devised to build up a physique that should not break down under the strain of school life. For children whose mothers work during the day, and for those whose home environment is worse than school, it might be cheaper in the long run to assign teachers to protect them from injury while they play in a park, roof garden, or out-of-door gymnasium. If parks and playgrounds come too slowly, why not adopt the plan advocated by Alida S. Williams, a New York principal, of reserving certain streets for children between the hours of three and five, and of diverting traffic to other streets less suitable for children's play? So great is the value mentally, morally, and physically — of out-of-door play that it has even been suggested that the substitution of such play for school for all children up to the age of ten would insure better minds and sounder physiques at fifteen. It is generally admitted that the child who enters school at eight rather than at six will be the gainer at twelve. What a travesty upon education to insist upon schooling for children because they are apt to be run over on the street, or to be neglected at home, to shoot craps, or belong to a gang and develop bad morals. Educators will some day be ashamed to have made the schools the catch-all or the court-plaster for the evils of modern industry. Instead of pupils and mothers going to the school, enough hygiene teachers, and play teachers, and district physicians could be employed with the money now spent on indoor instruction to do the house-to-house visiting urged in many chapters of this book. Such a course of action would have an incalculable effect on the reduction of tuberculosis, not only in making healthier physiques but by inculcating habits of outdoor life and love of fresh air. The danger of those contagious diseases which ravish childhood would be greatly reduced. An ambition for physical integrity would make unnatural living unpopular. Competition in games with children of the same physical class develops accuracy, concentration, dispatch, resourcefulness, as much as does instruction in arithmetic. Smoking can easily be discredited among boys trying to hit the bull's-eye. A boy would sooner give up a glass of beer than the championship in rifle shooting or a "home run." The influence of the "spirit of the game on practical life has been described thus by New York's director of physical training, Dr. Luther H. Gulick: Play is the spontaneous enlistment of the entire personality in the pursuit of some coveted end. We do not have to pursue the goal; we wish to it is our main desire. This is the way in which greatest discoveries, fortunes, and poems are made. It is the way in which we take the responsibilities and problems of life that makes it either a deadly bore a mere dull round of routine and drudgery or the most interesting and absorbing game, capable of enlisting all the energy and enthusiasm we have to put into it. The people who accomplish things are the people who play the game. They let themselves go; they are not afraid. Under the stimulus and enthusiasm of play muscles contract more powerfully and longer than under other conditions. Blood pressure is higher in play. It is far more interesting to play the game than to work at it. When you work you are being driven, when you play you are doing the driving yourself. We play not by jumping the traces of life's responsibilities, but by going so far beyond life's compulsions as to lose sight of the compulsion element. Play up, play up, and play the game. CHAPTER XIII VITALITY TESTS AND VITAL STATISTICS Two things will disclose the strength or weakness of a bank and the soundness or unsoundness of a nation's banking policy, namely, a financial crisis or an expert audit. A searching audit that analyzes each debit and each credit frequently shows that a bank is solvent only because it is not asked to pay its debts. It continues to do business so long as no obvious weaknesses appear, analogous to measles, adenoids, or paralysis. A frequent disorder of banking results from doing too big a business on too little capital, in making too many loans for the amount of cash held ready to pay depositors upon demand. This disorder always comes to light in a crisis too late. It can be discovered if looked for in advance of a crisis. Many individuals and communities are likewise physically solvent only because their physical resources are not put to the test. Weaknesses that lie near the surface can be discovered before a crisis by physical examination for individuals and sanitary supervision for communities. Whether individuals or communities are trying to do too much business for their health capital, whether the health reserves will pay debts that arise in a crisis, whether we are ill or well prepared to stand a run on our vitality, can be learned only by carefully analyzing our health reserves. Health debits are compared with health credits for individuals by vitality tests, for communities by vital statistics. Of the many vitality tests none is practicable for use in the ordinary class room. Scientific training is just as necessary for such tests as for discovering the quality of the blood, the presence or absence of tubercle bacilli in the sputum, diphtheria germs in throat mucus, or typhoid germs in milk. But scientific truth, the results of scientific tests, can be made of everyday use in all class rooms. State and national headquarters for educators, and all large cities, can afford to engage scientists to apply vitality tests to school children for the sake of discovering, in advance of physical breakdown and before outward symptoms are obvious, what curriculum, what exercise, what study, recreation, and play periods are best suited to child development. It will cost infinitely less to proceed this way than to negleet children or to fit school methods to the loudest, most persistent theory. The ergograph is an interesting strength tester. It takes a picture (1) of the energy exerted, and (2) of the regularity or fitfulness of the manner in which energy is exerted. Perhaps the time will come when science and commerce will supply every tintype photographer with an ergograph and the knowledge to use it. Then we shall hear at summer resorts and fairs, "Your ergograph on a postal card, three for a quarter." We can step inside, harness our middle finger to the ergograph, lift it up and down forty-five times in ninety seconds, and lo! a photograph of our vitality! If we have strong muscles or good control, the picture will be like this: FIG. 1. Ergogram of T. R., a strong, healthy girl, before taking 40 minutes' If weak and nervous, we shall look like this before taking exercise: мем Мил FIG. 2. Ergogram of C. E., a weak and somewhat nervous girl, before Distance lifted, 89 cm. And like this after gymnasium exercise: FIG. 3. Ergogram of C. E. after taking 40 minutes' work in the In Chicago, two of whose girls are above photographed, the physician was surprised to have four pupils show more strength late in the day than in the morning. "Upon investigation it was found that the teacher of the four pupils had been called from school, and that they had no regular work, but had been sent to another room and employed themselves, as they said, in having a good time." The chart on page 127 shows the effect of the noon recess and of the good time after three o'clock. Chicago's child-study experts concluded after examining a large number of children: 1. In general there is a distinct relationship in children between physical condition and intellectual capacity, the latter varying directly as the former. |