Teach children from babyhood that to follow merely the instincts and the line of least resistance, to act merely from impulse and emotion, is unworthy of a human being.
Foster idealism and religion, which have always been the great bulwarks of the soul and the refiners of instincts.
City or Country Life. That the country provides more natural physical conditions and health opportunities is self-evident. The open air, the larger space and facilities for muscular exercise, the freedom from artificial excitement, are all essential to vitality. The marked differences between city and country children in height, weight, chest girth, strength of grip, vitality, endurance, are attested by the statistics of special investigators as well as by general observation. The chest girth of country girls more nearly approaches the average for boys of the same age than does that of city girls. It is true that in sanitation the rural districts and small towns have not kept pace with the large cities. Ventilation, drainage, water supply, disposal of sewage, clean milk, the reporting and control of infectious diseases, are too often neglected in rural districts. The improvement of these sanitary conditions is part of the responsibility of the home-maker.
The School and Physical Health. The weight of medical, biological, and psychological authority of such experts as G. Stanley Hall, John Dewey, Arthur Holmes, Lightner Witmer, Thomas D. Wood, J. M. Tyler, is decidedly against prevailing unhygienic practices of the schools, such as home study for children under high school age; nerve-racking academic examinations; fine work in reading and writing for children under nine years of age; indoor school life for young children; artificial, sedentary life instead of physical activity during school age; the over emphasis of the mental and the neglect of the motor activities.
In a recent volume, “The Health of the Child,” Lewis M. Terman writes:
“The close correlation of morbidity with years of school attendance and with the progress of the school term; the deterioration of attention toward the end of the school year; the damaging effects of strenuous school activities upon appetite, digestion, metabolism and the constitution of the blood; the ill-effects from deprivation of fresh air and healthful exercise; the impairment of nervous coördinations and the profound disturbances reflexly produced by worry—these and other injurious effects have been sufficiently attested to justify the most vigorous prosecution of reform in matters of educational hygiene.
“We have taken the child out of its natural habitat of open air, freedom, and sunshine, and for nearly half his waking hours we are subjecting him to an unnatural régime, one which disturbs all the vital functions of secretion, excretion, circulation, respiration, and nutrition.”
Defects Prevalent Among American School Children
Total School Population, 20,000,000
| Defect | Percentage of School Children Affected |
| Teeth | 50%-90% |
| Eyes | 15%-30% |
| Spinal curvature | 20%-30% |
| Round shoulders | 5%-10% |
| Tuberculosis (predisposition) | 15%-20% |
| Ears | 10%-20% |
| Enlarged or diseased tonsils | 10%-15% |
| Adenoids | 8%-10% |
| Malnutrition | 6%-30% |
| Nervousness | 5% |