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Fundamentals of Christian Education
young intellect while neglecting the physical nature. The children were
too young to be in a schoolroom. Their minds were taxed with lessons
when they should have been left untasked until the physical strength
was sufficient to support mental effort. Small children should be as
free as lambs to run out-of-doors. They should be allowed the most
favorable opportunity to lay the foundation for a sound constitution.
Youth who are kept in school, and confined to close study, cannot
have sound health. Mental effort without corresponding physical
exercise, calls an undue proportion of blood to the brain, and thus the
circulation is unbalanced. The brain has too much blood, while the
extremities have too little. The hours of study and recreation should
be carefully regulated, and a portion of the time should be spent in
physical labor. When the habits of students in eating and drinking,
dressing and sleeping are in accordance with physical law, they can
obtain an education without sacrificing health. The lesson must be
often repeated, and pressed home to the conscience, that education
will be of little value if there is no physical strength to use it after it is
gained.
Students should not be permitted to take so many studies that they
will have no time for physical training. The health cannot be preserved
unless some portion of each day is given to muscular exertion in the
open air. Stated hours should be devoted to manual labor of some kind,
anything which will call into action all parts of the body. Equalize
the taxation of the mental and physical powers, and the mind of the
student will be refreshed. If he is diseased, physical exercise will often
help the system to recover its normal condition. When students leave
college, they should have better health and a better understanding of
the laws of life than when they entered it. The health should be as
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sacredly guarded as the character.
Many students are deplorably ignorant of the fact that diet exerts
a powerful influence upon the health. Some have never made a de-
termined effort to control the appetite, or to observe proper rules in
regard to diet. They eat too much, even at their meals, and some eat
between meals whenever the temptation is presented. If those who
profess to be Christians desire to solve the questions so perplexing to
them, why their minds are so dull, why their religious aspirations are
so feeble, they need not, in many instances, go farther than the table;
here is cause enough, if there were no other.