Educational Hygiene (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Educational Hygiene<br><br>The first striking fact is the relative neglect of physical standards for teachers. Less than one-third require a health certificate for entrance; less than one-half require a medical (or physical) examination at any time; just one-sixth require a health certificate for graduation. It may be noted in passing that the health certificate required is rather a certificate of freedom from disease than a certificate of rigorous health.<br><br>Two important omissions will be noted: The time devoted to physical education and the kind of instruction in health habits and health knowledge.<br><br>The encouraging things in this report are the number requiring physical exercise of all students, the emphasis upon games, both in required exercise and in practice teaching, and the number having gymnasiums. There is a distinct gain in these respects in the last 10 years.<br><br>From these returns and from other inquiries, studies, and observations two important generalizations may be made:<br><br>1. In a few normal schools a broad and true conception of physical education prevails. It is recognized as organic and general, not as specialized psychomotor training. It sees that its job is to know how children grow into health and to control the conditions and practices that are favorable or unfavorable to such growth. And it sees, further, that the way to make such principles effective in the schools is to make them effective in the preparation of teachers.<br><br>Certainly the following elements enter into such a program: Physico-medical examination at entrance and annually, at least, during the course; health certificate for graduation; daily physical exercise, at least one hour, of an enlivening and joy-producing kind; practice teaching of such exercise for children; playgrounds and gymnasiums necessary for such exercise; practical study of hygiene as exemplified in school life and environment; instruction in normal physical diagnosis.<br><br>2. The second conclusion is that complete fulfillment of these conditions in normal schools is rare. A few schools meet all the conditions with a considerable degree of thoroughness; more meet some of the conditions well and are short on the rest or meet them inadequately; and others meet all these conditions inadequately or not at all.<br><br>There is, however, light upon the horizon. Most of the newly enacted laws interpret physical education in the broad sense indicated above. Some of these, tho compulsory in form, are hardly more than permissive in substance, but they all point to a new emphasis on physical education in the normal schools. Several of them specifically include the normal schools in the application of the law.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.