going decided transitional modifications, and like education, are being called upon constantly to respond to the ever changing needs of a rapidly progressing civilization. Experience is after all the best teacher, and shall be our guide throughout the following

pages.

Let us now consider the medical phase of physical education. Here, the first question is; where shall medical science begin to assert itself? To this, we feel tempted to answer like the highly eminent physician and literateur, Oliver Wendell Holmes: "We should commence life by choosing physically and mentally sound grandparents." Unfortunately for posterity, our spiritualistic brethren, while they have evolved means whereby one may, seemingly, at least, communicate with the shades of the departed, seem powerless to devise a method of communication between the shades of the child who is yet to be born and its ancestors. Therefore the logical time to select, from the national standpoint, seems to be when conception takes place, and the germ plasm of the future school child is in process of development. At this time it is plainly the duty of the local, state, or federal authorities to step in with constructive information which will tend to assist in the hygienic care of the expectant mother. In this regard we may well follow the example of England, who, before the recent war, stood highest in the world on all questions regarding the physical welfare of her subjects. When the Earl of Beaconsfield declared in the House of Parliament, "that the welfare of a nation depended entirely on the public health of its subjects," he uttered a call, the logic of which is just being realized with full force in the civilized world today.

When the child is born, there immediately devolves an additional responsibility upon the authorities, to so educate the mother that her infant may be safely guided through the years when the spectre of infant mortality looms menacingly upon our economic horizon. Once the child enters the kindergarten, the pupil at once becomes automatically the ward of the state, and here, from the time of its entry, to the day of its final graduation must the school child ever be surrounded by a competent system of medical

inspection in the broadest sense of the word. It is not within the scope of this paper to delve into the details of what such a system should consist in, but the term medical inspection is being so divergently construed in different sections of the country, that I shall endeavor to touch on some of the important phases of the work, particularly as exemplified in the division of Hygiene of the St. Louis public school system.

The greatest feature of such a system must needs be a regular inspection, twice yearly, at least, for any recognizable defects which may in any possible way retard the school child physically or mentally, and militant follow-up work to see that the defect is corrected. Almost of equal importance, although not nearly as easily controlled, is the factor of contagious diseases. Physicians and nurses of a hygiene division must form an ever vigilant cordon of guardians to weed out contagion as soon as recognized or where suspected, with proper follow-up precautions. A hygiene division must at all times be in close touch with the home, the family physician, the clinics and hospitals wherever the indigent are concerned, and with the local, state and national departments of health. No problem involving any sanitary or health feature of school buildings or any other phase connected with the school system should be decided or executed without the counsel of this department. It should be in direct charge of all activities involved with medical features, such as open-air schools, residential schools. and corrective institutions; it being understood of course that the pedagogical end of these places will be handled by the instruction division. Pscho-educational divisions, while not essentially medical in character, must needs be very closely associated with the hygiene divisions, since the physical examination forms a very important basis for the final classification. The latest activity which has developed from the health crusade in this country and which must be handled by the hygiene division, is the weighing of school children in a regular and systematic way; and wherever conditions are found where underweight or malnutrition is evident, then the nutrition clinic is utilized as a means of educating

mothers in the proper method of feeding and caring for these children.

I quote from the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1920: "In 1920 the Bureau of Education sent a questionnaire to about ten per cent of the schools of the country, to ascertain the extent of health education throughout the country. 4016 answers were received. Forty-eight per cent of the schools showed health teaching of some sort. Thirty-two per cent used classroom instruction with textbooks, and were calling clamorously for more and better material. Nineteen per cent weigh and measure the children according to the Bureau's standards. The West section of the country has been quickest to adopt the modern plan of health education. In Utah, seventy-two per cent of the schools are weighing and measuring. Iowa comes next with fifty-four per cent. Minnesota is third with thirty-one per cent. And so the states come up with a will out of their welter of ignorance and irresponsibility toward physical young America."

On the question of sex education, the Commissioner has the following to report: "Information has been secured by questionnaires answered by more than six thousand high schools as to the need for sex education in the high schools, the extent of such teaching at present, and the matter and method of such instruction. A pamphlet is in preparation which will embody not only the results of this study but also the results of the work of a special committee formed in the spring of 1919 to prepare a manual on sex instruction in the high school."

The various problems involved in the medical branch of physical education must of course be met by special modifiations for each community. The rural sections no doubt present the most complex factors for this work. The neglect of our rural districts in this regard forms one of the blackest blotches on our national escutcheon, and it is hoped that the legislation now pending, will seek to make amends for the errors of the past to these hitherto outlawed sections of our country. The above paragraphs are calculated merely to give an outline of the various phases of the medical branch of physical education. Those seeking more complete

and detailed information, I would refer to the directors of hygiene divisions in the large cities, such as St. Louis, Cleveland and Boston. In the report above quoted there are, unfortunately, at present only one and nine-tenths per cent reporting medical inspection in the schools, while, but seventy-two hundreths of one per cent have nutritional clinics and feedings. In the line of instruction, in the city of St. Louis during the scholastic year of 1920-21, a successful experiment was conducted by way of teaching girls of the higher elementary grades, infant hygiene or the care of the newly born, while the boys were given a complete course of firstaid instruction, according to the Red Cross Manual, and Red Cross certificates were awarded; while the girls of the infant hygiene class received bar pins of sterling silver as a token of completed work. As I am compiling this paper, I have before me numerous reports from different sections of the country, where the Government is making special surveys to show the need for medical inspection in the schools. The percentage of defective children is little short of appalling, and demonstrates more eloquently than all else the need for such work. A comprehensive essay, aiming at completeness, such as this one does not profess to be, and dealing with the medical phases of a national health program would necessarily have to invade every department of our economic existence, such as the home, the workshop and every other avenue which is penetrated by or associated with the members of a com munity; but since we are considering educational factors alone we will conclude the consideration of this topic with a quotation from Shakespeare, who, in his Twelfth Night, has one of the characters to state, "Even from the body's purity, the mind receives a sympathetic aid," making it evident that even in Shakespeare's time, the value of health, as a factor in receiving life in abundance was recognized.

We come now to a consideration of physical training, the science which brought to ancient Greece a great share of the glory in her crown of world renown. The halo of Greece consisted essentially in her comprehension of art and philosophy, and what was her art but an embodiment of the marvellous physique engendered by

a steadfast devotion to the principal pastime of the nation, physical training. When Rome pursued the science of physical development, her phalanxes withstood the impact of the world's best soldiery; when Rome took to drink and riotous living she neglected her physical art and soon fell an easy prey to the horde of barbarous tribes around her. Thus one finds many instances where the rise and decline of a nation may be measured by its fealty or disloyalty to the art of physical development. It was due to the perfect system of physical training which obtained in Germany that this nation was in a great measure able to defy the entire civilized world.

Before proceeding further it will be necessary that we are clear in our minds as to definition of the term physical training, and the extent of its utility as an agent to be made available in modern times. For, unfortunately, in the minds of too many people the title is associated with military endeavors, or with individuals possessing immense muscles obtained at the expense of a crippled heart in a gymnasium. In order to arrive at a proper understanding of the function of the art of physical training it will be necessary to state a few fundamental physiological facts on which to base a scientific conclusion, for without such premise our deduction would be merely speculative at best.

Man was evidently created to evolve energy; for which purpose we have an abdominal laboratory where food is received which imparts to us the means of living and producing this energy. Therefore we very much resemble a furnace. In order to maintain a furnace in proper working order, regular care is devoted to removal of the cinders. In order to have a normally functioning body, the same principle applies; but unfortunately, humanity seems psychologically constructed in a manner that makes us willing at all times to take in fuel (food), but as far as the elimination of waste material is concerned, we seem unwilling to adopt the necessary routine of life which will bring this about in a normal way. The avenues for this purpose are through bowel activity, kidney action, perspiration and other sources. Neglected elim