SCHOOL LIFE, GROWTH, AND HEALTH. 107 



SCHOOL LIFE IN RELATION TO GROWTH AND 



HEALTH.* 



By Pkof. AXEL KEY (of Stockholm). 



ONE of our highest, and at the same time one of the pleasant- 

 est, objects in life is the instruction of our children. It is 

 our duty to promote their physical and mental health by all the 

 means in our power ; and the success of our efforts to that end is 

 one of our greatest joys. The doubt has gradually grown strong 

 whether modern instruction at home and in school, as a whole, is 

 so arranged and guided that the aim of a sound mind in a sound 

 body, which should never be left out of sight, is reached. More 

 and more sharply is the question of the influence of the present 

 school system on the growing youth debated in every enlightened 

 country of Europe. More and more distinctly is it declared, espe- 

 cially from the side of the doctors, that the school imposes too 

 great demands upon the young organism in the critical period 

 of its growth ; that it, as well as all our education, seeks too one- 

 sidedly to stimulate mental growth, and that the physical develop- 

 ment is thereby so neglected that great dangers arise, perhaps 

 fatal for the whole life, to the body as well as to the closely related 

 mental health. Much as has been thought and written on the sub- 

 ject, and much as school hygiene has been advanced recently, 

 thorough investigations of the condition of children's health in 

 schools have not hitherto been made in other countries than Den- 

 mark and Sweden, and a practical basis for conclusions on the 

 matter is therefore wanting. The first fundamental research was 

 instituted by Dr. Hertel in Copenhagen in 1881, and its result was 

 so significant that a special hygienic commission was appointed 

 to examine the conditions of health in all the schools of the king- 

 dom. At the same time a grand school commission was named 

 by the Government of Sweden to inquire into the organization of 

 the whole higher school life. This commission, of which I am a 

 member, has examined nearly fifteen thousand boys from the mid- 

 dle schools or the preparatory schools for the university, and three 

 thousand girls in the private girls' schools, in reference to their 

 health, and has measured and weighed them. The results of these 

 researches show that boys pass through three distinct periods of 

 growth : a moderate increase in their seventh and eighth years ; a 

 weaker growth from their ninth to their thirteenth years, and a 

 much more rapid increase in height and weight from their four- 

 teenth to their sixteenth years, or during the period of puberty. 



* Address before the International Medical Congress in Berlin. Translated for the 

 Popular Science Monthly from the Internationale klinische Rundschau. 



