The food eaten by a nation largely determines the character of that nation. No subject is so vital to the individual, to the family, the community, the nation, as health. No education is so vital as a knowledge of foods, sanitation, hygiene. Health is the basis of happiness and the attainment of happiness is man’s chief pursuit. The very foundation of national life is the education of its citizens in its preservation. The nation seeks prosperity and happiness—yet true prosperity is based on these fundamentals. Money can be expended for no object which will yield the nation, or the individual, greater returns than in the acquisition of a knowledge of how to keep well. Health specialists, in the future, will direct their work more to the prevention than to the cure of diseases. The strongest powers are those which most fully guard the health of their citizens. The endurance of an army lies in the strength of the individual soldier. The basic work for “preparedness” is in building the bulwarks of physical strength and endurance. The study of life is of most vital interest. The enjoyment and maintenance of life is inbred. It is intuitive. The infant’s first instinct is the preservation of life; almost immediately he seeks for nourishment. His body is an ever awakening wonder to him. He begins his education by testing his lungs, by studying his hands, his legs, and his flesh. The human race spends more time in providing nourishment for the body than in any other line of activity. Yet we are wasteful; we have not studied to make the food yield its greatest nourishment and the body its greatest efficiency. Unless the system is thoroughly nourished we miss much of the physical satisfaction of life; we miss the joys of mental development, the inspiration of soul, the sense of growth, of freedom, of expansion, and the self-satisfaction of accomplishing. The satisfaction resulting from greatest usefulness and the enjoyment of the results of usefulness, the greatest blessings and the largest measure of life come only to those whose nutriment is proper in quantity and quality, taken properly as to time, and is thoroughly assimilated, because both body and brain are thereby enabled to develop most fully. The enjoyment of vibrant life, of bodily efficiency, is far beyond the fancied joys of the intemperate or the ascetic. That one may thoroughly enjoy life in the freedom which comes from perfect activity of bodily functions, it is necessary that proper _habits_ be formed, then the energy of thought is not constantly engaged in deciding what is best. Habit calls for no conscious expenditure of energy. Nutrition is a broad subject. It means not only that the foods be supplied which contain elements required to rebuild body substance and to create heat and energy, but it embraces, also, the ability of the body to appropriate the foods to its needs.