Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1880-04-17

sitive and motor functions are so ad-
iusted, and reflex and automatic acts
are so concerted that the whole is capa-
BILE of a rhythm more exquisite than that
of any music below the spheres. Where
there is proper bringing up OF
the composite nature OF man,
we are more and more impressed
how difficult it is to put this radical
part of our nature out OF order. LIS
very construction is such as to be ready
for any allowable emergencies; to be
responsive to all usual changes, either
of contact, scene, or circumstances, IN
the world. 1t is hard to disarrange yet,
numberless as are the cases of disorder.
Once out of order it will not be mended
by any common tinkering. Nay, 1t IS
SO much a high-wrought and divinely-
wrought excellency that human inquiry
NAV find in it skill which is wholly in
imitable. Its study is becoming more
and more study not only in the inter
ests of human health and physical
science, but of all education. Huxley
saws that "the object of intellectual
education is to create such indissoluble
associations of our ideas of things, In the
order and relation in which they occur
/ in Nature, rs that we shall organize
conscious actions into unconscious ones,
/ so leading us to do by force of habit
what we first learn to do by repeated
volitions. 1t is this study of the nerv-
GUS functions that is giving to mental
hygiene such prominence in the thoughts
OF our wisest disciplinarians.
One of the first thoughts in all life and
in all education is so to deal with the
nervous system of child as to preserve
its harmony, and then to make it
automatic only in that sphere in which
it is safe thus to develop what is pri-
marily volitional We think the times
of study, the modes of reproof and pun
ishment, the exercise of the senses, the
effects of severity and fright, and many
other like matters are to be very closely
studied in their nervous impressions.
We have known a sudden and startling
surprise to excite chorea in an appar-
entity healthy girl. One of the worst
cases of stammering We ever knew Of, a
lady of twenty-five, commenced when
she was q child of four years old, IN her
attempt to welcome her mother home,
after an absence which left the child
alone until it began to grow dark. The
study of the nervous systems OF child
hood, of their mode of receiving i'm
pressions, and of the methods OF edu-
, eating the senses as related thereto,
, ought to occupy the earnest thought OF
) every parent and teacher. Tea, coffee,
t tobacco have no place in our American
E civilization for the young, although they
: so often come to be used, TO greater
t or less degree. There is an exercise
and training of the nervous system
e quite distinct from that included
$ under the general head of physical ex
: ercise. We need to have the sense:
e trained to discern, to try and develop
l.. the equipoise, and to extend the self
: contained and controlling power. Mucf
of the power exercised by leaders among
e men depends lot so much upon powers
e of thought or brilliancy of imagination
= as upon a self-command of the Who'll,
e nervous organism, SO as to make 1t re
[ sponsive to will where it should be ant
: automatic in right expression where
e should not wait for reason. In such :
e case the emotional is as healthy as i
h the delberatiye in another sphere. l
: can not be denied that the averag
n American, by heredity and by organ
= iZation, tends to nervous tempera
n ment, and to disturbed function there
: from, which needs watching. Our vita
o air, our quick perceptions, and hurrie'
5 attempts to multiply seconds into MIN
e utes, and all the stimulus of such in
n struments of precision as annihilate dis
J. lance, tend 10 set our nervous system
:. running at full speed every time. Thus
V not only does your so-called nerv
e Gus man do his work nervously
II but the staid, stolid man, in hi
&c attempt to accomplish too much, per
l. chance breaks down into the gait o
;. feeling of his nervous brother; and