Boston Medical Intelligencer, 1826-7, Vol. 4: Devoted to the Cause of Physical Education, and to the Means of Preventing and of Curing Diseases (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Boston Medical Intelligencer, 1826-7, Vol. 4: Devoted to the Cause of Physical Education, and to the Means of Preventing and of Curing Diseases

WE are perfectly disposed to admit that the care of the bodily health should be a primary object in the early periods of education and we are certain, that by making this, m a proper manner, a primary object; the ulterior ends of education will be best accomplished but then it should be pursued with a View to these ends; and if it be not, it will itself, in all pro hability, defeat its own purpose. An unrestrainedmind in avigorous body, cannot fail to be eventually a slave ofthe body. In subsequent periods of education, mental and moral culture may, and must be, the leading objects; but they too will, in a considerable degree, defeat their own ends, if pur sued without'reference to the bodily health and vigor. \ve would by no means intimate that debility of body, or extreme physical sensibility, is necessarily attended with ill effects on the moral and intellectual systems. Underjudicious management, they often have led to high degrees of moral worth, and have not prevented very great progress in mental culture but their general tendency is, on the one hand, to produce debility of mind, and the moral qualities connected with it, cowardice, meanness, &c.; or, on the other, that extreme sensibility which will either speedily consume the powers of body and mind, or sink into selfishness of the most injurious kind, because it often wears the garb of benevolence.-whatever be the nature of the immediate organs of the percipient principle, there can be no doubt that they depend greatly on the bodilv system. Whatever be the nature of the organization on which sensation, retention, association, memo ry, and imagination depend, it is indisputable, that it is most intimately con nected with the material organization which is connected with any of the operations ofthe mind. So far as the judgment depends on these subordi nate powers, this also must be affected by whatever affects them. That the elementary powers forming the memory and imagination, are very greatly dependent on the body, is a point so well ascertained, that we may assume it as a fundamental'position and the close connexion, therefore, between fthe culture of the understanding and a sound and vigorous physical system.

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