Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1909-05-20
DIXON CALLS HALT
ON OVERSTUDY.
MUST HAVE MORE PLAY.

"a big factor in the development of
tuberculosis among our people is the
weakening of our children's general
physical condition by driving them to
overstudy," said Penna. State Health
Commissioner Samuel G. Dixon at
Harrisburg last Saturday.
81 every day see children who will
never live to grow up, and who are
being sacrificed to the vanity OF their
parents, because their children, hav-
ing active brains, stand high IN their
classes; and their fathers, or more
often, perhaps, their mothers, are Hat
tered at finding that their own chill
dren are outstripping those of their
neighbors in their studies.
"Only to-day | saw a poor anem1c
little fellow in physicians office,
where he had been brought by his
father for some trif1ing surgical injury
which indicated feeble nutrition. His
countenance showed high degree of
intelligence, but he was pale and ane-
mic in the extreme, his manner was
of WEAKNESS.
OyerwOrking Him at School.
"I asked his father if the boy at
he answered, and stands at the head
of all his classes But can't you see,
I said, that he is overworking his
brain and pining for fresh air?' That
boy ought to be taken from school at
once and made to live in the open un-
til his health is thoroughly establish
ed. "Impossible!' exclaimed the faith
err it would break his mothers heart
L. y icfY
the idol of his mothers heart, and yet
she was jeopardizing his health and
life in order to crafty her maternal
pride in his attainments.
'sThe fact that we Americans have
been too much in the habit of regard
ing our children as solid Jumps of in
tellect. and have forgotten that their
nature is a two-fold one; that they
have bodies as we'll as minds and that
if we would have them grow up to a
perfect manhood and Womanhood we
must educate their dual nature and
not one at the expense of the other.
The most thoroughly educated nation
on the earIh is the German. It is
also the most robust, showing that it
is possible to be well educated and
vigorous at the same time. But this
mans begin the education of the body
as well as the mind, and the education
is carried on symmetrically to matur-
ity, the body having its full due all
along. The farmers children who at
tend school only six or seven months
in the year and walk miles to school
every day are better able to stand the
cramming process on which the mod=
ern pedagogue insists than those who
live between city walls.
Tells School Girls to Walk.
Every day l see in the street cars
young girls carrying complete libra
ries of educational books, and too of
ten their pale cheeks testify that time
has been devoted to mastering their
contents which might better have been
given to open-air games If they
should carry half as many books and
walk to school instead of riding in
crowded cars, their chances for living
to vigorous maturity would be greatly
improved.
Statistics show that during the mid
die period of school life noticeable
and rather sudden increase of tuber-
culosis takes place, and knowing what
we do of the physical conditions which
predispose to the life of that germ in
the human body, this is only what one
would naturally expect. Our school
laws in this State contain many pro-
visions for the protection of the health
of the children, but these are too often
overlooked by the teachers and by
those who arrange the overloaded cur
riculums."