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1889 Boston Physical Training
Conference Reunion
A conference in the interest of physical training was held at Huntington Hall,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, on Friday and Saturday, November
29 and 30, 1889. William T. Harris, United States commissioner of
Education, presided. HG #1 recently held a reunion in which participants
relived the event. In his opening address, Dr. Harris said:
We
open this morning a Conference devoted to the consideration of physical
exercises for the development of the body.
Physical training, I take it, is a part of the subject of hygiene in its
largest compass. We wish to discuss
physical training in view of hygiene, and to avoid, if we can, all narrow
interpretation of our subject. The
advantage of such a Conference as this is that extremes come together; and, by
comparison of views, each one learns to supplement his own deficiencies.
We shall all be delighted to find new phases of the subject.
Hygiene wishes to make the most of the body for human purposes,--not for
animal purposes, but for human purposes.
Hygiene includes several departments, of which physical training is one.
I shall define physical training as the conscious or
voluntary training of the muscular side of our system, which is the special side
under the control of the will. Of
course we understand that the vital processes go on without the will, and that
this is an advantage,--it is better that they should remain involuntary.
Of course the voluntary system has relations to the involuntary system,
and this is one of the first questions which have been considered by persons who
have thoroughly studied physical training.
What can we do with our wills? What
can we do with our muscles that shall help on the vital processes and develop
them? This is a deep subject.
It should be the first which attracts the attention of persons interested
in physical education, and it should be also the last one.
We ask what we can do by the action of our wills in the matter of
developing the muscles of the chest, of the legs, and of the arms, and inquire
what are the relations of the muscle-action to digestion and sleep and such
matters. We have not yet probed
these subjects to the bottom, nor have we ascertained the fundamental relations
of the voluntary to the involuntary functions in diseases conditions. We are continually finding some new phases, and I suppose the
medial profession discover more new facts in relation to this than persons
specially interested in physical training alone. Physicians discover cases in which some oversight in regard
to will-training has related in interfering more or less with the involuntary
processes, so that the latter have been retarded, thus injuring some of their
functions. We all acknowledge the
importance of discovering and settling the limits between these two processes
and defining all the relations between the involuntary vital processes and the
conscious voluntary movements, and the transition of these voluntary movements
into involuntary ones again through the principle of habit.
The exercise of the muscles by voluntary effort calls into action the
higher nervous motor-centers of the body and brain.
That is to say, physical training such as is advocated by us relates
especially to the will, and therefore to the very highest nerve-centres of the
physical system. This reveals its
relation to rest and recreation. Now,
when one, for instance, is studying science or art or literature or any school
studies, he is exercising these same high nerve-centres.
Let him pass from study to one of these systematic physical exercises,
and he does not get the required rest. It
is not rest and repose form the exercise of these higher never-centres, at
least. Of course all of our
specialists in physical training know that it is not a relief from will-tension,
and the question remains: In how far is such exercise as that valuable?
In what way is it a relief? Those
who put forward theories of physical exercise and training have their views with
regard to this, and the opinions of different individuals vary.
I take it that one of the most important results of this Conference will
be the adjusting of differences of opinion with regard to this point,--in how
far the use of the muscles by the will can afford rest and recreation from
studies and from sedentary occupations, and in how far they will serve so well
as free play. We all know the
difference between play and work. In
our play, caprice governs, and there is real purpose for the will.
But in work the will takes the body and the mind and puts them under
forms proscribed by others or under such forms as it has adopted for itself tin
its rational hours. Its action in
work is as much inhibitory and holding back as it is spontaneous and free
exercise. But play is not
inhibitory. Play has its use in
education. We are discovering more
and more how play is an exceedingly important function; that it is the source of
the development of individuality through spontaneity. The individual through play learns to know, to command, to
respect himself, and to distinguish between his own impulses and inclinations
and those of others. Great strength
and individuality grows from play. Nations
that postpone play until maturity fail in this respect.
In China it is said that old men of sixty fly kites.
In this country boys of twelve or fifteen fly kits; but there aged men
love to do it; and children do not feel the same interest in play in china as
they do here
These considerations. With regard to the relation of the
voluntary culture of the body to the involuntary, the relation of the muscles to
the vital organs, have been receiving much attention in the new physical
education; the old physical thought the muscular education was all that was
necessary to the training of the body, and this view prevailed here up to about
the year 1860. The new physical
education began with the work of Dr. Hartwell at Amherst, and was followed by
Dr. Sargent in the Hemenway Gymnasium at Cambridge, Dr. Hartwell at the Johns
Hopkins, and their coworkers in the various colleges and universities. The student now studies this problem broadly, and focuses his
attention on the relation of the voluntary to the involuntary, and tries to
discover whereby the vital organs,--the lungs, the heart, the stomach, all the
digestive organs, the kidneys,--in short, how all the functions that are
involuntary in their action may be assisted and influenced by voluntary action
and motion. The old gymnastic did
not pay attention enough to this relation of exercise to the vital organs to
discover its negative effects. It
did not determine the limits of muscular training.
In the case of calisthenics, for example, the will-power is called into
play, and it is no relief from the strain on the brain to go from the study of
arithmetic or from the concentration of attention on the work in recitation to
the performance of physical manoeuvres that demand close attention to the
teacher who gives the signal for the callisthenic exercises.
A very powerful exercise of the will is demanded for calisthenics,
whereas free play (not systematic games) is rest for the will.
The recess spent in play in the schoolyard is a great rest and
refreshment. I mention this because there has been a movement throughout
the country, commencing long ago in Evansville, Ind., to do away with the
recess. A superintendent who had
given much time to studying the moral development of children came to believe
that the recess is the cause or the means of a great deal of immorality, and
that by abolishing it he would bring the pupil more under the control of the
teacher, thereby increasing the moral hold on the pupil. That movement spread to various places in this country.
Rochester for a long time had no recess.
This abolishing of the recess has led our conservative educators who hold
their faith in the old regulation to look with suspicion on this experiment, and
to try to discover in what forms there is apparent a physical reaction, and in
what forms there are counter-movements on the part of physicians and others,
tending to mould public opinion.
I hope that the papers and
discussions will elaborate and settle these questions which naturally arise in
our minds. I have the pleasure of
introducing as the first speaker Dr. Edward M. Hartwell, of Johns Hopkins
University, who will speak on the nature of physical training and the best means
of securing its ends.
The
Nature of Physical Training and the Best Means of Securing it Ends
Edward Mussey Hartwell, Ph.D., M.D.
The
German System
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