Los Angeles herald., 1892-06-26

done towards arresting the decadence
which seems to threaten us.
OF course were are bound to 60 on
doing our best to secure the survival OF
the unfit, and II go, society can not
safely be satisfied with blind promis.
cuous charity, but must for self
preservation, adopt stringent pre-
ventive measures and attack the causes
Of degeneracy. Az the state does not
hesitate to pass lava TO prevent the
spread Of disease, there would seem to
be no national objection to providing by
proper legislation,
First. That no marriage shall take
place unless the contracting parties can
show clean bill of health, certified to
by competent medical and other author
ity, setting forth that neither of the
two is suffering from consumption, can
Ger, syphilis, or any constitutional or
necessarily mortal disease, or is idiotic,
or has ever been insane, or is now
pauper, or has ever been convicted of an
infamous crime.
Second-Put stop to the landing on
our shores Of immigrants who are pau
pers, or belong to the criminal classes,
or are suffering from the diseases or dis
abilities mentioned above as forbidding
marriage.
The scope Of this paper does not per-
nit going into detail, bnt we must, in
some way, isolate the great and grow
ing classes of the defective and delin-
quent; quarantine against them and all
tramps, cranks and generally worthless
beings. Instead OF industriously pro-
viding for the survival of the unfit. our
best energies should be devoted to COM
batting the conditions that produce
them.
I Having eliminated these sources of
moral and physical corruption and
weakness, l think the proper training
and education of our children will do
the rest.
We lay too much stress upon mere
book k-learning, the memorizing Of facts,
the acquisition of so-called knowledge,
which in itself is of very little practical
value.
The training that best fits for the
battle of life is that which forms habits
of accurate observation, and teaches
how to think and reason. One fact 80
acquired Is worth hundred slowed
away by mere force of memory.
A man whose mental faculties have
been developed on this principle, and
whose body has had equally careful
training, 60 that all it's powers are at
their best, may be said to have an all
round education. This kind of educa-
ton should begin with the child's first
breath. Parents should know the value
of cleanliness, pure air, proper diet,
common sense dress, and judicious ex-
ercise.
We should then incorporate in our
public school system q thorough and
systematic course Of physical exercise
and manual training and make these as
obligatory as any branches of study.
The ancients understood well the inn
portapce OF thorough physical training,
and the influence of athletics on the
character and national life OF the Greeks
and Romans can hardly be over es-
timated. while In the middle ages,
feudalism and knight efrautry, by rigor.
ous training for the profession Of arms
by the hard conditions prescribed to at
tain proficiency therein, by tournaments
and personal combats, developed q
physical strength and vigor which has
never since been equsled.
We do not need, however, to seek for
illustrations OF our subject outside of
our own age and nation.
From the first settlement of the colo.
nies till many years after the declaration
of independence, we were truly an agri-
cultural people. The population of the
cities was comparatively insignificant,
and all the energies of the people as q
whole, men, women and children, were
devoted to compelling the soil
to give them subsistence,
to hand to hand struggle with the
hostile forces of nature, and though they
little knew it then, to carving mighty
empire out OF the rude and inhospitable
wilderness.
Those were the days when Drawn and
muscle, and nerve and courage and en-
Clurance counted.
The farm, the plantations, the ever
advancing frontier, have been the gym
nasia Of this nation in days gone by,
and as increasing trade, commerce, and
manufactures have diversified indus
try, and crowded population
more and more into our cities, the con-
slant influx of the stalwart sons of the
soil have added new life and vigor to the
waning forces of the denizens of the
cities, and not seldom have they carried
off the most brilliant prizes and been
most successful in all the walks of life.
once asked an eminent lawyer and
ex-M. c., from what college he gradu-
aten, and he replied, 81 hap
pen to be potato-patch graduate"
He had educated himself during and
after an early life Of labor and hardship,
by which he had laid the foundation of
sound constitution, good health, and
had stored away those reserve forces
which are savings bank, sure to honor
many drafts drawn on it through life,
whatever be the stress of toll OF brain
or muscle.
The early presidents Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson
and most OF the southern statesmen,
were drawn from the plantations, while
Webster, Clay, Lincoln, Grant and
Sheridan are OF the type of potato-patch
graduates, as are also many Of the hard
est workers and most successful men in
all professions and in all lines Of busi-
ness. They are either from the farms,
or men who in other ways have had
trained muscles and robust bodies, as
we'll az active brains; men whose ambi-
ton never wavers and whose energy
never flags.
But times are changing. More than
half our population is now aggregated in
the cities, and the influx of fresh country
life no longer suffices to keep its phys
ical and mental tone up to par. Hence
the imperative need of universal and
enforced system Of physical culture and
manual training that shall reach all
obi1drou and vo,1kh oouoCio11v IN tho