September IS, I'JO.i.] 



SCIENCE. 



355 



ing of the pupils, aud iu their sight and 

 hearing. The home also is receiving the 

 attention of hygienists. Its site, its drain- 

 age, its wall papei-s, its ventilation, its 

 eookei-y, are undergoing careful investi- 

 gation. 



Aud, tiually, personal hygiene— the care 

 of the individual body, its exercise, its 

 fatigue, its work, its rest, its play, its cloth- 

 ing, its bathing, its hunger and thirst and 

 sleep, its growth and its old age— is be- 

 ing dealt with to-day, not superficially aud 

 by tradition or experience alone, as for- 

 merly, but also by experiment. Physiology 

 and hygiene have become experimental 

 sciences, aud have thus taken on a new and 

 higher value. In view of all these mar- 

 velous changes, we may properly ask and 

 undertake to answer the question which 

 forms the subject of this paper. 



But first and always we must keep stead- 

 fastly in mind the end and object sought 

 for in the training under consideration. 

 This has always been and still is primarily 

 (iractieal and technical, namely, a sound 

 jn-eparation for the right conduct of phys- 

 ical life. For although it is one argument 

 for increasing the efficiency of instruction 

 in the.se subjects that they give informa- 

 tion on mattei's of great human interest, 

 and that, when rightly taught, they are 

 of high educational value, still the prinuiry 

 purpose of teaching them is not to give 

 information nor mental discipline, but be- 

 cause their subject matter is of immediate 

 aud enduring importance in determining 

 and promoting the right conduct of the 

 physical life, and especially the preserva- 

 tion and promotion of health. Their value 

 is special rather than general, practical 

 rather than cultural, technical rather than 

 disciplinary. 



We may confess frankly that physiology 

 and hygiene have not always hitherto jus- 

 tified their place in the curriculum by their 

 results. It would be going too far to deny 



that they have been without iutluence, or 

 that in exceptional cases they have not 

 been valuable; but they certainly have not, 

 on the whole, accomplished what was orig- 

 inally expected of them. Their results 

 have been disappointing, aud it is by no 

 means unusual to hear competent educa- 

 tors express the opinion that it would be 

 better to drop them altogether. Physiol- 

 ogy aud hygiene are too frequently looked 

 upon by school authorities as an unavoid- 

 able necessity, and by teachers and pupils 

 as a bore. And yet we doubt whether any 

 of these superintendents or teachers woTild 

 care to take the responsibility of banishing 

 them altogether from the curriculum. 

 They ma.v not be a success; but the convic- 

 tioji remains that they ought to be a suc- 

 cess, aud doubtless the hope, however faint, 

 that some day they will be. 



The present unfortunate condition of 

 affairs is due, in our opinion, largely to 

 the fact that the primary purpose of these 

 subjects iu the curriculum has been neg- 

 lected or forgotten. They were perhaps 

 introduced prematurely, as has been sug- 

 gested above. Fifty years ago anatomy 

 was the one branch of medical science 

 about which definite statements could lie 

 made, but little was known about physiol- 

 ogy, and the great field of hygiene was 

 largel.v a matter of either popular tradi- 

 tion or impressions derived from personal 

 or racial experience, often, indeed, sur- 

 prisingly accurate, but nevertheless lack- 

 ing in the certainty of experimentally 

 deinonstiated fact. 



It is only exact knowledge which lends 

 itself to school insti'uction. We do not 

 teach electricity in our courses in physics 

 by speculating about thunderbolts or the 

 nature of magnetism, but by telling what we 

 know of the production, the conduction or 

 the induction of electrical energy. We leave 

 the region of the indefinite to the investiga- 

 tor. It is easy to see, therefore, how it came 



