BOOK THE SECOND.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

CHAP. XVI.

Normal State.

WHAT we have established in the preceding book relates to every sort of education, whether the individual be in the normal state or not. The human frame possesses all the general properties of other bodies; like them, it is subject to the laws of weight, to the influence of light, heat, and damp; and although the laws of life present phenomena of another order, we must nevertheless recognize the importance of physical laws. Every part, every organ of man's body, also possesses its physical properties; the muscles. alone are not elastic and extensible, all the organs of the body have this property, are porous, and offer to the external agents which may penetrate them, as many apertures as there are pores; the study and influence of physical agents on the economy, is therefore indispensable, as the element of all physical education.

All existing treatises on the important subject

of Physical Education are adapted for well organized beings; the principles laid down have invariably related to individuals in a normal state: a healthy pupil has been selected, as though it were not necessary to adapt a particular species of education for children well or ill constituted. Physical Education cannot be always the same: if applied to well organized beings, the general rules will be easily established; in the contrary case, there must almost be a peculiar education for each individual. Thus we consider education in two different lights; in the normal and regular state, and in the anormal state. The care children demand before they reach manhood, is almost beyond description. From the moment of their birth, infants require the most assiduous watchfulness, and judicious management; the task of rearing them is attended with continual anxiety, and fraught with innumerable difficulties. When taken from the maternal breast, the change of nourishment may prove injurious to their delicate stomachs. When they learn to walk, with what danger may not a fall be attended! how many anxious moments are passed before they are able to maintain their equilibrium! Children then begin to lisp a few words, how grateful to a mother's ear! yet what patience and perseverance are necessary to make them speak; and how many, many years elapse, ere they can repay the fostering care lavished on them!

In children there are but the seeds of good or

evil qualities; all is inclosed as in the calix of a flower. Strength, courage, dexterity, intelligence, are not apparent at birth, but as growth increases, man expands, is developed; his faculties appear at different epochs of life, and should then be gradually cultivated.

The early part of our existence is marked by a species of increasing perfection; the organs are strengthened, then the functions with which they are so intimately connected. The organs necessary to the preservation of the individual first appear; those destined for the preservation of the human species are later developed.

It would seem at first sight, that this inherent faculty of growth in the infant, should exclude all fear of danger, and that infantine diseases would disappear as each organ is evolved and perfected; which indeed might sometimes be the case, if parents followed the laws of growth, assisted its development when tardy, or arrested its progress if too rapid.

Man grows as a plant, when placed in favorable conditions; but man also,like a plant, may be injured at the root; sap may be wanting, the wind, and storms, may beat down and destroy weak organizations. Give man a shelter against these storms, a support against weakness, uphold the drooping stem; let the nutritious sap be abundant and wholesome; let there be sun, air, and heat.

If man at his birth, be gifted with a strong constitution, it will be naturally well developed,

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and each period of life marked by some improvement in the growing organs, which will tend to his normal perfection. As children grow, they are less liable to contract disease, and ifthe equilibrium of growth be maintained, if due care be taken not to develop any organ prematurely, or one organ to the detriment of the other, every day that passes will add to the chances of life for children.

But if care suffices to ward off various diseases, if children have less to fear from convulsions after teething, and all is regular in the phenomenon of growth, then the children are endowed with good constitutions with normal organizations. In the contrary case, growth increases the chances of illness; children may live a few days longer with care, but cannot pass over a certain period. First teething is to be dreaded for some; for others second teething; then again the period of puberty. To assist regular development, with the aid of physical agents, the primitive constitution must be normal, and no accident arrest growth. Physical agents are the means by which man is normally developed; it is also by the assistance of physical means that the anomalies of organization may be corrected. We repeat, that treatises on education are mostly confined to observations applicable to well constituted persons. For children in a normal or anormal state, the elements of Physical Education we have sketched, are certainly indispensable, and necessary to life. Whether children be

straight or crooked, in order to live, they must breathe and have warmth, light, food, exercise, and shelter from the accidental variations of physical agents; but these agents, so favorable for perfect organizations, require to be modified when nature has been less bountiful. With air, heat, light, food, and exercise, children live and grow, but this does not give the type oftheir species in all its beauty. Gasper Hauser had the benefit of some of these agents, yet at eighteen he was still a baby.

In the Physical Education of man, as in that of all animals, there is an admirable phenomenon which must not be arrested in its course man is but sketched at his entrance into life; nature and society continue this admirable work; in the midst of disorder, uncertainty, and obstacles. All authors who have hitherto written on Physical Education, have completely mistaken the importance of growth. It is the key of the arch, it is in fact, the most essential part of Physical Education. It is the pivot around which every thing must be placed. For the two systems of normal and anormal education, growth must be carefully watched; regular in the first case, irregular in the second: it is always the expression of health and life in young subjects; it may be termed their vital spark; therefore, before we make the application of the elements we have laid down, we must study the most important phenomenon in human life,-growth, which will be considered in its most striking manifestations,—teething and puberty.