be impossible until teacher and pupil alike practice relaxation, not once a morning or twice a day, not during recess or lunch hour, but whenever relaxation is needed.

In overcoming nervousness of teacher and pupil, both must be interested in home causes as well as school causes of that nervousness. Time must be found to ask questions about those causes and to discuss means for removing them. Naturally it will be embarrassing for a very nervous teacher to discuss nervousness with children, until after she has overcome her own lack of nerve stability. To help her or to compel her to learn the art of relaxation of bodily and of mental control is the duty and the privilege of the school physician, of her doctor, and of superintendent and trustees. The outside point of view is necessary, because of the peculiar fact that almost every nervous person believes that he has unusually good control over his nerves, just as a man in the midst of his anger will declare that he is cool and self-controlled. Had Robert Burns been thinking of the habit of nervousness he could not have thought of a better cure than when he wrote:

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursel's as ithers see us;

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.

CHAPTER XII

HEALTH VALUE OF "UNBOSSED" PLAY AND

PHYSICAL TRAINING

A boy without play means a father without a job. A boy without physical training means a father who drinks. When people have wholesome, well-disciplined bodies there will be less demand for narcotics as well as for medicines. On these three propositions enthusiasm has built arguments for city parks and playgrounds, for school gymnastics, and for temperance instruction. We have tried the remedies and now realize that too much was expected of them. Neither movement appreciated the mental and physical education of spontaneous games and play.

Like hygiene instruction, physical training was made compulsory by law in many states, and, like hygiene instruction, physical training had to yield to the pressure of subjects in which children are examined. At the outset both were based upon distorted psychology and physiology. Of late physical training has been revived "to correct defects of the school desk and to relieve the strain of too prolonged study periods." In New York grammar schools ten minutes a day for the lower grades, and thirty minutes a week for the higher grades, are set aside for physical training. With the exception of eighteen schools where apparatus is used, the exercise has been in the class rooms. It consists of what are known as "setting-up exercises," deep breathing and arm movements for two minutes between each study period, often forgotten until it is time to go home, when the children are tired and need it least. Many teachers so conduct these exercises that children keenly enjoy them.

Like hygiene instruction, physical training preceded physical examination. Generally speaking, it has not yet, either in schools or in colleges, been related to physical needs of the individual pupil. In fact, there is no guarantee that it is not in many schools working a positive injury on defective children or imposing a defective environment on healthy children. Formal exercises in cramped space, in ill-ventilated rooms, with tight belts and heavy shoes, are conceded

to be pernicious. Formal exercises should never be given to any child without examination and prescription by a physician. Children with heart weakness, enlarged tonsils, adenoid growths, spinal curvature, uneven shoulders, are frequently seen doing exercises for which they are physically unfit, and which but serve to deplete further their already low vitality. Attention might be called to many a class engaged in breathing exercises when by actual count over half the boys were holding their mouths open. Special exercises are needed by children who show some marked