AND PHYSIOLOGY. 



141 



motive than a mere conviction of its necessity and importance. 

 For if we are interested in pursuing an object, the mind ac- 

 quires a healthy action, and by its reaction brings on a state 

 of perspiration in the body. In this case we have obtained 

 two ends, the muscular system has been exercised, and the 

 mind has gained full recreation from study. Hence the study 

 of natural history, and especially those branches of it which 

 require field exercise in collecting specimens, not only 

 strengthens the mind and furnishes new objects of thought, 

 but is an admirable method of gaining bodily strength. 



278. — 6. Value of Gymnasia, etc, to Colleges and Acad- 

 emies. — We see how injurious to health is the stimulating 

 plan adopted in too many of our higher seminaries of learn- 

 ing. The mind is crowded to its utmost with labor ; too 

 much time is taken up with cultivating the intellect, while 

 the body is left to take care of itself. A gymnasium or 

 some equivalent means of taking exercise is as important 

 a thing to our colleges and academies as are the build- 

 ings, libraries and cabinets themselves. And may it not 

 be the reason why literary men are generally so great suf- 

 ferers from ill health, that so little attention is paid to physi- 

 cal culture during the preparatory and collegiate course? 

 Is it not poor economy to take so much pains to cultivate the 

 inhabitant, when the house that it is to live in is such a mis- 

 erable tenement, and receives so little care and improvement ? 



REMARKS UPON MUSCULAR DEVELOPMENT. 



With the existing customs of the wealthier classes of 

 society, and our higher seminaries of learning especially, it is 

 hardly possible to say too much upon the necessity of physical 

 education : not that it is best to lower the standard of intel- 



Why does the study of some branch of natural history secure the best exercise ? 278. 

 What is said of the effect of a neglect of muscular exercise in schools and upon many 

 educated men of our country? 



