Popular Science Monthly - Oct, Nov, Dec, 1915 — Volume 86 by Anonymous
page 85 of 485 (17%)
page 85 of 485 (17%)
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the body that the mind can directly command and act on. The
muscles are preeminently the mind's instruments, the visible and moving part of its machinery. They are thought carriers, and during the growth period their functional activities are organized into the mental life. This is why "we think in terms of muscular movement," and why muscular training supplies a natural need of the developing mind. The normal boy says little or nothing of what he thinks, but much of what he is doing or intends to do. He has the motor mind, the instinct for doing things by which he builds the brain and body. It is nature's way of laying the foundation in the individual as by the more tedious process of evolution she laid it in the race. The mental development of the normal infant is indicated by the increasing accuracy and delicacy of muscular coordination. The feeble-minded child very early shows its mental defect in the clumsy use of its muscles. Because of the functional relation of the voluntary muscles and the mentality, physical training is in a large degree mental training. When by such training we give dexterity to muscles of the growing person we are making possible better mental development; that is, because of this relation of the mind to action there is a direct mental discipline in the thought-out processes of physical activity. If, then, we make physical development a part of our educational process, we are taking advantage of race tendencies, we are starting the individual as nature started the race; we are laying the foundation in the individual as it was originally laid in the race; we are building as the race built. |
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