Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1881-03-19
Physical Training as Means Of Mental
Health.

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preventive excessive nervous develop
ment, and through that the frequent
mental failure or arrangement charac-
teristic of modern life. The mad poets
sarcastic remark that brains had brought
him to the asylum--a fate his interro-
gator ran no risk of-was bitterly true;
but it is not volume of brain so much as
an unbalanced development OF brain
that leads to insanity or liability to
that distressing malady. That the rapid,
eager, restless, anxious life which most
of us lead tends to produce an increas-
ing completely of the nervous system, all
physiologist agree. That. this complex
ity of nervous, organization lays us liable
TO the Development of condition OF I'M
stable mental and nervous equilibrium is
only too clearly proved by the statistics
of our asylums.
What are we to dop We can not rad
ically change our style of living to that
Of our slow.going ancestors; on the con-
trary, the indications are that our chill
dren's children will, by contrast with
their more active life, look back upon
our age as measurably serene. 1t is re-
motely possible that a new order of in
vention may reverse the tendency of the
race and relieve the future of much of
the mental and nervous strain which
we have to endure; but it does not look
that way now. The immediate future,
at any rate, is pretty sure to intensity
the conditions which so many break
down under to-day. Must the mental
breaking down increase in frequency in
proportionP Or can we pitch upon some
means whereby the rising generation
can be fitted to endure the strain which
will come to them better than the men
and women of to-day bear the burden of
to-day
A generation ago the popular theory
was that mental discipline, with the
brain development which early and long
continued schooling gives, would furnish
the capacity for mental work and men,
tai endurance which would best fit the
coming man for the work he would have
to do. The result has been to increase
the work to be done, and the speed of
doing it, without materially increasing
mans capacity for toll. In many cases
the course of education pursued seems
rather to have lessened the endurance
of our people, and to have fastened the
mental collapse of many of our brain
workers. And the school children OF
to-day have more to do than their fathers
and mothers had, and have to bear no
inconsiderable portion of the evils OF
modern life besides; that is, if constant
excitement, haste, and worry are to be
accounted obstacles TO healthy mental
and nervous development. That they
can not fairly be considered beneficial is
sufficiently evident.
Speaking of the nervous excitements
and their results, due to our modern
education and the rate and manner o.
our living, aa eminent English physician
(Dr. Browne, editor of the British Med.
zeal JournaI) says: "The cerebral
tissue becomes more and more highly
organized, convolutions obtain secondary
gyri. and with each differentiation in
structure new possibilities of disturb
ances are introduced; while the very
differentiation in question produces in
turn new mechanical devices, which
again introduce more complicated
mode of life with which the nervous sys
tenn must keep pace"
If there were no possible corrective tc
this tendency to increase the nervous
strain of life more rapidly than The
nervous organism can acquire power Il
endure it, the inevitable destiny of civ,
ilized men would be the mad. house o.
something near it. But there is promise
of such corrective. The late DIR
Seguin demonstrated many years age
that the undeveloped brains of thu
predetermined could be stimulated Il
healthy growth by patient and systemat
ic training of the muscles and the organ
of sense. DR.. Browne looks to CORE
spending physical culture of those o
normal brain endowment to give then
the increased brain capacity which will
fit them for the severer needs of our in
creasingly active intellectual life, and q
the same time make them better able t,
resist the inroads of mental disease.
Muscular exercise" he says, cha
been hitherto thought to expand tn
lungs, quicken the circulation, and brac
the nerves; but to this must now b.
added the pregnant idea that it also con
tributes to the brain growth and menta
evolution. AS large part of the brail
is composed of motor centers, we may
in the nascent state of the organ, power
fully act on the brain by putting int
methodical exercise the muscles whicl
we know to be directed by its variou
parts; and especially the centers gov
erning the movements of the hand ough
to be brought into training by careful
drill of manual movements, SO that, i
due time, a cunning right hand may b
the servant of every man to some me
chanical art, and of every woman b
some technical work"
And not only is it possible, as d.
Browne suggests, to fortify the youn
against the inroads of mental and nery
GUS disorders by the development G
brain capacity, stability and symmetry
through manual training, but there
gained also, by means of such training
the additional safeguards which com
from such dealing with realities, fror
having always at hand the means G
healthful recreation, and from the cor
scious ability to do, ifnecessity compels
something that will win support.
Industrial education thus takes on a
importance far greater than has hithel
to been accorded it. Itbecoms a naGes
sity, not merely to those who are hkel
to spend their lives as artisans, but eve
more to those who may never earn
days wages at the bench-men of il
dependent fortune, professional mer
business men, and women in all tn
walks of life, to whom physical tl'ainin