New-York tribune., 1900-12-23
A CHILD'S PHYSICAL TRAINING
IMPORTANCE OF THE HARMONIOUS USE
OF THE BODY-"AN IDEAL STAND
ARD OF CULTURE"

II is to-day almost universally admitted that in
order to secure what the ancients designated as
"a sound mind in a sound body some kind OF
physical culture is absolutely necessary. Until re-
Gently this has not adopted until adult years
have been reached, but many parents have
become convinced that while child Is growing
is the time TO develop those muscles which VIII
support, strengthen and beautify the body and
invigorate the mind
Mrs Morris L. King who has made a study of
physical culture on scientific lines, gave her views
yesterday in an interview for The Tribune, on the
Importance Of physical training for children in all
walks of life.
"The ideal gymnasium should be the starting
house Of every young life" she said. Here should
be discovered and corrected the physical weak
nesses and wrongs that children inherit. initiate
and develop; and here the unlovely mental and
moral tendencies that physical arrangement en-
genders should be recognized and counteracted.
I'm the ideal gymnasium little feet and legs
should be strengthened, crooked backs should be
Strengthened, little chests lifted and broadened and
little bodies started and kept growing symmetrcally
and vigorously That such training is needed is
proved by the rarity OF sound. symmetrical, grace
full children. There few children who are happy
without nervous excitement.
Nothing in the world so promptly and fully re-
pays as the helping of growing thing to grow
we'll and easily and joyously. And nothing so
richly deserves to be Ill paid as the hampering or
preventing saddening of natural growth and
happy development Experiments with ideal physi-
cal training for mission school children yield re-
suits of unimagined beauty and suggestiveness
One primary class of eleven unwilling, mischievous
children a country district grew in fortnight to
fty-six eager fearless students; and at the end Of
six months, during which time the human being.
with its motion, speech, thought and feeling, had
constituted the basis of teaching, the result showed
ffty-six ceanly courteous boys and girls, joy
children be- easily taught and learning
well. Their work in reading at sight phrases and
sentences Of primary simplicity yet of real in
teresC and beauty, wonderfully versatile and
true ii its simple expression. Their tone and mien,
whether expressing joy in a birds song, in
terest in the length of a rabbits jump, sorrow
for a boys broken leg, showed accuracy of ap-
probation and truthful delcacy of Interpretation
that elocutionists might have enved. In an East
Side mission school, where the first meetings were
scenes of rude crowding and shouting, six weeks
evolved gentle manners of unselfish courtesy that
would have graced a West Side social gathering
"No child is free from self-consciousness as the
child who feels no fear of disapproval or disad-
vantage
Theories of physiology. philosophy or art can
not, of course be taught to children, but the es-
sence of hygienic habits, reasonable thought and
fair and gentle dealing very well be incuI-
Gated and my point is that they be most easily
infused through forming habits of beautiful mo-
tion and speech.
I'm answer to the query whether teaching chi-
dren to move does not make them self-conscious
stages of piano lingering instance to the
contrary During first music lessons players are
conscious of the process of lingering but as in
stinct grows and power of expression develops no
remembers the mechanism of economic finger
ing And if lingering never taught because
of its early conscious stages what would become