body we shall have, whether it shall be weak and inefficient or strong and capable in the performance of its functions. If it as the carrier from the world to the soul presents its messages in an incoherent mass, there can be no right development of the rational nature; for the soul gets nothing from the world except what the body gives and it must take what is given as delivered. As already learned, sensations are the mental reactions against nervous action, and hence, if for any reason the action of the nerves be abnormal the mental reactions and the consequent perceptions must be in like manner abnormal. Idiocy illustrates. The different forms of insanity illustrate a similar disorder in the action of the nervous system, the difference being that in this case there has been no interference with the normal action until after the sensations have become the signs of certain objects. Abnormal action then may cause these sensations to be repeated in strange forms and combinations when no objects are present and thus produce those strange hallucinations seen in delirium or insanity.

It

But this action of the nervous system may be normal and yet weak.. All nervous action implies nervous waste, and as every psychical activity implies nervous action it must follow that the greater the activity. of the soul the greater will be this waste. If, then, the nervous system be taxed unduly, as by excessive grief, or too prolonged mental labor, there is an undue waste and the nervous energy of the body is lowered, thereby rendering impossible that activity of which the soul is capable when supported by a system in a vigorous, healthy condition. follows, too, from the wonderful interaction between all parts of the body that any considerable change in the condition of one or the other of its organs will produce a corresponding change in the efficiency of the nervous system. No one can do his best mental work immediately after a hearty meal, nor after great muscular exertion, nor if he be suffering from indigestion or impeded circulation of the blood. Poor digestion has caused millions of failures, and that piece of pie eaten by the teacher after he has enough is sure to be full of the seeds of a disorderly school. Nervous energy is demanded and used in every act of the body and excessive use or any abuse must therefore rob the system of energy needed for the functions of both soul and body.

And another point must be guarded, wherein are even more serious consequences. As nerve energy is required for the other functions of the nervous system, especially in keeping up the reflex actions and in regulating the vital processes, there is great danger of drawing off too much for brain work, and thus producing nervousness, dyspepsia, enfeebled circulation of the blood, etc., through the lack of sufficient energy to maintain the proper action of the organs.

In children, whose stock of nervous energy is small and in whom so much is required to carry on the processes of growth, this danger is especially great. Their metabolic activities are much more pronounced than those of adults, for not only must a comparatively greater amount of food be converted into living tissue to make the rapid growths of the first years, but the demands of a higher temperature, a more rapid circulation, and a more frequent respiration must. be met. The whole circuit of the circulatory system is traversed in infancy in about twelve seconds instead of twenty-two as in maturity, the heart beats are about 130 to 140 per minute, falling off only to about 90 in the tenth year, and the respiration is about 35 at first and as high as 26 in the fifth year. Anything, then, that will draw off from the supply of energy required for these more rapid activities, upon which depend the growth and development of the body, is a cankerworm working away at the foundations of the psychical life. The body cannot flourish nor develop properly when the want of nervous. . energy has made the appetite poor, indigestion imperfect, and the circulation enfeebled. Without plenty of good life-giving blood no organ can perform its functions as it ought, nor can there be a sound, sufficient development.

Now, any excessive activity of the mind, involving as it must an excessive activity of the brain, is one of the worst of canker-worms. The influence of the brain on the other organs is forcibly illustrated by an experiment first performed by Weber and mentioned by Herbert Spencer in his admirable article on Physical Education. It was shown that any irritation of the vagus nerve, which connects the brain with the viscera, suddenly arrests the action of the heart and holds it in check until the irritation is suspended. And we all have felt that palpitation caused by fear or joy or anger and have lost our appetites, too, through pleasurable or painful states of mind. But the effect produced in these more extreme cases must be produced in a corresponding degree by anything that unduly excites or taxes the brain.

What think you, then, of a school system which imposes upon children what Garfield called "that undefended and indefensible outrage upon the laws of physical and intellectual life which keeps a little child sitting in silence in a vain attempt to hold his mind to the words of a printed page for six hours a day ?" Well might he add, "Herod was merciful, for he finished his slaughter of the innocents in a day, but this practice kills by the savagery of slow torture."

And many there be that do away even with the recesses, but of each such, "it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea."

It may

seem a loss of time to have recesses and gymnastic exercises, and it is often difficult to restore order, but the pupil's nature absolutely demands the change and the teacher who cannot restore order quite promptly would better have recess all the time.

Dr. Steele said very wisely, "were gymnastics or calisthenics as regular an exercise as grammar or arithmetic, fewer pupils would have to leave school on account of ill health."

Is it not time to call a halt in the operation of most of our school systems, if we have any? In early times, when the leading social activities were aggression and defense, bodily strength was the desideratum and the education was almost wholly physical. Now, the leading social activities are in the line of psychical power and our education has become almost exclusively mental. They were wrong but we are far more so. We must sooner or later feel more fully the force of the truth that the physical underlies the psychical and that every effort to develop the psychical at the expense of the physical is a step toward the enfeeblement of both. The ancient and the modern conceptions must be combined, and beside the divine injunction, "Be ye therefore perfect," must be placed that other, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice"-not one-half dead.

THE SYSTEM AND THE MAN.

BY J. A. LEONARD.

All

(Read before the North-Eastern Ohio Teachers' Association.) We sometimes hear it said "man wants the earth." Has he not a right to the earth? Was he not given dominion over it? Man seems even desirous of regaining his lost estate-he ever looks forward to the time when a common brotherhood shall frame universal law in a language of the world. 'Tis true this idea, in most minds, is vague and seldom finds expression in words, but the history of the world is but a record of his vain attempts to establish such conditions. the phenomena of nature teach him the necessity of system. The stars in their courses, the seasons in their order, the gathering of the waters, the development of plant, leaf, flour and fruit, and, more than all, his own matchless form argue the power of organization and cooperation in law. Acting from social instinct and true to analogy and imitation, he establishes system after system only to discover that as his systems grow strong the man becomes weak-falls a victim to his own inventions. The political and the religious system is, each in

turn, tried and found wanting. To abandon system means anarchy, and anarchy means destruction. On the other hand, perfect system means universal dominion-man's mastery of earth, when the products of a thousand climes will minister to the wants of a restored Adam, who, as a citizen of the world, can go to the ends of the earth to complete his circle of knowledge without savage man or ferocious beast to molest or make him afraid.

Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon each well nigh attained to universal empire, and the systems established by them were most grand and imposing. They were, no doubt, the best as well as the highest exponents of their kind, but are far too suggestive of destruction, injustice, chains and death to have served the best interests of the man. Their story paints a sad, sad picture of man's inhumanity to man.

On the confines of christendom, there exists to day a representative of this class, made possible by isolation and ignorance and tolerated by fear and fawning. But tyranny and treachery have made of the wide empire of the Czar of all the Russians a low temperature hades, that rivals the most extravagant fancies of a Dante. But this system

of empire will share the fate of all that have gone before. Why did all these far-reaching systems fail? Because their fundamental principle and all pervading idea was fatal to the individualthe man. What was that fundamental principle? Does it not appear on every page of history: Dominion by conquest and authority by subjection.

See an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon rule his empire. A suspicious eye and an iron hand upon the kings and princes-the king or prince in his turn tyrannizes the nobility, and the noble, faithful to the example of his superior, oppresses the head of the family, who, true to the general principle of the system, is a domestic despot. If it be true that exercise of authority develops manly qualities, surely this system, in which all, save women and children, are rulers, should produce the ideal man. But does it? Suppose, if you please, that the above indicated series-each in order-should be ordered to about face, and what do we see? Wife and children crouch in fear before the husband and father, who turns from abuse of them to bare his back to the lash of his master, the noble, who-all traces of nobility gone-falls in the dust at the feet of his king, and the king forgetting his sovereignty humbly kneels and kisses the iron hand.

The system viewed in one way shows a series of heartless tyrants. Another view discovers a line of cringing slaves, but no view serves to reveal the man. The man has been mangled to death and beyond recognition by the glittering wheels of the machine. No, not crushed

to death nor marred beyond identification, for the most destructive machine ever invented-the sum of all oppressive villianies—the ecclesiastic system of the middle ages, failed to destroy the spark of divinity that makes a man a man-some trace always remained of Him in whose image he was created.

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When a child, I never read the betrayal of our Savior, that I did not look upon Peter as a hero because he cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. Indeed I regretted that he did not lay about right and left till his good sword had annihilated the persecuting mob, But the Savior had taught "peace on earth and good will among men"-that men are brethern who should dwell together in unity. And now when his impulsive disciple, full of the spirit of the old system. and having apparently just occasion for appealing to the sword, pleads for the command to smite, the Master utters the command, "Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." This is, without doubt, the most revolutionary command ever uttered, opposed as it was to the theory and practice of all past ages-world-wide in its application-given for all time and by divine authority. The meaning was too great for the immediate comprehension of a race so thoroughly saturated with the idea of extending empire by force of arms, and a few centuries later we find the greatest crimes of war committed in the name of the Prince of Peace.

How faithful and futile the endeavors of Christian nations to harmonize the new truth and the old system. How often they repeated the folly of putting new wine into old bottles. Successive failures

caused reaction, and for a time the christian world seemed hopelessly broken up into petty sovereignties which interfered with trade, hindered commerce, fostered jealousy and hatred, and, by multiplying dialects, made the acquisition of knowledge difficult and a wide culture impossible. Such conditions could be but temporary; desire for empire is the strongest sentiment of mankind. It is based upon the self-evident truth that a universal system of government, unrestricted commerce and a common medium of thought are essential to man's highest development. But we have seen that all these far-reaching empires of the past failed failed because the foundation upon which they rested was defective—yes, eternally wrong.

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We may ask, then, is there no sure foundation upon which this desirable superstructure may be built and remain secure while the generations of men inherit, perfect, beautify, enjoy and bequeath unimpaired?