Physical Training: A Question of Judicious Support: A Discussion of Physical Training in Its Larger Aspects, as Affecting School Youth

Carl J. Kroh
1907 The Elementary School Teacher  
Modern physical training as an operative and effective factor in education is unthinkable without the setting of an enlightened background. Its pedagogical-aesthetical and anatomical-physiological aspects involve more than mere disciplinary values and health-promoting influences-they represent the highest that is conceivable in art, and what has been achieved in the science of the modern doctrine of the human body as well. So regarded, physical training depends for its best unfolding and
more » ... ance on the attitude of the school, and on the exponents of its ideals. The school is the generative power and principal factor in the advancement of the universal interests to be subserved. Inquiry, therefore, reflecting the true function of physical training in a scheme of education, is necessarily of paramount importance in outlining a policy calculated to obviate unnecessary and unprofitable experimentation. In the past, as in the present, inquiries into the merits of the multiform instructional procedures evolved and extant have been influenced by the character of the conceptions held with regard to it. Preconceptions, without the data of comprehensive experiences, have, in instances without number, been the rule in its organization. Declarations of mere intentional purport have availed naught, the most liberal provisions not unfrequently proving antidotal. Uncritical conclusions have resulted in an overemphasis o'f extremes-huge effort on the one hand, and on the other the prominence accorded the ameliorative or remedial features of gymnastic treatment.
doi:10.1086/453650 fatcat:li3gim6dxfghxm2r6rwlpgwvey