STATE Board of health. 
307 
a healthful condition of body and mind. Nature’s demand for both 
is imperative. In both growth and repair, it must ever be borne 
in mind that even the process of digestion is not completed when 
the food leaves the stomach — not completed when it reaches the 
blood — but must be laid down in bone and muscle and nerve; and 
this, to be perfected, requires absolute physical labor. 
A practice obtains somewhat widely in our common schools, 
which, although pertaining more especially to the domain of morals, 
may be noticed in this paper. It may be called the system of self¬ 
crimination. The chiefs of the school establish a code or a system 
of rules. They are numerous; some of them are very high and 
some of them very low. The need of some of them is quite appar* 
ent; the need of others not quite so apparent; and unfortunately 
those that are not so apparent are the hardest to observe. A pen¬ 
alty attaches to the violation of each rule, and the pupil is required 
to report his own misdeeds, and is rarely allowed to cite extenuat¬ 
ing circumstances. In this, the high court of school differs from all 
other earthly tribunals. The reason assigned for the requirement 
is, that it will cultivate in the pupil a high sense of honor. Now, 
doubtless, every human being should carefully police his own con¬ 
duct, and yet, in making up his account for the day, he has a moral 
right to consider extenuating circumstances. This the child is de¬ 
nied, and he knows it is not fair play, and he mentally and morally 
revolts. 
But this is not all, nor worst. The children will neither keep the 
rules nor report their violation; but, long before the years of school 
life are past, will begin slight prevarications, which is the highway 
to lying. The whole system may be fairly characterized as an in¬ 
geniously devised scheme to make liars of us all. 
Proceeding to a more general consideration of mental hygiene, or 
health, it may be safely affirmed that no great possession will be 
employed to the utmost advantage of its possessor unless it be 
known and appreciated by its possessor. This statement is made 
with a full appreciation of the great endowment and perfection of 
instinct, with some reason superadded, if you will. No good dog 
says, I have great instinct or small reason. The conscious “ I am,” 
is the exclusive heritage of man and those above him. Conscious 
mind is his great inheritance. It is his only characteristic. It is 
his fortified citadel. It is his tower of strength. It is his inner 
