Page:Caplin - Health and Beauty1864 - 067.png

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Clothing from Twelve to Eighteen Years.
67

reply is, that as we have two objects to accomplish, namely, the full and perfect culture of the well-formed, and the restoration of such as are only imperfectly developed, we must adapt our means to the end proposed, and exercise the body upon itself, as is done in running, walking, swimming, for those only who require this training; but in all cases where there is deformity, or only partial evil, the curative means must be adapted to the restoration of the im­perfect organs.

The importance of commencing the physical training of the child at a very early age will be rightly esteemed by all who consider how much it has to learn during the first two years of its life; for it is in this period that all things emerge from chaos, and become defined by the senses, and their form, size, shape, and colour noted. Now, all who are acquainted with physiology know perfectly well that the mind cannot be properly unfolded unless the organism through which it is manifested be in a healthy condition, so as to be enabled to register the impressions made upon it by external circumstances. "Forms arise before the eye and sink again; sounds thrill upon the ear and vanish; the infant begins to give the bounds to forms, and to catch the sounds that float upon the air, and dis-