Essays on education and kindred subjects · Herbert Spencer
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Equally at the squire's table after the withdrawal of the ladies, at the farmers' market-ordinary, and at the village ale-house, the topic which, after the political question of the day, excites the most general interest, is the management of animals. Riding home from hunting, the conversation usually gravitates towards horse-breeding, and pedigrees, and comments on this or that "good point;" while a day on the moors is very unlikely to end without something being said on the treatment of dogs. When crossing the fields together from church, the tenants of adjacent farms are apt to pass from criticisms on the sermon to criticisms on the weather, the crops, and the stock; and thence to slide into discussions on the various kinds of fodder and their feeding qualities. Hodge and Giles, after comparing notes over their respective pig-styes, show by their remarks that they have been observant of their masters' beasts and sheep; and of the effects produced on them by this or that kind of treatment. Nor is it only among the rural population that the regulations of the kennel, the stable, the cow-shed, and the sheep-pen, are favourite subjects. In towns, too, the numerous artisans who keep dogs, the young men who are rich enough to now and then indulge their sporting tendencies, and their more staid seniors who talk over agricultural progress or read Mr. Mechi's annual reports and Mr. Caird's letters to the _Times_, form, when added together, a large portion of the inhabitants. Take the adult males throughout the kingdom, and a great majority will be found to show some interest in the breeding, rearing, or training of animals, of one kind or other.
But, during after-dinner conversations, or at other times of like intercourse, who hears anything said about the rearing of children? When the country gentleman has paid his daily visit to the stable, and personally inspected the condition and treatment of his horses; when he has glanced at his minor live stock, and given directions about them; how often does he go up to the nursery and examine into its dietary, its hours, its ventilation? On his library-shelves may be found White's _Farriery_, Stephens's _Book of the Farm_, Nimrod _on the Condition of Hunters_; and with the contents of these he is more or less familiar; but how many books has he read on the management of infancy and childhood? The fattening properties of oil-cake, the relative values of hay and chopped straw, the dangers of unlimited clover, are points on which every landlord, farmer, and peasant has some knowledge; but what percentage of them inquire whether the food they give their children is adapted to the constitutional needs of growing boys and girls? Perhaps the business-interests of these classes will be assigned as accounting for this anomaly. The explanation is inadequate, however; seeing that the same contrast holds among other classes. Of a score of townspeople, few, if any, would prove ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable to work a horse soon after it has eaten; and yet, of this same score, supposing them all to be fathers, probably not one would be found who had considered whether the time elapsing between his children's dinner and their resumption of lessons was sufficient. Indeed, on cross-examination, nearly every man would disclose the latent opinion that the regimen of the nursery was no concern of his. "Oh, I leave all those things to the women," would probably be the reply. And in most cases the tone of this reply would convey the implication, that such cares are not consistent with masculine dignity.
Regarded from any but a conventional point of view, the fact seems strange that while the raising of first-rate bullocks is an occupation on which educated men willingly bestow much time and thought, the bringing up of fine human beings is an occupation tacitly voted unworthy of their attention. Mammas who have been taught little but languages, music, and accomplishments, aided by nurses full of antiquated prejudices, are held competent regulators of the food, clothing, and exercise of children. Meanwhile the fathers read books and periodicals, attend agricultural meetings, try experiments, and engage in discussions, all with the view of discovering how to fatten prize pigs! We see infinite pains taken to produce a racer that shall win the Derby: none to produce a modern athlete. Had Gulliver narrated of the Laputans that the men vied with each other in learning how best to rear the offspring of other creatures, and were careless of learning how best to rear their own offspring, he would have paralleled any of the other absurdities he ascribes to them.
The matter is a serious one, however. Ludicrous as is the antithesis, the fact it expresses is not less disastrous. As remarks a suggestive writer, the first requisite to success in life is "to be a good animal;" and to be a nation of good animals is the first condition to national prosperity. Not only is it that the event of a war often turns on the strength and hardiness of soldiers; but it is that the contests of commerce are in part determined by the bodily endurance of producers. Thus far we have found no reason to fear trials of strength with other races in either of these fields. But there are not wanting signs that our powers will presently be taxed to the uttermost. The competition of modern life is so keen, that few can bear the required application without injury. Already thousands break down under the high pressure they are subject to. If this pressure continues to increase, as it seems likely to do, it will try severely even the soundest constitutions. Hence it is becoming of especial importance that the training of children should be so carried on, as not only to fit them mentally for the struggle before them, but also to make them physically fit to bear its excessive wear and tear. Happily the matter is beginning to attract attention. The writings of Mr. Kingsley indicate a reaction against over-culture; carried perhaps, as reactions usually are, somewhat too far. Occasional letters and leaders in the newspapers have shown an awakening interest in physical training. And the formation of a school, significantly nicknamed that of "muscular Christianity," implies a growing opinion that our present methods of bringing up children do not sufficiently regard the welfare of the body. The topic is evidently ripe for discussion.
To conform the regimen of the nursery and the school to the established truths of modern science--this is the desideratum. It is time that the benefits which our sheep and oxen are deriving from the investigations of the laboratory, should be participated in by our children. Without calling in question the great importance of horse-training and pig-feeding, we would suggest that, as the rearing of well-grown men and women is also of some moment, these conclusions which theory indicates and practice indorses, ought to be acted on in the last case as in the first. Probably not a few will be startled--perhaps offended--by this collocation of ideas. But it is a fact not to be disputed, and to which we must reconcile ourselves, that man is subject to the same organic laws as inferior creatures. No anatomist, no physiologist, no chemist, will for a moment hesitate to assert, that the general principles which are true of the vital processes in animals are equally true of the vital processes in man. And a candid admission of this fact is not without its reward: namely, that the generalisations established by observation and experiment on brutes, become available for human guidance. Rudimentary as is the Science of Life, it has already attained to certain fundamental principles underlying the development of all organisms, the human included. That which has now to be done, and that which we shall endeavour in some measure to do, is to trace the bearings of these fundamental principles on the physical training of childhood and youth.
That over-feeding and under-feeding are both bad, is a truism. Of the two, however, the last is the worst. As writes a high authority, "the effects of casual repletion are less prejudicial, and more easily corrected, than those of inanition."[1] Besides, where there has been no injudicious interference, repletion seldom occurs. "Excess is the vice rather of adults than of the young, who are rarely either gourmands or epicures, unless through the fault of those who rear them."[2] This system of restriction which many parents think so necessary, is based upon inadequate observation, and erroneous reasoning. There is an over-legislation in the nursery, as well as an over-legislation in the State; and one of the most injurious forms of it is this limitation in the quantity of food. "But are children to be allowed to surfeit themselves? Shall they be suffered to take their fill of dainties and make themselves ill, as they certainly will do?" As thus put, the question admits of but one reply. But as thus put, it assumes the point at issue. We contend that, as appetite is a good guide to all the lower creation--as it is a good guide to the infant--as it is a good guide to the invalid--as it is a good guide to the differently-placed races of men--and as it is a good guide for every adult who leads a healthful life; it may safely be inferred that it is a good guide for childhood. It would be strange indeed were it here alone untrustworthy.
Perhaps some will read this reply with impatience; being able, as they think, to cite facts totally at variance with it. It may appear absurd if we deny the relevancy of these facts. And yet the paradox is quite defensible. The truth is, that the instances of excess which such persons have in mind, are usually the _consequences_ of the restrictive system they seem to justify. They are the sensual reactions caused by an ascetic regimen. They illustrate on a small scale that commonly-remarked truth, that those who during youth have been subject to the most rigorous discipline, are apt afterwards to rush into the wildest extravagances. They are analogous to those frightful phenomena, once not uncommon in convents, where nuns suddenly lapsed from the extremest austerities into an almost demoniac wickedness. They simply exhibit the uncontrollable vehemence of long-denied desires. Consider the ordinary tastes and the ordinary treatment of children. The love of sweets is conspicuous and almost universal among them. Probably ninety-nine people in a hundred presume that there is nothing more in this than gratification of the palate; and that, in common with other sensual desires, it should be discouraged.
The physiologist, however, whose discoveries lead him to an ever-increasing reverence for the arrangements of things, suspects something more in this love of sweets than is currently supposed; and inquiry confirms the suspicion. He finds that sugar plays an important part in the vital processes. Both saccharine and fatty matters are eventually oxidised in the body; and there is an accompanying evolution of heat. Sugar is the form to which sundry other compounds have to be reduced before they are available as heat-making food; and this _formation_ of sugar is carried on in the body. Not only is starch changed into sugar in the course of digestion, but it has been proved by M. Claude Bernard that the liver is a factory in which other constituents of food are transformed into sugar: the need for sugar being so imperative that it is even thus produced from nitrogenous substances when no others are given.
Now, when to the fact that children have a marked desire for this valuable heat-food, we join the fact that they have usually a marked dislike to that food which gives out the greatest amount of heat during oxidation (namely, fat), we have reason for thinking that excess of the one compensates for defect of the other--that the organism demands more sugar because it cannot deal with much fat. Again, children are fond of vegetable acids. Fruits of all kinds are their delight; and, in the absence of anything better, they will devour unripe gooseberries and the sourest of crabs. Now not only are vegetable acids, in common with mineral ones, very good tonics, and beneficial as such when taken in moderation; but they have, when administered in their natural forms, other advantages. "Ripe fruit," says Dr. Andrew Combe, "is more freely given on the Continent than in this country; and, particularly when the bowels act imperfectly, it is often very useful." See, then, the discord between the instinctive wants of children and their habitual treatment. Here are two dominant desires, which in all probability express certain needs of the child's constitution; and not only are they ignored in the nursery-regimen, but there is a general tendency to forbid the gratification of them.
Bread-and-milk in the morning, tea and bread-and-butter at night, or some dietary equally insipid, is rigidly adhered to; and any ministration to the palate is thought needless, or rather, wrong. What is the consequence? When, on fête-days, there is unlimited access to good things--when a gift of pocket-money brings the contents of the confectioner's window within reach, or when by some accident the free run of a fruit-garden is obtained; then the long-denied, and therefore intense, desires lead to great excesses. There is an impromptu carnival, due partly to release from past restraints, and partly to the consciousness that a long Lent will begin on the morrow. And then, when the evils of repletion display themselves, it is argued that children must not be left to the guidance of their appetites! These disastrous results of artificial restrictions, are themselves cited as proving the need for further restrictions! We contend, therefore, that the reasoning used to justify this system of interference is vicious. We contend that, were children allowed daily to partake of these more sapid edibles, for which there is a physiological requirement, they would rarely exceed, as they now mostly do when they have the opportunity: were fruit, as Dr. Combe recommends, "to constitute a part of the regular food" (given, as he advises, not between meals, but along with them), there would be none of that craving which prompts the devouring of crabs and sloes. And similarly in other cases.
Not only is it that the _à priori_ reasons for trusting the appetites of children are strong; and that the reasons assigned for distrusting them are invalid; but it is that no other guidance is worthy of confidence. What is the value of this parental judgment, set up as an alternative regulator? When to "Oliver asking for more," the mamma or governess says "No," on what data does she proceed? She _thinks_ he has had enough. But where are her grounds for so thinking? Has she some secret understanding with the boy's stomach--some _clairvoyant_ power enabling her to discern the needs of his body? If not, how can she safely decide? Does she not know that the demand of the system for food is determined by numerous and involved causes--varies with the temperature, with the hygrometric state of the air, with the electric state of the air--varies also according to the exercise taken, according to the kind and quantity of food eaten at the last meal, and according to the rapidity with which the last meal was digested? How can she calculate the result of such a combination of causes?
As we heard said by the father of a five-years-old boy, who stands a head taller than most of his age, and is proportionately robust, rosy, and active:--"I can see no artificial standard by which to mete out his food. If I say, 'this much is enough,' it is a mere guess; and the guess is as likely to be wrong as right. Consequently, having no faith in guesses, I let him eat his fill." And certainly, any one judging of his policy by its effects, would be constrained to admit its wisdom. In truth, this confidence, with which most parents legislate for the stomachs of their children, proves their unacquaintance with physiology: if they knew more, they would be more modest. "The pride of science is humble when compared with the pride of ignorance." If any one would learn how little faith is to be placed in human judgments, and how much in the pre-established arrangements of things, let him compare the rashness of the inexperienced physician with the caution of the most advanced; or let him dip into Sir John Forbes's work, _On Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease_; and he will see that, in proportion as men gain knowledge of the laws of life, they come to have less confidence in themselves, and more in Nature.
Turning from the question of _quantity_ of food to that of _quality_, we may discern the same ascetic tendency. Not simply a restricted diet, but a comparatively low diet, is thought proper for children. The current opinion is, that they should have but little animal food. Among the less wealthy classes, economy seems to have dictated this opinion--the wish has been father to the thought. Parents not affording to buy much meat, answer the petitions of juveniles with--"Meat is not good for little boys and girls;" and this, at first probably nothing but a convenient excuse, has by repetition grown into an article of faith. While the classes with whom cost is no consideration, have been swayed partly by the example of the majority, partly by the influence of nurses drawn from the lower classes, and in some measure by the reaction against past animalism.
If, however, we inquire for the basis of this opinion, we find little or none. It is a dogma repeated and received without proof, like that which, for thousands of years, insisted on swaddling-clothes. Very probably for the infant's stomach, not yet endowed with much muscular power, meat, which requires considerable trituration before it can be made into chyme, is an unfit aliment. But this objection does not tell against animal food from which the fibrous part has been extracted; nor does it apply when, after the lapse of two or three years, considerable muscular vigour has been acquired. And while the evidence in support of this dogma, partially valid in the case of very young children, is not valid in the case of older children, who are, nevertheless, ordinarily treated in conformity with it, the adverse evidence is abundant and conclusive. The verdict of science is exactly opposite to the popular opinion. We have put the question to two of our leading physicians, and to several of the most distinguished physiologists, and they uniformly agree in the conclusion, that children should have a diet not _less_ nutritive, but, if anything, _more_ nutritive than that of adults.
The grounds for this conclusion are obvious, and the reasoning simple. It needs but to compare the vital processes of a man with those of a boy, to see that the demand for sustenance is relatively greater in the boy than in the man. What are the ends for which a man requires food? Each day his body undergoes more or less wear--wear through muscular exertion, wear of the nervous system through mental actions, wear of the viscera in carrying on the functions of life; and the tissue thus wasted has to be renewed. Each day, too, by radiation, his body loses a large amount of heat; and as, for the continuance of the vital actions, the temperature of the body must be maintained, this loss has to be compensated by a constant production of heat: to which end certain constituents of the body are ever undergoing oxidation. To make up for the day's waste, and to supply fuel for the day's expenditure of heat, are, then, the sole purposes for which the adult requires food. Consider now the case of the boy. He, too, wastes the substance of his body by action; and it needs but to note his restless activity to see that, in proportion to his bulk, he probably wastes as much as a man.
He, too, loses heat by radiation; and, as his body exposes a greater surface in proportion to its mass than does that of a man, and therefore loses heat more rapidly, the quantity of heat-food he requires is, bulk for bulk, greater than that required by a man. So that even had the boy no other vital processes to carry on than the man has, he would need, relatively to his size, a somewhat larger supply of nutriment. But, besides repairing his body and maintaining its heat, the boy has to make new tissue--to grow. After waste and thermal loss have been provided for, such surplus of nutriment as remains goes to the further building up of the frame; and only in virtue of this surplus is normal growth possible; the growth that sometimes takes place in the absence of it, causing a manifest prostration consequent upon defective repair. It is true that because of a certain mechanical law which cannot be here explained, a small organism has an advantage over a large one in the ratio between the sustaining and destroying forces--an advantage, indeed, to which the very possibility of growth is owing. But this admission only makes it the more obvious that though much adverse treatment may be borne without this excess of vitality being quite out-balanced; yet any adverse treatment, by diminishing it, must diminish the size or structural perfection reached. How peremptory is the demand of the unfolding organism for materials, is seen alike in that "schoolboy hunger," which after-life rarely parallels in intensity, and in the comparatively quick return of appetite. And if there needs further evidence of this extra necessity for nutriment, we have it in the fact that, during the famines following shipwrecks and other disasters, the children are the first to die.
This relatively greater need for nutriment being admitted, as it must be, the question that remains is--shall we meet it by giving an excessive quantity of what may be called dilute food, or a more moderate quantity of concentrated food? The nutriment obtainable from a given weight of meat is obtainable only from a larger weight of bread, or from a still larger weight of potatoes, and so on. To fulfil the requirement, the quantity must be increased as the nutritiveness is diminished. Shall, we, then, respond to the extra wants of the growing child by giving an adequate quantity of food as good as that of adults? Or, regardless of the fact that its stomach has to dispose of a relatively larger quantity even of this good food, shall we further tax it by giving an inferior food in still greater quantity? The answer is tolerably obvious. The more the labour of digestion is economised, the more energy is left for the purposes of growth and action. The functions of the stomach and intestines cannot be performed without a large supply of blood and nervous power; and in the comparative lassitude that follows a hearty meal, every adult has proof that this supply of blood and nervous power is at the expense of the system at large. If the requisite nutriment is obtained from a great quantity of innutritious food, more work is entailed on the viscera than when it is obtained from a moderate quantity of nutritious food. This extra work is so much loss--a loss which in children shows itself either in diminished energy, or in smaller growth, or in both. The inference is, then, that they should have a diet which combines, as much as possible, nutritiveness and digestibility.
It is doubtless true that boys and girls may be reared upon an exclusively, or almost exclusively, vegetable diet. Among the upper classes are to be found children to whom comparatively little meat is given; and who, nevertheless, grow and appear in good health. Animal food is scarcely tasted by the offspring of labouring people; and yet they reach a healthy maturity. But these seemingly adverse facts have by no means the weight commonly supposed. In the first place, it does not follow that those who in early years flourish on bread and potatoes, will eventually reach a fine development; and a comparison between the agricultural labourers and the gentry, in England, or between the middle and lower classes in France is by no means in favour of vegetable feeders. In the second place, the question is not simply a question of _bulk_, but also a question of _quality_. A soft, flabby flesh makes as good a show as a firm one; but though to the careless eye, a child of full, flaccid tissue may appear the equal of one whose fibres are well toned, a trial of strength will prove the difference. Obesity in adults is often a sign of feebleness. Men lose weight in training. Hence the appearance of these low-fed children is far from conclusive. In the third place, besides _size_, we have to consider _energy_. Between children of the meat-eating classes and those of the bread-and-potato-eating classes, there is a marked contrast in this respect. Both in mental and physical vivacity the peasant-boy is greatly inferior to the son of a gentleman.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.