require

What does relaxation require? When nerves and muscles become tense, nature urges one to release them. If they remain tense too long they will dissipate energy and lead to nervous The meanexhaustion. Any experience which will restore ease ing and and equipoise to a tense nervous or muscular system ments of will afford relaxation. Now, most of the tensions relaxation of modern life, whether in the schoolroom or outside, arise from mental strain and stress. A child who studies arithmetic for thirty minutes, for example, is apt to develop tensions which can often be observed in the expression of the features and in the constraint of the body. It is probable that all mental effort results in some tension. Some teachers appreciate this, and they do not require pupils to apply themselves to any study but for a short period at a time. In good schools pupils have exercises at frequent intervals which change the set of nerves and muscles, and so are relaxing. No teacher who understands the requirements for relaxation would expect that after a child had studied algebra for a considerable period he could find relaxation best in playing checkers. The competitive element in the game would arouse his interest, but his application would increase the tensions developed by the preceding study.

Children in modern city life are made tense not only by the work in the school, but wherever they go they are likely to be overstimulated. There is so much life and movement and complexity in our modern cities that a child is hardly ever free from tensions. He cannot go along a street without being on the alert all the time. Every succeeding year brings increased alertness in order to protect oneself. Life in the city does not require much use of the fundamental muscles; the senses and the brain are principally employed in adjustment to urban situations. The pace in the school is becoming constantly faster because there is more to learn and more to do each succeeding year. This all means increased tension. It also suggests that in

order to keep balance and harmony and to avoid fatigue and breakdown there must be periods of boisterous play. There must be running, yelling, climbing trees and ladders, jumping, wrestling, playing tag games, and all chase and catch games; also swimming, skating, coasting, snowballing, and so on. It is particularly desirable that all children should have op

FIG. 64. There should be one room in every large school building equipped with facilities suitable for relaxation. (See exercise 64, page 388.)

portunity for throwing stones, snowballs and the like. Every normal child has a passion to throw; and this is one source of trouble in city life, and is the cause of many domestic conflicts. The child's remote ancestors survived partly because they could send missiles through space upon distant objects, — their enemies or their prey. We have got past the necessity for this in modern life for protection against enemies or for the securing of food,

but the old racial practice tends to be repeated in our children. When children are keyed up as a result of stress and strain in the school or outside, they will usually be relieved if they can go out-of-doors and engage in a throwing contest, either in throwing at a mark or at one another in competitive games, or in throwing a baseball or a volley ball. Driving a golf ball appeals to this fundamental interest, but it is more complicated and so less recreative, for most people at any rate.

So quiet games should not be made a substitute for the outdoor, muscular games mentioned above. Does this mean that the quiet games are of no value? It does not. Under some conditions, as when young people have had two or three hours of the outdoor, boisterous games, the quiet, intellectual games would be appropriate and might be of value. Some parents train their children early to play whist and similar card games. Any child who devotes much time to this sort of game will be handicapped. If he is doing vigorous intellectual work in the school or in the home he will not find the whist relaxing.

There are indoor games, of course, which require the use of the large muscles and which are genuinely relaxing. All the ball games, especially with large balls, meet the requirements for relaxation, unless they are played in too intense a way. Sometimes young people play basket ball, for instance, vigorously and become so excited in the competitive struggle that it does not furnish relaxation for them. But when the excitement is not too intense it is an admirable game, vastly better for brain workers of any age, and for people who live in a city whether they are brain workers or not, than games like whist or chess. Bowling employs fundamental muscles and relieves a tense brain, but it does not make so strong an appeal to most persons as a team game like basket ball does. There is probably no better exercise for relaxation than swimming, and fortunately swimming pools are now being put into school buildings and occasionally

All experience affects

one for good or ill

into churches. A half-hour of swimming will afford better relaxation for a school child than a whole day of games like checkers. Modern biological psychology conceives of a human being as most delicately responsive, alike in a mental and in an organic way, to every aspect of his environment. All his experiences affect him for better or for worse; every force that plays upon him probably heightens the tide of life or depresses it. Pleasure and pain furnish the data by means of which one distinguishes between the beneficial and the detrimental forces acting upon him. Those that yield pleasure are on the whole salutary; those that yield pain are on the whole harmful; and for prosperity it is essential that one's pleasures should be kept more abundant than his pains. Pleasure results from a condition of congruity, and pain of incongruity, between the organism and its environment.

CHAPTER XIV

OVERSTRAIN IN EDUCATION: CONDITIONS AFFECTING

ENDURANCE

If an untrained runner starts off at full speed he will in a short time become "winded." He will slow down and he Handicaps may come almost to a stop. But if he keeps trying, to endurhe may gradually pick up again and he may regain something of his original speed. This is known as the "second wind."

ance

The energy which is expended when a muscle is at work is derived from the combustion of food in the body. The residue or ash resulting from this combustion is in effect a sort of poison in the system. If this worn-out tissue accumulates in a muscle it will interfere with its action. That is, the muscle will become fatigued; and it cannot resume its normal action until this toxic or waste material is removed.

The lethargy of aged persons is due in considerable measure to the heaping up in the system of these toxic materials. Nature. provides organs for the neutralization and elimination of toxins, but with some persons, quite generally with elderly persons, these organs are unable to perform effectively all the work that is assigned to them. The case is aggravated if a person habitually takes toxic matter into his system in his food or drink. All flesh foods contain a greater or less amount of ash, and a person who is a heavy meat eater is usually in a "tired" condition much of the time. Also a heavy tea or coffee or beer drinker is generally in a toxic condition and so is easily wearied.

Often one sees persons in middle life who play out on slight