Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-07-18
AND COLLEGE WORK
Pertinent Remarks on Discussions at
Teachers Convention.
TINE WASTED ON SCHOOL FRn1s
OF mn Education over
loaded with side Issues-various
DOIREs I'm the Educational
Field.

In discussing the paper by c. Stanley
Hall Of Clark university at the national
educational convention at Boston recently
Dr. O. W. A. Luckey, head professor Of
education at the University OF Nebraska
said:
The difference between athletics as a
means OF physical and mental development
with the initiative from within and ath-
ietics as a means OF habituation in con-
formity to an ideal from without has been
clearly pointed out in DIT. aalrs paper.
When athletics becomes an end in itself
its educational value is at a minimum.
but when il becomes means to the larger
end of developing the best men and wo-
men its educational value is at a maximum.
do not think that DR.. Hall means TO do
away with the coach or physical trainer.
Like the true physician, he becomes in
valuable, not alone in diagnosing organic
difficulties and aiding in their eradication.
but in assisting the individual at the Op-
perfume moment to discover his higher self.
In addition to the freedom, self-knowl-
edge, self-control which DR.. Hall men,
toned as gained through the physical edu-
cation Of the Greeks, think we should add
self-initfative. To understand is well, to
execute Is better. The educational process
is a feeling. a perceiving and a doing.
Efficiency comes through activity. but the
highest efficiency can come only through
intensive activity. We waste vast amounts
Of nervous energy by too long periods of
low grade or Indifferent work. shorten
the hours Of physical and mental activi-
ties but increase the intensity 1t is in
tensive activity that causes the irrigating
canals of the body to overflow into other
less used channels We appreciate this in
training the athlete, but not IN training the
student
Must He Corrective.
"All physical education must be correc-
tive as we'll as creative. Hence, it must
be individualistic and the initiative must
cciae from within.
Another mistake which we have made
and are still making is too great specializa-
ton or one-sided development. Glass spirit
and college rivalry tend to perpetuate this
difficulty. Our ideals are wrong. We make
physical education an end in ITSELF In
stead OF the means to much higher end
the best development of the human race
What we need as a race Is baiance-physi-
leaI, intellectual emotional colitional Wher
we find a child one-sided in development
we should not try to increase this abormal
ity. but to eradicate II by bringing Other
activities up to its level. The shotput mar
should be taught to run, not for the SAKE
Of his college. but for tho sake Of pos
}terdty.
This is a great nation, but unless signs
fail II is soon to be a greater one. TIT
Individual who can take all OF the forces
that are now working for mans redemp
ton and correlate them into the organi'
whole and give them true direction vii
become a perpetual hero. It seems TO m
the place TO begin is to give all aroun'
development or balance activity to all tn
Children all the time. .o
"In evolution natural selection tends q
lperpetuate the fittest. But this law doe
not hold in human evolution. There seem
to be a higher spiritual law in which maj
steps In to modify natural selection. w
protect the weak and cause them to sur
!, vive; we kill off the strong in our colieg
athletics and in war, or through one-side
development destroy their posterity. tn
fittest in human civilization are those VIII
, care for the weak. but because Of thi
extra burden do not. as a rule. perpetual
their kind. To this class belong many o
our teachers. college graduates and brai
workers offthe highest and most altruisti
type"