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True Education
Children are not the only ones endangered by lack of air and
exercise. In the higher as well as the lower schools these essentials
to health are still too often neglected. Many students sit day after
day in a poorly ventilated room bending over their books, their
chest so contracted that they cannot take a full, deep breath. Their
blood moves sluggishly, their feet cold, their head hot. The body
not being sufficiently nourished, the muscles are weakened, and
the whole system is enervated and diseased. Often such students
become lifelong invalids. If they had pursued their studies under
proper conditions, with regular exercise in the sunlight and open air,
they might have come from school with increased physical as well
as mental strength.
Exercise Has Value
Students who with limited time and means are struggling to gain
an education should realize that time spent in physical exercise is
not lost. Those who continually pore over their books will find, after
a time, that the mind has lost its freshness. Those who give proper
attention to physical development will make greater advancement
in literary lines than they would if they devoted their entire time to
study.
Physical inaction lessens not only mental but moral power. The
brain nerves that connect with the whole system are the medium
through which Heaven communicates with humans, and affects the
inmost life. Whatever hinders the circulation of the electric current
in the nervous system, thus weakening the vital powers and lessening
mental susceptibility, makes it more difficult to arouse the moral
nature.
Again, excessive study, by increasing the flow of blood to the
brain, creates morbid excitability that tends to lessen the power of
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self-control. Thus the door is opened to impurity. The misuse or
nonuse of the physical powers is largely responsible for the tide of
corruption that is overspreading the world. “Pride, fullness of bread,
and abundance of idleness” are as deadly foes to human progress in
this generation as when they led to the destruction of Sodom.
Teachers should understand these things, and should instruct their
pupils in these lines. Teach the students that right living depends