APPENDIX A LVII 



our youths of 18 to-day, and it is a well-knowTi fact, that the stone cof- 

 fins, sarcophagi, are fully half a head too short for our average Canadian. 

 As to feats of physical prowess, such as football, hockey, running and 

 leaping, our young athletes hold first rank, and such developed activity 

 has not lessened their mental culture. Under such circumstances the 

 brain is not a silent receptacle, but a "" copious promptuary " of learn- 

 ing and device. Games, says Sir James Paget, are admirable, in all the 

 chief constituent qualities of recreations, but besides this, they exercise 

 a moral influence of great value in business or in daily work. Professor 

 Sir Michael Foster in two recent Eede Lectures to the Eoyal Society, 

 London, tells us, that even in muscular work, the weariness of the 

 brain, like the work of the muscles, is accompanied by chemical change; 

 that the chemical changes, though differing in detail, are of the same 

 order, in the brain " as in the muscle.^^ " If there be any truth in 

 what I have laid before you, (says Foster) the sound way to extend those 

 limits, is not so much by rendering the brain agile, as by encouraging 

 the humbler help-mates, so that their more efficient co-operation, may 

 defer the onset of weakness." Games not only keep a man healthy, 

 but encourage his work and give him a better knowledge of his 

 associates. The Duke of Wellington truly said, the Battle of Waterloo 

 was won in the playfields of Eton. Let games in the proper sense, be 

 the recreation and not the business of life. Thus will brain power 

 gain full force, and conduce to the success of the varied duties of life. 



After all, a young man with nothing but brains would be a poor 

 object in life. It is the battle of ideas we require, and he who is 

 not up to the mark, must eventually take a back seat. A. combination 

 of brain and muscle won the battle of Paardeberg which has placed 

 Canada to-day in an honoured position throughout the civilized world. 



I have presented to you on the present occasion the known ground- 

 work as to the best and safest means of preserving brain power, and 

 s! the same time, to so guard the complicated nervous machinery of 

 the human system, as to preserve health and strength, and develop the 

 pabulum of thought, to meet the wants and requirements of an exact- 

 ing age. Owing to the progress in brain knowledge within the past 

 thirty or forty years we look forward with great hopes to the outcome 

 f.f this twentieth century, during which many of the principles pre- 

 sented on the present occasion will doubtless be established, on a sound 

 and subsitantial basis. Throughout let that idea guide and direct 

 f.ur efforts with the hope that the charming words of Wordsworth 

 n ay be fully realized : — 



" In the unreasoning progress of the world, 

 A wiser spirit is at work for us, 

 A better eye than ours." 



