Mental growth through physical education / by Jakob Bolin.

  • Bolin, Jakob, 1863-1914.
Date:
1893?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental growth through physical education / by Jakob Bolin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/24 (page 17)
    statistics will show a simultaneous and rapid improvement (from the beginning of the treatment) along the three-fold line of moral, physical and intellectual capacity, more pronounced in certain individuals than others, but most encouraging, considering the general average before the class was formed, as compared with that after disbandment. The advance made in moral and intellectual development * * * * is most striking, and occurs in no isolated case, but is common to all.” Though there was a slight declination, as said above, after the physical treatment was discontinued, the physician is able to say after a year’s observation, that the general improvement still continued, and where the marks were comparatively low—in three cases—these have “proved recreant in moral rather than in intellectual lines. * * * * The stimulation of the physical powers a year ago, in the case of three, impressed their mental organization to a degree that enabled them to earn their release on parole, whereas, if left to themselves their minds would never have quickened, as a reflex of an improved physical state.” * Similar classes have since been formed with like results. Such data as these now begin to collect from several sources, and seem to give the impression that there is truth in our theories, that by physical education the mental developement will be greatly assisted; that the former not only gives us healthy, but mentally strong, intelligent men and women with a will of their own, and power to carry out their will. And if this is so, we must certainly not be satisfied with the knowledge of it, but we must act upon it. We must well remember that all these results are gained, not by well studied efforts, but by groping experiments in the dark, using means which we have not been able to follow all through their chains of cause and effects. If we desire to gain the best results we must not continue in the same hesitating way as hitherto, we must, all of us, who are engaged in the physical training, observe and study its psychological aspect. The duty to our children, to humanity, demands that we give each one of them the best education we know of. Every one of us has been more or less hampered by deficiencies in our educational system, even when it has been at its * “ Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals,” by Hamilton D. Wey, New York, Industrial Education Association, 1888.