PSYCHICAL ASPECTS OF MUSCULAR EXERCISE. 805 



door stages of the race. The sedentary life does not call for the de- 

 velopment of muscle, heart, lungs, bones, viscera, and brain. This 

 must come to the individual as they come to the race. The rational 

 system of public-school physical training will provide not only for 

 the physical development that comes through formal gymnastics, but 

 it will put in the foregTOund the development of the play instinct. 

 We shall see that the right of natural order is adhered to in the 

 gradual unfolding of the individual in its plays and games. 



With speech and writing we have means of perpetuating and 

 communicating knowledge that enables the race to progress far faster 

 than was possible when each achievement was won only when it be- 

 came incorporated into the neural structure of the race. With the 

 increasing sum of knowledge that seems necessary for the adult, 

 it is becoming increasingly difficult properly to fit the youth for life. 

 We must crowd the studies back into earlier and earlier years. This 

 education we may call organic. I plead for the old organic education, 

 somatic development. This superorganic education is of no avail 

 unless the individual has those inheritances from the race that fit him 

 to live. Muscular activity and play form the fundamental basis of 

 the psychical nature; and yet both of these we seem to be trying to 

 crowd out. Our beautiful cities are growing up without play- 

 grounds, and yet there is nothing in all the world more dear to us 

 than the wholesome development of our children. We demand that 

 children shall sit still in school; this seems necessary, but it would be 

 quite possible to secure all the results of the superorganic education, 

 and to have at the same time children who have their right and full 

 development, through play and muscular training. 



It seems to me that this matter of play is related to the deeper 

 problems not only of education and psychology, but to religion and 

 sociology as well. Our schools may train the intellect, but the great 

 bulk of the training of the will and feelings, both of which are higher 

 than the intellect, receive their chief development through play. 



Muscular activity may not be so important for adults, but it is 

 fundamental in youth and childhood. Civilization — city life — is 

 taking away both muscular work and play. 



What will America do for her children? How much are whole- 

 some, wholly developed children worth? 



A French ecclesiastic recently, in one of his sermons, told what he said 

 was an authentic story of Le Verrier, that when one of his friends, con- 

 gratulating him after the discovery of Neptune, remarked, ''You are very 

 near the stars, my dear friend," "I hope," replied Le Verrier, "to get far- 

 ther than that ; I expect to go to heaven." Le Verrier was an earnest 

 Christian and profoundly spiritually minded. He is said to have had a 

 large crucifix placed in the instrument room of the observatory. 



