A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene

Synopsis

Agesilaus, king of Sparta, when asked what things boys should learn, replied, “Those which they will practise when they become men.” As health requires the observance of the laws inherent to the different organs of the human system, so not only boys, but girls, should acquire a knowledge of the laws of their organization. If sound morality depends upon the inculcation of correct principles in youth, equally so does a sound physical system depend on a correct physical education during the same period of life. If the teacher and parents who are deficient in moral feelings and sentiments, are unfit to communicate to children and youth those high moral principles demanded by the nature of man, so are they equally incompetent directors of the physical training of the youthful system, if ignorant of the organic laws and the physiological conditions upon which health and disease depend.

For these reasons, the study of the structure of the human system, and the laws of the different organs, are subjects of interest to all,—the young and the old, the learned and the unlearned, the rich and the poor. Every scholar, and particularly every young miss, after acquiring a knowledge of the primary branches,—as spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic,—should learn the structure of the human system, and 6the conditions upon which health and disease depend, as this knowledge will be required in practice in after life.

Similar Bookshelves