Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
What is commonly considered abnormal brightness in a school child is
often a tendency to live an abnormal physical life. Being a child
bookworm means that time is spent indoors that should be spent playing
games with one's fellows. Excellence in the activities of children, not
ability to imitate the activities of adults, should be the test of
child brightness. To be able to hit a bull's-eye, to throw a ball
accurately, to calculate the swing of a curve or the bound of a
"grounder," these are tests of brightness quite as indicative of mental
power as the ability to win highest marks in school, while less
injurious to physical power. The child who is abnormally bright
requires special treatment just as much as the child who is abnormally
dull. The former as well as the latter must have his abnormal condition
corrected if he is to grow into a normally bright man.
The college man who sacrifices health to "marks" is thus described by
the director of physical training at Harvard University:
A drooping head, a pale face, dull, sunken eyes, flat chest and
rounded shoulders, with emaciated limbs, soft flabby muscles, and
general lack of good physical, mental, and moral tone.
For the protection of these physical defective grinds it is suggested
to put a physical qualification upon the candidates of Phi Beta Kappa
and their awards of scholarship. If scholarship men cannot be induced
to take time to improve their physique for fear of lowering their
college standing, then give them credit for standing in physical work.
The abnormally bright, at whatever age, is as much a subject for
examination and treatment as the child with adenoids and pulmonary
tuberculosis. Such attention will increase the percentage of abnormally
bright schoolmates who figure in active business in later life.
Moreover, it will decrease the number of high school superintendents
who declare that their honor pupils are physical wrecks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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