The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1877-12-16
EDUCATING THE BODY.
A SUBJECT FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF
MANAGERS OF COLLEGES AND CoNvENTs.

At the recent meeting of the Public
Health Association in Chicago, Professor
E. Hitchcock read q paper on hygiene 10
Amherst College. giving the results to
date of an experiment in systematic phys
ical education that 10 now in its eighteenth
year.
It 10 now little more than twenty one
years since the late President Stearns
startled the Amherst trustees by avowing
his conviction that the frequent breaking
down" of students was wholly unnecessary
because perfectly preventable. His argu-
ments, reinforced by the death of two mem
bers of the senior class, induced the trus.
physical education and hygiene, to put up
a gymnasium, and to make gymnastics q
part of the college curriculum-as ooliga-
tory as mathematics or Greek.
The duty of the professor in charge of
this department is good deal more oner.
GUS than that of simple Instructor in
gymnastic, however. He is to be thor
oughly edncsted ply sicisn to be held re-
sponsible for the general health of the col
lege to know the physical condition of
every member of every class to give each
freshmen class a course of lectures on the
laws of health, with special reference to
the conditions Of college life; and to fol-
omy and physiology. He is also to teach
the physical principles of elocution. On
four days in each week, each class meets
him in the gymnasium-R commodious,
we'll lighted, we'll ventilated building-for
q half hour drill in light gymnastics, slow,
Every member sof the class must be on
hand, unless specially excused. For the
light gymnastics, wooden dumbbells weigh
ing less than pound apiece are used, and
all the movements are timed to music. The
drill over, voluntary exercise is in order,
but always under the watchfal oversight
and direction of the instructor. About one
in eight of the students makes use of the
heavy apparatus. We gather from the
Professors paper that violent gymnastics.
if not positively discouraged at Amherst,
are not advised except in rare cases. The
dominant purpose is to develop not muscle
but health.
Has this purpose been accomplished Z
The Professor thinks so. The general law
is that the chances of life decrease rapidly
from about the fifteen tn year to the twenty
third. Bnt in Amherst college this law is
repealed the statistics chow steady i'm
provemeut in health from year to year
through the four years of the course, the
average age of the students at admissisa
being 10 years, aud at graduation % years.
Dyspepsia, formerly common disease in
the college, has been so effectually banished
that no student has lost recitation on ac-
count of it in sixteen years. DR.. Jarvis es-
Inmates the average loss OF time among the
laborers of Europe on account of sickness
at 10 to 90 days in the year the Massachu-
setts Board of Health estimated the aver
age loss of time from sickness in that State
in 1872 at 13 days /; the average loss of time
from sickness in Amherst College in the
last sixteen years is 2 "a days.
In view of these results, Prof. Hitchcock
feels himself warranted in pronouncing the
experiment successful. Certainly it would
aeem to merit the study of the trustees and
faculties of other Americas colleges, az well
as of the people at large. The pale student
may be more interesting figure in poetry
aud fiction, but the red checked, strong
iunged student is of good deal more use
in real life.