If you will stop and think how many “moves” you make in a day, you’ll know how hard your muscles have to work. They’d be quite tired out if they did not have plenty to feed on all the time and did not rest at least nine hours a day. I told you how the food is melted and carried about in the blood. It is the blood that brings the muscles their food and keeps them alive and makes them strong enough to move the joints and the bones.
What does all this playing do for you? It makes you grow not only big, but strong, too. What puny little things you’d be if you couldn’t get out and run and play and make your muscles strong and your nerves do just what you tell them to do.
I know of ten or twelve little chickens that hatched a few weeks ago. There are so many cats about, that the poor little chicks have to be shut up in the barn all day. At first they ran and played and jumped on their mother’s back, but now they hump their shoulders and hang their heads and don’t seem hungry and look sad and sick. They are not so big as some that hatched later. Can you tell me why? Of course you can. You know that it is outdoor exercise and play that chickens need, and that you need to make you grow big and strong, too. Of course, you will have to keep your backbone straight and your chest out and your head up; but all these things will be easy for you if you are perfectly well and strong.
A SKATING POND MADE OUT OF A GARDEN
The school garden is flooded in winter—a fine place to skate right after school.
The school tries to take just as good care of your health and growth as it can. Your lessons are short, and you change from one to another frequently, with perhaps drills or calisthenic exercises between, so that you need not sit still too long at a time; and the seats and desks are of different sizes so that you need not sit at a desk that does not fit you. When your teacher urges you to go out of doors and play at recess time, even if you do not want to, you must think to yourself, “It will rest me and make me grow big and straight and strong.”
When you come home from school, go out of doors and stay out just as long as you can. Don’t let dolls or toys or picture books tempt you to stay in the house. The pictures out of doors are ever so much prettier, as soon as you learn to see them. But some of you live in crowded cities. I hope you are near a park or a playground, where you can have a good romp with other children, and use the swings and see-saws and bars, and the skating pond in winter, and the swimming pool in summer.
SPLENDID EXERCISE FOR LUNGS AND MUSCLES