PERFECT HEALTH

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2754, 25 April 1916, Page 8

PERFECT HEALTH

,1 THE IDEAL IS ATTAINABLE d , . FITNESS AND EFFICIENCY I INTERESTING TALK BY DR. p MACDONALD L- • e f I i- A lecture, or talk, about health, with ? special relation to school children, was i delivered to the annual congress of the | New Zealand Educational Institute yesi terday by Dr. Elizabeth Macdonald, one J of the medical inspectors of schools unj der the Education Department. The :. talk was extremely 'interesting, as the following extracts from those sections of more general character will show. 9 , "Dream of Perfect Health." 5 "What is our ideal?" said Dr .' Macdonald. "What is the vision that . .inspires us? What are we aiming at ■ and working for? What is the dream ; that lures us on to further effort in the , hope that one day this unsubstantial . fabric may appear before us clothed in- ; F O ,/' We have a dream of perfect health.. It is a curious and wrou<* ( thing that the study of medicine has come to mean the study and cure of disease. When, did disease become' more interesting than 'health, and how long shall we continue to think of health as a mere absence of.disease? We have made too much of this- disease and that defect, and of this and that Abnormality, and we have lost our sense ot health as a positive good. Nothing is more interesting, more worth our study, more worth our most earnest endeavour, than the healthy, beautiful symmetrical development of mind and body. "Consider the rarity of perfect neaitn. It is as rare as beauty. Consider what we mean by perfect healthperfect wholeness, perfect wholesomeness, perfect unity. Consider how few attain to anything like their possible development of mind and body—the harmonious development of everv faculty up to the limit of. capability, tor by fitness we can mean nothing less than tins. The body is a magnificent instrument of wonderful and manifold cfu-rV n„ a moment of its possibilities. Think of the fingers of a pianist, the face of an actor, the muscles of an athlete-all the result of tiammg, use, and habit, all instances of developed power. How many women to-day are learning for the first time the uses of the fine muscles of the hand expert knitting'?. , How many have realised the joy of new capacity? Nothing m the way of self-development, mental or physical, can ever be lost. lo develop strength is not to lose geritleness, for the gentlest touch is nob the touch of weak undeveloped muscles • and toneless nerves, but the deft, skill- : ea, trained touch of controlled strength, '

Fitness and Gapaolty. "Consider the joy of fitness. Is there anything to compare with the feeling of capability, of power, of well-being, of usefulness? The measure of our joy in lire is the measure of our development asi human beings. We can only enjoy what we are in some way ready to enjoy.. Our facultios must be trained to onjoy- the various experiences of life. • RC t '^ c ' s Kreat experiences lust what we have it in us to give to them. The book of nature's beauty is a closed book to tho unseeing eye, and the heart that does not understand." Miss Macdonald went on to speak 111016 particularly of schools and her work among tho . children. She in-| Sl - S *t. e,u P' la6 i s that many of tho ills of childhood were caused by the .discipline of the home and the S f'ii ro °m> for which quietness and Stillness in uncomfortable positions seemed to be required. Why were there in every school, and apparently on the increase, passive, joyless children, and timid, nervous children, and then tired-' lookmg children who have' forgotten A° W P p i? y? ' W!lafc was producing them? These were tho fundamental questions that faced them in school work, and Dr. Macdonald spoke of certain researches and Certain discoveries already xnado by the medical inspectors on their efforts to answer them'.. Her opinion was that tho fundamental failure m the training of tho child in the school and m t]ic home was the neglect of tho child's own effort, and the imperfect realisation of the fact that growth is from within. In this, Miss Alacdonald was referring rather more . to physical than to' mental training, but she held that the two were -interdependent, and that like rules should apply to both. She spoke of particular remediable defects, giving soine account or their causes, and the measures being taken to remedy them. ' A Matter of ideals. ■ "To encourage you still to strive af(■®r w h at ma.V appear ail unattainable f i i. • nie remind ion how hopeiul physical work amongst children is of how much of physical fitness is within our _power. Perfect health within the limits, maybe, of our heredity is not only an ideal and a joy, but a ,to'- Within limits we can make ourselves fit and our children fit. The law of growth is a law of change. We change from youth to age, from slimness to rotundity, from smoothness of brow to wrinkles. We carry our history written ' on our faces. Not for nothing ■is • one man in middlo lifo lit and alert and keen-minded and happy, while another is prematurely old, fossilised and dull. A\e are th« masters of our fate. It is ideal's a c Jhs co > a matter of

On Simple Things. ''So I come back to whore X be E nn, to the ideal that we are striving after Wo can do what ire will with bodies' Generally, wc elcct to do as little as possible; we make mistakes,'transgress Mature s laws, sufler, and blamo our parents or our circumstances, or the microbes, instead of blaming our own ignorance and carelessness. "Wo are ignorant of the laws of health and right living, of Nature's laws that we dare not break. We are careless in carrying out what we do know. We need to be taught how to live, till good health becomes a body habit. And we must teach the children to be healthy, to be interested in being liealthy, to be determined to be strong and well and active and capable. ; We must- think right'about our bodies, expect them to do their duty, train them, bend them to our will. How are we to teach our children if we ourselves have no. idealno enthusiasm for right living? "How shall he give kindling in wliose own inward man thero is 110 live coal, but all is burnt but to a dead grammatical cinder?' AVe need knowledge and enthusiasm, and self-control, and selfreliance, and a sense of freedom. We must realise that our health and wellbeing depend on the simpler things of lile—work, exerctae, water, laughter and the love of friends, rest, food' sleep, companionship,, education, self-. development. The Habit of Health. "And we must teach these things to our children. Wo must teach them this habit of health,, not as an extra lesson but as a daily practical experience' They must grow and live in an atmosphere of health, and it is an infectious atmosphere. Health is a positive ihinoto be attained by the slow buildinw up of a bodily habit, based on the observance of Nature's laws—fresh air, good food, olean water, sufficient, exercise, jgeraoaw t.bmkjfte.

healthful response to Nature's warning as to fatigue, Healthy, restful sleep. Wo must produce a race of finer men and women, more developed," stronger, more symmetrical, more beautiful, more capable, happier. And 'it may bo discovered that the true veins of wealth are purple—and not in rock but in flesli —perhaps even that the final outcomo and consummation of all wealth is in the producing of as many as possiblo full-breathed, bright-eyed, ljappy-hoavt-ed human creatures.' This must be our' aim in a humble-way in our> work amongst the children in our schools." A voto of thanks to -Dr. MacdonaJd for her address was carried enthusiastically.