There is a difference between recreation and amusement. Recreation, when true to its name, re-creation, tends to strengthen and build up. It provides refreshment for mind and body, and thus enables us to return with new vigor to the earnest work of life. Amusement, on the other hand, is pursued for the sake of pleasure and is often carried to excess. It absorbs the energies that are required for useful work and thus proves a hindrance to life's true success.
The whole body is designed for action, and unless the physical powers are kept in health by active exercise, the mental powers cannot long be used to their highest capacity. The physical inaction that seems almost inevitable in the schoolroom--together with other unhealthful conditions--makes it a trying place for children, especially for those of feeble constitution. Often the ventilation is insufficient. Ill-formed seats encourage unnatural positions, thus cramping the action of the lungs and the heart. Here little children have to spend from three to five hours a day, breathing air that may be infected with the germs of disease. No wonder that in the schoolroom the foundation of lifelong illness often is laid.
The brain, the most delicate of all the physical organs, and from which the nervous energy of the whole system is derived, suffers the greatest injury. By being forced into premature or excessive activity, and this under unhealthful conditions, it is enfeebled, and often the evil results are permanent.
Children should not be long confined indoors, nor should they be required to apply themselves closely to study until a good foundation has been laid for physical development. For the first eight or ten years of a child's life the field or garden is the best schoolroom, the mother the best teacher, nature the best lesson book. Even when children are old enough to attend school, their health should be regarded as of greater importance than a knowledge of books. They should be surrounded with the conditions most favorable to both physical and mental growth.
Children are not the only ones endangered by lack of air and exercise. In the higher as well as the lower schools these essentials to health are still too often neglected. Many students sit day after day in a poorly ventilated room bending over their books, their chest so contracted that they cannot take a full, deep breath. Their blood moves sluggishly, their feet cold, their head hot. The body not being sufficiently nourished, the muscles are weakened, and the whole system is enervated and diseased. Often such students become lifelong invalids. If they had pursued their studies under proper conditions, with regular exercise in the sunlight and open air, they might have come from school with increased physical as well as mental strength.
Exercise Has Value
Students who with limited time and means are struggling to gain an education should realize that time spent in physical exercise is not lost. Those who continually pore over their books will find, after a time, that the mind has lost its freshness. Those who give proper attention to physical development will make greater advancement in literary lines than they would if they devoted their entire time to study.
Physical inaction lessens not only mental but moral power. The brain nerves that connect with the whole system are the medium through which Heaven communicates with humans, and affects the inmost life. Whatever hinders the circulation of the electric current in the nervous system, thus weakening the vital powers and lessening mental susceptibility, makes it more difficult to arouse the moral nature.
Again, excessive study, by increasing the flow of blood to the brain, creates morbid excitability that tends to lessen the power of self-control. Thus the door is opened to impurity. The misuse or nonuse of the physical powers is largely responsible for the tide of corruption that is overspreading the world. "Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness" are as deadly foes to human progress in this generation as when they led to the destruction of Sodom.
Teachers should understand these things, and should instruct their pupils in these lines. Teach the students that right living depends on right thinking, and that physical activity is essential to purity of thought.
Concern About Athletics
The question of suitable recreation is one that teachers often find perplexing. Gymnastic exercises fill a useful place in many schools, but without careful supervision they are often carried to excess. Many youth, by their attempted feats of strength, have done themselves lifelong injury.
Exercise in a gymnasium, however well conducted, cannot supply the place of recreation in the open air, and for this our schools should afford better opportunity. Vigorous exercise the students must have, yet teachers are troubled as they consider the influence of athletic sports both on the students' progress in school and on their success in afterlife. The games that occupy so much of their time are diverting the mind from study. They are not helping to prepare the young for practical, earnest work in life. Their influence does not tend toward refinement or generosity.
Some of the most popular amusements, such as football and boxing, have become schools of brutality. They are developing the same characteristics as did the games of ancient Rome. The love of domination, the pride in mere brute force, the reckless disregard of life, are exerting on young people a power to demoralize that is appalling.
Other athletic games, though not so brutalizing, are scarcely less objectionable because of the excess to which they are carried. They stimulate the love of pleasure and excitement, thus fostering a distaste for useful labor, a disposition to shun practical duties and responsibilities.
They tend to destroy a relish for life's sober realities and tranquil enjoyments. Thus the door is opened to dissipation and lawlessness, with terrible results.
As ordinarily conducted, parties of pleasure also are a hindrance to real growth of mind or character. Frivolous associations, habits of extravagance, of pleasure seeking, and too often of dissipation, are formed that shape the whole life for evil. In place of such amusements, parents and teachers can do much to supply wholesome and life-giving diversions.
In this, as in everything else that concerns our well-being, Inspiration has pointed the way. In early ages, life was simple for the people who were under God's direction,. They lived close to the heart of nature. Children shared in the work of their parents and studied the beauties and mysteries of nature's treasure house. And in the quiet of field and wood they pondered those mighty truths handed down as a sacred trust from generation to generation. Such training produced strong men and women.
In this age, life has become artificial, and people have degenerated. While we may not return fully to the simple habits of those early times, we may learn from them lessons that will make our seasons of recreation what the name implies--seasons of true upbuilding for body, mind, and soul.
The surroundings of the home and the school are closely related to the question of recreation. In the choice of a home or the location of a school, the surroundings should be considered. Parents with whom the mental and physical well-being of their children is of greater moment than money or the claims and customs of society, should endeavor to provide for their children the benefit of nature's teaching, and recreation amidst her surroundings. It would be a great aid in educational work if every school could be so situated as to afford the students land for cultivation, and access to the fields and woods.
In lines of recreation for the student the best results will be attained through the personal cooperation of the teacher. True teachers can impart to their students few gifts so valuable as the gift of their own companionship. It is true of men and women, and how much more of young people and children, that only as we come in touch through sympathy can we understand them; and we need to understand in order to benefit most effectively. To strengthen the tie of sympathy between teachers and students, few things count so much as pleasant association together outside the schoolroom. In some schools the teachers are always with their pupils in their hours of recreation. It would be well for our schools were this practice followed more generally. The sacrifice demanded would be great but teachers would reap a rich reward.
No recreation will prove so great a blessing to the children and youth as that which makes them helpful to others. Naturally enthusiastic and impressible, the young are quick to respond to suggestion. In planning for the culture of plants, let the teacher seek to awaken an interest in beautifying the school grounds and the schoolroom. A double benefit will result. That which the students seek to beautify they will be unwilling to have marred or defaced. A refined taste, a love of order, and a habit of caretaking will be encouraged. The spirit of fellowship and cooperation that is developed will be a lifelong blessing.
A new interest may also be given to the work of the garden or the excursion in field or wood by encouraging students to remember those shut in from these pleasant places, and to share with them the beautiful things of nature.
The watchful teacher will find many opportunities for directing students to acts of helpfulness. By little children, especially, the teacher is regarded with almost unbounded confidence and respect. Whatever he or she may suggest as to ways of helping in the home, faithfulness in the daily tasks, ministry to the sick or poor, can hardly fail to bring forth fruit. And thus again a double gain will be secured. The kindly suggestion will react upon its author. Gratitude and cooperation on the part of parents will lighten the burden of teachers and brighten their paths.
Attention to recreation and physical culture will no doubt at times interrupt the regular routine of schoolwork, but the interruption will prove no real hindrance. In the invigoration of mind and body, the fostering of an unselfish spirit, and the binding together of pupil and teacher by ties of common interest and friendly association, the expenditure of time and effort will be repaid a hundredfold. A worthwhile outlet will be afforded for that restless energy which is so often a source of danger to the young. As a safeguard against evil, the preoccupation of the mind with good is worth more than unnumbered barriers of law and discipline.