Evening star., 1922-04-17
PHYSICAL TRAINING
IS DECLARED VITAL.
PART OF EDUCATION
Fairgrounds Regarded Indis-
pensabIe to Children by
Virginia Educator.
HEALTHY BODY NEEDED
TO BACK UP MENTALITY
Would Install Gymnasiums in All
Schools as Best Step Toward
Proper Development.

Fairgrounds are indispensable in
order to round out the education of
children and fit them physically to go
out in the world and apply with
vigor their mental training, accord
ing to Harris Hart, superintendent Of
public instruction of the state of Vir-
ginia. He said that Fairgrounds
should be provided in the congested
sections especially.
He expressed the belief before the
joint congressional committee on
schools that it would not be difficult
for Congress to provide sufficient
Fairgrounds as a part Of each six-
teen-room building accommodating
from 4S0 to 500 students.
1T you have unit Of a sixteen-room
building you are going to accommodate
in that building anywhere from 4S0 to
500 students" he said. That is a group
of students that l would say, in Wash
ington. is geographically sufficiently well
centered for no student to have a long
distance to go to school, It is a group
that is not so large that 1t will be beyond
the ordinary task Of the public to supply
large enough Fairgrounds to take care
of a crowd Of students Of that size You
have building large enough to accom-
modate 1000 or 1900 or 1900 students,
and it Is question of a whole square,
maybe a square and a half. for the
building and for the playground.
Urges Gymnasiums.
What I mean by adequate play
grounds Is about this: First of all. a
gymnasium. one that will accommo-
date classes for gymnastic exercises
and physical training. so that In four
or Ave groups during the day you
could reach all the children that
should be taken into those classes,
reserving the kindergarten and first
primary students probably for phys
ical exercises in their own rooms
Then, out in the yard you would have
space enough, should say, in half
q block to give those children room
for such games as in the early fall
or In the spring of the year might be
indulged in under proper supervision
l would think 1t ought not to be too
strictly supervised, ! do not think
1t should have the life supervised out
of 1t. ! mean that with a group Of
about 500 students you could take a
school lot of about square and you
could take ample care Of them. II
may be in many places half . square
would be sufncisnt-
b, AA r.,
Hart continued. people generally
have somewhat changed their atti-
tude toward physical education. u
am not sure that five or six years ago
physical education was regarded by
some people as q frill / regard phys
ical education as nothing more or
less than part and parcel Of the ed
ucational process. 1 look upon phys
ical education as being just about the
same as what we commonly call men.
tai education.
Insurance Policy.
1.-THE purpose of the whole job il to
think with the mind, but who can put
their whole body and energy to the
service of the state, and the proper
type of physical education is a sort
of insurance policy which they take
out to guarantee they are going to
get a proper return on the money in
vested in mental training. 1t depends
on your starting point. feel that the
public school situation is probably
one that sometimes invites entirely
too much work-some things that
may be called frills-but I do not
believe a proper conception of public
education would permit physical edu-
cation to be classified as a frill. 1
suspect that that idea has come down
from a, long. long tradition.
I'VE had a notion once. think, that
you could take. boy and chop him uu
into three more or less alright COM
ponents, calling one moral, one physl-
cal and one mental. We had a pretty
distinct idea that you could develop
one regardless of the other, somewhat
like the very ancient monks who
felt the best way to sanctify the spirit
think we are getting away from that
conception, where our education.
physical and mental. is regarded as q
unit, and it is from that conception
that 1 would think adequate play
grounds and adequate physical train
ing facilities are necessary