p-books.com
College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College
by Paul Klapper
Previous Part     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14     Next Part
Home - Random Browse

On the other hand, L'Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, which occupies a prominent place in the history of college mathematics, had very high admission requirements in mathematics from the start. According to a law enacted in 1795, the candidates for admission were required to pass an examination in arithmetic; in algebra, including the solution of equations of the first four degrees and the theory of series; and in geometry, including trigonometry, the applications of algebra to geometry, and conic sections.[6] It should be noted that these requirements are more extensive than the usual present mathematical requirements of our leading universities and technical schools, but L'Ecole Polytechnique laid special emphasis on mathematics and physics and became the world's prototype of strong technical institutions.

The influence of L'Ecole Polytechnique was greatly augmented by the publication of a regular periodical entitled Journal de l'Ecole Polytechnique, which was started in 1795 and is still being published. A number of the courses of lectures delivered at L'Ecole Polytechnique and at L'Ecole Normale appeared in the early volumes of this journal. The fact that some of these courses were given by such eminent mathematicians as J. L. Lagrange, G. Monge, and P. S. Laplace is sufficient guarantee of their great value and of their good influence on the later textbooks along similar lines. In particular, it may be noted that G. Monge gave the first course in descriptive geometry at L'Ecole Normale in 1795, and he was also for a number of years one of the most influential teachers at L'Ecole Polytechnique.

A most fundamental element in the history of college mathematics is the broadening of the scope of the college work. As long as college students were composed almost entirely of prospective preachers, lawyers, and physicians, there was comparatively little interest taken in mathematics. It is true that the mental disciplinary value of mathematics was emphasized by many, but this supposed value did not put any real life into mathematical work. The dead abstract reasonings of Euclid's Elements, or even the number speculations of the ancient Pythagoreans, were enough to satisfy most of those who were looking to mathematics as a subject suitable for mental gymnastics.

On the other hand, when the colleges began to train men for other lines of work, when the applications of steam led to big enterprises, like the building of railroads and large ocean steamers, mathematics became a living subject whose great direct usefulness in practical affairs began to be commonly recognized. Moreover, it became apparent that there was great need of mathematical growth, since mathematics was no longer to be used merely as mental Indian clubs or dumb-bells, where a limited assortment would answer all practical needs, but as an implement of mental penetration into the infinitude of barriers which have checked progress along various lines and seem to require an infinite variety of methods of penetration.

The American colleges were naturally somewhat slower than some of those of Europe in adapting themselves to the changed conditions, but the rapidity of the changes in our country may be inferred from the fact that in the first half of the nineteenth century Harvard placed in comparatively short succession three mathematical subjects on its list of entrance requirements; viz., arithmetic in 1802, algebra in 1820, and geometry in 1844. Although Harvard had not established any mathematical admission requirements for more than a century and a half after its opening, she initiated three such requirements within half a century. It is interesting to note that for at least ninety years from the opening of Harvard, arithmetic was taught during the senior year as one of the finishing subjects of a college education.[7]

The passage of some of the subjects of elementary mathematics from the colleges to the secondary schools raised two very fundamental questions. The first of these concerned mostly the secondary schools, since it involved an adaptation to the needs of younger students of the more or less crystallized textbook material which came to them from the colleges. The second of these questions affected the colleges only, since it involved the selection of proper material to base upon the foundations laid by the secondary schools. It is natural that the influence of the colleges should have been somewhat harmful with respect to the secondary schools, since the interests of the former seemed to be best met by restricting most of the energies of the secondary teachers of mathematics to the thorough drilling of their students in dexterous formal manipulations of algebraic symbols and the demonstration of fundamental abstract theorems of geometry.

Relation of mathematics in secondary schools and college

Students who come to college with a solid and broad foundation but without any knowledge of the superstructure can readily be inspired and enthused by the erection of a beautiful superstructure on a foundation laid mostly underground, with little direct evidence of its value or importance. The injustice and shortsightedness of the tendency to restrict the secondary schools to such foundation work would not have been so apparent if the majority of the secondary school students would have entered college. As a matter of fact it tended to bring secondary mathematics into disrepute and thus to threaten college mathematics at its very foundation. It is only in recent years that strong efforts have been made to correct this very serious mathematical situation.

Much progress has been made toward the saner view of letting secondary mathematics build its little structure into the air with some view to harmony and proportion, and of requiring college mathematics to build on as well as upon the work done by the secondary schools. The fruitful and vivifying notions of function, derivative, and group are slowly making their way into secondary mathematics, and the graphic methods have introduced some of the charms of analytic geometry into the same field.

This transformation is naturally affecting college mathematics most profoundly. The tedious work of building foundations in college mathematics is becoming more imperative. The use of the rock drill is forcing itself more and more on the college teacher accustomed to use only hammer and saw. As we are just entering upon this situation, it is too early to prophesy anything in regard to its permanency, but it seems likely that the secondary teachers will no more assume a yoke which some of the college teachers would so gladly have them bear and which they bore a long time with a view to serving the interests of the latter teachers.

As many of the textbooks used by secondary teachers are written by college men, and as the success of these teachers is often gauged by the success of their students who happen to go to college, it is easily seen that there is a serious temptation on the part of the secondary teacher to look at his work through the eyes of the college teacher. The recent organizations which bring together the college and the secondary teachers have already exerted a very wholesome influence and have tended to exhibit the fact that the success of the college teacher of mathematics is very intimately connected with that of the teachers of secondary mathematics.

While it is difficult to determine the most important single event in the history of college teaching in America, there are few events in this history which seem to deserve such a distinction more than the organization of the Mathematical Association of America which was effected in December, 1915. This association aims especially to promote the interests of mathematics in the collegiate field and it publishes a journal entitled The American Mathematical Monthly, containing many expository articles of special interest to teachers. It also holds regular meetings and has organized various sections so as to enable its members to attend meetings without incurring the expense of long trips. Its first four presidents were E. R. Hedrick, Florian Cajori, E. V. Huntington, and H. E. Slaught.

An event which has perhaps affected the very vitals of mathematical teaching in America still more is the founding of the American Mathematical Society in 1888, called the New York Mathematical Society until 1894. Through its Bulletin and Transactions, as well as through its meetings and colloquia lectures, this society has stood for inspiration and deep mathematical interest without which college teaching will degenerate into an art. During the first thirty years of its history it has had as presidents the following: J. H. Van Amringe, Emory McClintock, G. W. Hill, Simon Newcomb, R. S. Woodward, E. H. Moore, T. S. Fiske, W. F. Osgood, H. S. White, Maxime Boecher, H. B. Fine, E. B. Van Vleck, E. W. Brown, L. E. Dickson, and Frank Morley.

Aims of college mathematics: methods of teaching

The aims of college mathematics can perhaps be most clearly understood by recalling the fact that mathematics constitutes a kind of intellectual shorthand and that many of the newer developments in a large number of the sciences tend toward pure mathematics. In particular, "there is a constant tendency for mathematical physics to be absorbed in pure mathematics."[8] As sciences grow, they tend to require more and more the strong methods of intellectual penetration provided by pure mathematics.

The principal modern aim of college mathematics is not the training of the mind, but the providing of information which is absolutely necessary to those who seek to work most efficiently along various scientific lines. Mathematical knowledge rather than mathematical discipline is the main modern objective in the college courses in mathematics. As this knowledge must be in a usable form, its acquisition is naturally attended by mental discipline, but the knowledge is absolutely needed and would have to be acquired even if the process of acquisition were not attended by a development of intellectual power.

The fact that practically all of the college mathematics of the eighteenth century has been gradually taken over by the secondary schools of today might lead some to question the wisdom of replacing this earlier mathematics by more advanced subjects. In particular, the question might arise whether the college mathematics of today is not superfluous. This question has been partially answered by the preceding general observations. The rapid scientific advances of the past century have increased the mathematical needs very rapidly. The advances in college mathematics which have been made possible by the improvements of the secondary schools have scarcely kept up with the growth of these needs, so that the current mathematical needs cannot be as fully provided for by the modern college as the recognized mathematical needs of the eighteenth century were provided for by the colleges of those days.

There appears to be no upper limit to the amount of useful mathematics, and hence the aim of the college must be to supply the mathematical needs of the students to the greatest possible extent under the circumstances. In order to supply these needs in the most economical manner, it seems necessary that some of them should be supplied before they are fully appreciated on the part of the student. The first steps in many scientific subjects do not call for mathematical considerations and the student frequently does not go beyond these first steps in his college days, but he needs to go much further later in life. College mathematics should prepare for life rather than for college days only, and hence arises the desirability of deeper mathematical penetration than appears directly necessary for college work.

Advanced work in college mathematics

Another reason for more advanced mathematics than seems to be directly needed by the student is that the more advanced subjects in mathematics are a kind of applied mathematics relative to the more elementary ones, and the former subjects serve to throw much light on the latter. In other words, the student who desires to understand an elementary subject completely should study more advanced subjects which are connected therewith, since such a study is usually more effective than the repeated review of the elementary subject. In particular, many students secure a better understanding of algebra during their course in calculus than during the course in algebra itself, and a course in differential equations will throw new light on the course in calculus. Hence college mathematics usually aims to cover a rather wide range of subjects in a comparatively short time.

Since mathematics is largely the language of advanced science, especially of astronomy, physics, and engineering, one of the prominent aims of college mathematics should be to keep in close touch with the other sciences. That is, the idea of rendering direct and efficient services to other departments should animate the mathematical department more deeply than any other department of the university. The tendency toward disintegration to which we referred above has forcefully directed attention to the great need of emphasizing this aspect of our subject, since such disintegration is naturally accompanied by a weakening of mathematical vigor. It may be noted that such a disintegration would mean a reverting to primitive conditions, since some of the older works treated mathematics merely as a chapter of astronomy. This was done, for instance, in some of the ancient treatises of the Hindus.

Mathematics and technical education

The great increase in college students during recent years and the growing emphasis on college activities outside of the work connected with the classroom, especially on those relating to college athletics, would doubtless have left college mathematics in a woefully neglected state if there had not been a rapidly growing interest in technical education, especially in engineering subjects, at the same time. Naval engineering was one of the first scientific subjects to exert a strong influence on popularizing mathematics. In particular, the teaching of mathematics in the Russian schools supported by the government began with the founding of the government school for mathematics and navigation at Moscow in 1701. It is interesting to note that the earlier Russian schools established by the clergy after the adoption of Christianity in that country did not provide for the teaching of any arithmetic whatever, notwithstanding the usefulness of arithmetic for the computing of various dates in the church calendar, for land surveying, and for the ordinary business transactions.[9]

The direct aims in the teaching of college mathematics have naturally been somewhat affected by the needs of the engineering students, who constitute in many of our leading institutions a large majority in the mathematical classes. These students are usually expected to receive more drill in actual numerical work than is demanded by those who seek mainly a deeper penetration into the various mathematical theories. The most successful methods of teaching the former students have much in common with those usually employed in the high schools and are known as the recitation and problem-solving methods. They involve the correction and direct supervision of a large number of graded exercises worked out by the students on the blackboard or on paper, and aim to overcome the peculiar difficulties of the individual students.

The lecture method, on the other hand, aims to exhibit the main facts in a clear light and to leave to the student the task of supplying further illustrative examples and of reconsidering the various steps. The purely lecture method does not seem to be well adapted to American conditions, and it is frequently combined with what is commonly known as the "quiz." The quiz seems to be an American institution, although it has much in common with a species of the French "conference." It is intended to review the content of a set of lectures by means of discussions in which the students and the teacher participate, and it is most commonly employed in connection with the courses of an advanced undergraduate or of a beginning graduate grade.

A prominent aim in graduate courses is to lead the student as rapidly as possible to the boundary of knowledge along the particular line considered therein. While some of the developments in such courses are apt to be somewhat special or to be too general to have much meaning, their novelty frequently adds a sufficiently strong element of interest to more than compensate losses in other directions. Moreover, the student who aims to do research work will thus be enabled to consider various fields as regards their attractiveness for prolonged investigations of his own.

Preparation of the college teacher of mathematics.

The fact that the college teacher has need of much more mathematical knowledge than he can possibly secure during the period of his preparation, especially if he expects to take an active part in research and in directing graduate work, has usually led to the assumption that the future teacher of college mathematics should devote all his energies to securing a deep mathematical insight and a wide range of mathematical knowledge.[10] On the other hand, students prepared in accord with this assumption have frequently found it very difficult to adapt themselves to the needs of large freshman classes of engineering students entering upon the duties for which they were supposed to have been prepared.

The breadth of view and the sweep of abstraction needed for effective graduate work have little in common with accuracy in numerical work and emphasis on details which are so essential to the young engineering students. The difficulty of the situation is increased by the fact that the young instructor is often led to believe that his advancement and the appreciation of his services are directly proportional to his achievements in investigations of a high order. This belief naturally leads many to begrudge the time and thought which their teaching duties should normally receive.

The young college teacher of mathematics is thus confronted with a much more complex situation than that which confronts the mathematics teachers in secondary school work. Here the success in the classroom is the one great goal, and the mathematical knowledge required is comparatively very modest. Possibly the situation of the college teacher could be materially improved if it were understood that his first promotion would be mainly dependent upon his success as a teacher, but that later promotions involved the element of productive scholarship in an increasing ratio.

The schools of education which have in recent years been established in most of our leading universities have thus far had only a slight influence on the preparation of the college teachers, but it seems likely that this influence will increase as the needs of professional training become better known. It is probably true that the ratio of courses on methods to courses on knowledge of the subject will always be largest for the elementary teacher, in view of the great difference between the mental maturity of the student and the teacher, somewhat less for the secondary teacher and least for the college teacher; but this least should not be zero, as is so frequently the case at present, since there usually is even here a considerable difference between the mathematical maturity of the student and that of the teacher.

It may be argued that the future college teacher will probably profit more by noting the methods employed by his instructors than he would by the theoretic discussions relating to methods. This is doubtless true, but it does not prove that the latter discussions are without value. On the other hand, these discussions will often serve to fix more attention on the former methods and will lead the student to note more accurately their import and probable adaptability to the needs of the younger students.

Among the useful features for the training of the future mathematics teachers are the mathematical clubs which are connected with most of the active mathematical departments. In many cases, at least, two such clubs are maintained, the one being devoted largely to the presentation of research work while the other aims to provide opportunities for the presentation of papers of special interest to the students. The latter papers are often presented by graduate students or by advanced undergraduates, and they offer a splendid opportunity for such students to acquire effective and clear methods of presentation. The same desirable end is often promoted by reports given by students in seminars or in advanced courses.

Prominent factors in the training of the future college teachers are the teaching scholarships or fellowships and the assistantships. Many of the larger universities provide a number of positions of this type. It sometimes happens that the teaching duties connected with these positions are so heavy as to leave too little energy for vigorous graduate work. On the other hand, these positions have made it possible for many to continue their graduate studies longer than they could otherwise have done and at the same time to acquire sound habits of teaching while in close contact with men of proved ability along this line.

It should be emphasized that the ideal college teacher of mathematics is not the one who acquires a respectable fund of mathematical knowledge which he passes along to his students, but the one imbued with an abiding interest in learning more and more about his subject as long as life lasts. This interest naturally soon forces him to conduct researches where progress usually is slow and uncertain. Research work should be animated by the desire for more knowledge and not by the desire for publication. In fact, only those new results should be published which are likely to be helpful to others in starting at a more favorable point in their efforts to secure intellectual mastery over certain important problems.

Half a century ago it was commonly assumed that graduation from a good college implied enough training to enter upon the duties of a college teacher, but this view has been practically abandoned, at least as regards the college teacher of mathematics. The normal preparation is now commonly placed three years later, and the Ph.D. degree is usually regarded to be evidence of this normal preparation. This degree is supposed by many to imply that its possessor has reached a stage where he can do independent research work and direct students who seek similar degrees. In view of the fact that in America as well as in Germany the student often receives much direct assistance while working on his Ph.D. thesis, this supposition is frequently not in accord with the facts.[11]

The emphasis on the Ph.D. degree for college teachers has in many cases led to an improvement in ideals, but in some other cases it has had the opposite effect. Too many possessors of this degree have been able to count on it as accepted evidence of scientific attainments, while they allowed themselves to become absorbed in non-scientific matters, especially in administrative details. Professors of mathematics in our colleges have been called on to shoulder an unusual amount of the administrative work, and many men of fine ability and scholarship have thus been hindered from entering actively into research work. Conditions have, however, improved rapidly in recent years, and it is becoming better known that the productive college teacher needs all his energies for scientific work; and in no field is this more emphatically true than in mathematics. Some departmental administrative duties will doubtless always devolve upon the mathematics teachers. By a careful division of these duties they need not interfere seriously with the main work of the various teachers.

The mathematical textbook

The American teachers of mathematics follow the textbook more closely than is customary in Germany, for instance. Among college teachers there is a wide difference of view in regard to the suitable use of the textbook. While some use it simply for the purpose of providing illustrative examples and do not expect the student to begin any subject by a study of the presentation found in the textbook, there are others who expect the normal student to secure all the needed assistance from the textbook and who employ the class periods mainly for the purpose of teaching the students how to use the textbook most effectively. The practice of most teachers falls between these two extremes, and, as a rule, the textbook is followed less and less closely as the student advances in his work. In fact, in many advanced courses no particular textbook is followed. In such courses the principal results and the exercises are often dictated by the teacher or furnished by means of mimeographed notes.

The close adherence to the textbook is apt to cultivate the habit on the part of the student of trying to understand what the author meant instead of confining his attention to trying to understand the subject. In view of the fact that the American secondary mathematics teachers usually follow textbooks so slavishly, the college teacher of mathematics who believes in emphasizing the subject rather than the textbook often meets with considerable difficulty with the beginning classes. On the other hand, it is clear that as the student advances he should be encouraged to seek information from all available sources instead of from one particular book only. The rapid improvement in our library facilities makes this attitude especially desirable.

An advantage of the textbook is that it is limited in all directions, while the subject itself is of indefinite extent. In the textbook the subject has been pressed into a linear sequence, while its natural form usually exhibits various dimensions. The textbook presents those phases about which there is usually no doubt, while the subject itself exhibits limitations of knowledge in many directions. From these few characteristics it is evident that the study of textbooks is apt to cultivate a different attitude and a different point of view from those cultivated by the unhampered study of subjects. The latter are, however, the ones which correspond to the actual world and which therefore should receive more and more emphasis as the mental vision of the student can be enlarged.

The number of different available college mathematical textbooks on the subjects usually studied by the large classes of engineering students has increased rapidly in recent years. On the other hand, the number of suitable textbooks for the more advanced classes is often very limited. In fact, it is often found desirable to use textbooks written in some foreign language, especially in French, German, or Italian, for such courses. This procedure has the advantage that it helps to cultivate a better reading knowledge of these languages, which is in itself a very worthy end for the advanced student of mathematics. This procedure has, however, become less necessary in recent years in view of the publication of various excellent advanced works in the English language.

The greatest mathematical treasure is constituted by the periodic literatures, and the larger colleges and universities aim to have complete sets of the leading mathematical periodicals available for their students. This literature has been made more accessible by the publication of various catalogues, such as the Subject Index, Volume I, published by the Royal Society of London in 1908, and the volumes "A" of the annual publications entitled International Catalogue of Scientific Literature. All students who have access to large libraries should learn how to utilize this great store of mathematical lore whenever mathematical questions present themselves to them in their scientific work. This is especially true as regards those who specialize along mathematical lines.

In some of the colleges and universities general informational courses along mathematical lines have been organized under different names, such as history of mathematics, synoptic course, fundamental concepts, cultural course, etc. Several books have recently been prepared with a view to meeting the needs of textbooks for such courses. College teachers of mathematics usually find it difficult to interest their students sufficiently in the current periodic literature, and one of the greatest problems of the college teacher is to instill such a broad interest in mathematics that the student will seek mathematical knowledge in all available sources instead of confining himself to the study of a few textbooks or the work of a particular school.

G. A. MILLER University of Illinois

REFERENCES

For articles on the teaching of mathematics which appeared during the nineteenth century, consult 0050 Pedagogy in the Royal Society Index, Vol. I, Pure Mathematics, 1908. For literature appearing during the first twelve years of the present century the reader may consult the Bibliography of the Teaching of Mathematics, 1900-1912, by D. E. Smith and Charles Goldziher, published by the United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin, 1912, No. 29. More recent literature may be found by consulting annual indexes, such as the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, A, Mathematics, under 0050, and Revue Semestrielle des Publications Mathematiques, under V 1. The volumes of the international review entitled L'Enseignement Mathematique, founded in 1899, contain a large number of articles relating to college teaching. This subject will be treated in the closing volumes of the large French and German mathematical encyclopedias in course of publication.

Footnotes:

[3] P. Zuehlke. Zeitschrift fuer Mathematischen und Naturwissenschuftlichen Unterricht, Vol. 45 (1915), page 483.

[4] Committee No. XII, American Report of the International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics, 1912, page 9.

[5] Internationale Mathematische Unterrichtskomission, Vol. 3, No. 6 (1912), page 2.

[6] Journal de l'Ecole Polytechnique, Vol. 1 (1896), part 4, page lx.

[7] F. Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States, 1890, page 22.

[8] A. E. H. Love, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Vol. 14 (1915), page 183.

[9] V. V. Bobynin, L'Enseignement Mathematique, Vol. 1 (1899), page 78.

[10] The Training of Teachers of Mathematics, 1917, by R. C. Archibald. Bulletin No. 27, 1917, United States Bureau of Education.

[11] Cf. M. Bocher, Science, Vol. 38 (1913), page 546.



IX

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN THE COLLEGE

Lessons for physical education from the world war

The events of the four years between the summer of 1914 and the winter of 1918 have brought us to a full realization of the real significance of physical education in the training of youth. America and her allies have had very dramatic reasons for regretting their careless indifference to the welfare of childhood and youth in former years. Only yesterday, we were told that the great war would be won by the country that could furnish the last man or fight for the last quarter of an hour. America and her allies looked with a new and fearful concern upon the army of young men who were found physically unfit for military service.

With the danger of war past, there is no lack of evidence that we and our allies will make practical application of this particular lesson. It will be fortunate indeed if the enlightened people of the earth are really permanently awake to the importance of the physical education of their citizens-in-the-making.

Governmental agencies have already started the movement to guarantee to the coming generation more extensive and more scientific physical education. Public and private institutions are joining forces so that the advantages of this extended program of physical education will be enjoyed by the young men and young women in industry and commerce as well as by those in schools and colleges.

It is to be hoped that the American college will do its full share and neglect no reasonable measure whereby the college graduate may be developed into the vigorous and healthy human being that the mentally trained ought to be. It must be admitted that our findings by the military draft boards, as well as other evidences secured through physical examinations, are not such as to make the American college proud of the quality or the extent of physical education which it has given in the past. We must express our keen disappointment at the prevalence of under-development, remediable defects, and unachieved physical and functional possibilities in our college graduates.

Aims of physical education

Physical training is concerned with the achievement and the conservation of human health. It has to do with conditioning the human being for the exigencies of life in peace or in war. Its standards are not set by a degree of health which merely enables the individual to keep out of bed, eat three meals a day, and run no abnormal temperature. Physical training is concerned with developing vigorous, enduring health that is based upon the perfect function, coordination, and integration of every organ of the human body; health that is not found wanting at the military draft; health that meets all its community obligations; health that is not affected by diseases of decay; and health that resists infection and postpones preventable death.

Formulations of aims and scope of physical education in official documents—By Regents of the State of New York

Official statements and information from reliable sources indicate that physical education and hygiene and physical training are regarded by authorities as covering about the same general field. The general plan and syllabus for physical training adopted by the Regents of the University of the State of New York in 1916 interprets physical training as covering "(1) Individual health examinations and personal health instruction (medical inspection); (2) instruction concerning the care of the body and the important facts of hygiene (recitations in hygiene); (3) physical examinations as a health habit, including gymnastics, elementary marching, and organized, supervised play, recreation, and athletics."

By national committee on physical education

In March of 1918 a National Committee on Physical Education, formed of representatives from twenty or more national organizations, adopted the following resolutions:

I. That a comprehensive, thoroughgoing program of health education and physical education is absolutely needed for all boys and girls of elementary and secondary school age, both rural and urban, in every state in the Union.

II. That legislation, similar in purpose and scope to the provisions and requirements in the laws recently enacted in California, New York State, and New Jersey, is desirable in every state, to provide authorization and support for state-wide programs in the health and physical education field.

III. That the United States Bureau of Education should be empowered by law, and provided with sufficient appropriations, to exert adequate influence and supervision in relation to a nationwide program of instruction in health and physical education.

IV. That it seems most desirable that Congress should give recognition to this vital and neglected phase of education, with a bill and appropriation similar in purpose and scope to the Smith-Hughes Law, to give sanction, leadership, and support to a national program of health and physical education; and to encourage, standardize, and, in part, finance the practical program of constructive work that should be undertaken in every state.

V. That federal recognition, supervision, and support are urgently needed, as the effective means, under the Constitution, to secure that universal training of boys and girls in health and physical fitness which are equally essential to efficiency of all citizens both in peace and in war.

By five national organizations

In December, 1918, five national organizations, assembled in regular annual meeting, adopted resolutions which read in part as follows:

First: That this Society shall make every reasonable effort to influence the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of our various states to enact laws providing for the effective physical education of all children of all ages in our elementary and secondary schools, public, institutional and private, a physical education that will bring these children instruction in hygiene, regular periodic health examinations and a training in the practice of health habits with a full educational emphasis upon play, games, recreation, athletics and physical exercise, and shall further make every possible reasonable effort to influence communities and municipalities to enact laws and pass ordinances providing for community and industrial physical training and recreative activities for all classes and ages of society.

Second: That this Association shall make persistent effort to influence state boards of education, or their equivalent bodies, in all the states of the United States, to make it their effective rule that on or after June, 1922, or some other reasonable date, no applicant may receive a license to teach any subject in any school who does not first present convincing evidence of having covered in creditable manner a satisfactory course in physical education in a reputable training school for teachers.

Third: And that this Association hereby directs and authorizes its president to appoint a committee of three to take such steps as may be necessary to put the above resolutions into active and effective operation, and to cooperate in every practical and substantial way with the National Committee on Physical Education, the division of physical education of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, and any other useful agency that may be in the field for the purpose of securing the proper and sufficient physical education of the boys and girls of to-day, so that they may to-morrow constitute a nation of men and women of normal physical growth, normal physical development and normal functional resource, practicing wise habits of health conservation and possessed of greater consequent vitality, larger endurance, longer lives and more complete happiness—the most precious assets of a nation.

By the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board

In January, 1919, the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board suggested the following organization of a department of hygiene for the purpose of establishing such a department in at least one normal school, college, or university training school for teachers in each state of the Union.

SUGGESTED ORGANIZATION OF A DEPARTMENT OF HYGIENE

I. Division of Informational Hygiene. (Stressing in each of its several divisions with due proportion and with appropriate emphasis, the venereal diseases, their causes, carriers, injuries, and prevention):

(a) The principles of hygiene. Required of all students at least twice a week for at least four terms.

(1) General hygiene. (The agents that injure health, the carriers of disease, the contributory causes of poor health, the defenses of health, and the sources of health.)

(2) Individual hygiene. (Informational hygiene, the care of the body and its organs, correction, and repair, preventive hygiene, constructive hygiene.)

(3) Group hygiene. (Hygiene of the home and the family, school hygiene, occupational hygiene, community hygiene.)

(4) Intergroup hygiene. (Interfamily, intercommunity, interstate, and international hygiene.)

(b) Principles of physical training. (Gymnastics, exercise, athletics, recreation, and play.) Required of all students. To be given at least twice a week for two terms in the Junior or Senior Years.

(c) Health examinations—

(1) Medical examination required each half year of every student. (Making reasonable provisions for a private, personal, confidential relationship between the examiner and the student.)

(2) Sanitary surveys and hygienic inspections applied regularly to all divisions of the institution, their curriculums, buildings, dormitories, equipment, personal service, and surroundings.

II. Division of Applied Hygiene.

(a) Health conference and consultations.

(1) Every student advised under "c" above (health examinations) must report to his health examiner within a reasonable time, as directed, with evidence that he has followed the advice given, or with a satisfactory explanation for not having done so.

(2) Must provide student with opportunities for safe, confidential consultations with competent medical advisors concerning the intimate problems of sex life as well as those of hygiene in general.

(b) Physical training.

(1) Gymnastic exercises, recreation, games, athletics, and competitive sports. Required of all students six hours a week every term.

(2) Reconstructional and special training and exercise for students not qualified organically for the regular activities covered in "1" above. It is assumed that every teacher-in-training physically able to go to school is entitled to and should take some form of physical exercise.

III. Division of Research.

(a) Investigations, tests, evaluating measurements, records, and reports required each term covering progress made under each division and subdivision of the department, for the purpose of discovering and developing more effective educational methods in hygiene.

(b) Provide facilities for the sifting, selection, and investigation of problems in hygiene that may be submitted to or proposed by the department of hygiene.

(c) Arrange for frequent lectures on public hygiene and public health from competent members of municipal, state, and national departments of health, and from other appropriate sources.

IV. Personnel requisite for such a department.—Men and women should be chosen for service in the several divisions of the Department, who have a sane, well-balanced, and experienced appreciation of the importance of the whole field of hygiene as well as of the place and relations of the venereal diseases.

(1) One director or head of department. Must have satisfactory scientific training and special experience, fitting him for supervision, leadership, teaching, research, and administrative responsibility.

(2) One medical examiner for men and one medical examiner for women. There should be one examiner for each 500 students. Must be selected with special care because of the presence of extraordinary opportunities to exercise a powerful intimate influence upon the mental, moral, and physical health of the students with whom such examiners come in contact.

(3) One special teacher of physical training (a "Physical Director") for each group of 500 students. There must be a man for the men and a woman for the women students. The physical training instructors employed in this department should be in charge of and should cover satisfactorily all the directing, training, and coaching carried on in the department and in the institution in its relation to athletics and competitive sports. The men and women who are placed in charge of individual students and groups of students engaged in the various activities of physical training (gymnastics, athletics, recreation and play) should be selected with special reference to their wholesome influence on young men and young women.

(4) One coordinator (this function may be covered by one of the personnel covered by "1," "2" or "3" above). Will serve to influence every teacher in every department on the entire staff of the institution to meet his obligations, in relation to the individual hygiene of the students in his classes and to the sanitation of the class rooms in which he meets his students. The coordinator should bring information to all teachers and assist them to meet more satisfactorily their opportunities to help students in their individual problems in social hygiene.

(5) Special lectures on the principles and progress of public hygiene and public health. A close coordination should be secured between this department and community agencies like the Department of Health that are concerned with public hygiene.

(6) Sufficient clerical, stenographic and filing service to meet the needs of the department.

In February, 1919, the field service of the National Committee on Physical Education issued a tentative outline for a state law for physical education, suggested for use in planning future legislation. The purposes of physical education as stated in the preamble of this law read as follows:

1. In order that the children of the State of .... shall receive a quality and an amount of physical education that will bring to them the health, growth and a normal organic development that is essential to their fullest present and future education, happiness and usefulness; and in order that the future citizenship of the State of .... may receive regularly from the growing and developing youth of the Commonwealth a rapidly increasing number of more vigorous, better educated, healthier, happier, more prosperous and longer lived men and women, we, the people of the State of .... represented in the Senate and Assembly do enact as follows:

By Legislative Committee of National Committee on Physical Education

In February, 1919, the legislative committee of the National Committee on Physical Education prepared a bill for federal legislation for the purpose of assisting the states in establishing physical education in their schools. This proposed federal law stated the purpose and aim of physical education as follows:

The purpose and aim of physical education in the meaning of this act shall be: more fully and thoroughly to prepare the boys and girls of the nation for the duties and responsibilities of citizenship through the development of bodily vigor and endurance, muscular strength and skill, bodily and mental poise, and such desirable moral and social qualities as courage, self-control, self-subordination and obedience to authority, cooperation under leadership, and disciplined initiative. The processes and agencies for securing these ends shall be understood to include: comprehensive courses of physical training activities, periodical physical examination; correction of postural and other remediable defects; health supervision of schools and school children; practical instruction in the care of the body and in the principles of health; hygienic school life, sanitary school buildings, playgrounds, and athletic fields and the equipment thereof; and such other means as may be conducive to these purposes.

An analysis of these several authoritative and more or less official documents indicates very clearly a unanimity as to scope and aims of physical education, for they all seek to promote and conserve, in the broadest sense of the term, the health of the nation.

Poor type of physical education in secondary schools intensifies problem in the college

The problem of physical education in the college is intensified by the fact that freshmen come to their chosen institutions with a variety of experience in physical training, but unfortunately this experience is, too often, either inadequate or ineffective. The natural physical training of the earlier age periods produces whatever neuro-muscular development, whatever neuro-muscular coordination, whatever neuro-muscular control, and whatever other organic growth, development, or functional perfection is achieved by the young human concerned. A program of physical training wisely planned with reference to infancy, childhood, and early youth would include types of exercises, play, games, and sports, that would perfect the neuro-muscular and other functions far more completely than is commonly accomplished through the natural unsupervised and undirected physical training of those early age periods either in city or in rural communities. The force of modern habits of life has led to the destruction of those natural habits of work, play, and recreation that gave a proportion of our forebears a fairly complete natural program of physical exercise during the plastic or formative periods of life. As a result, many students reach college nowadays with stunted growths and with poorly developed, poorly trained, or poorly controlled neuro-muscular equipment. Some of these matriculates are physically weak. They lack alertness; their response is slow. Others are awkward and muscularly inefficient, though their physical growth is objectively—height and weight—normal or even above normal.

The College Department faces these problems through special provisions made for the purpose of supplying a belated neuro-muscular training to such cases. It often happens that successful training along these lines is possible only through individual instruction of a most elementary sort, taking the student through simple exercises that ought to have been a part of his experience in early childhood.

Individual needs of students augment problem of department of physical education

For the same reasons that are stated above, the College Department of Physical Training finds it necessary to concern itself with individual students who need special attention directed to specified organs or groups of organs whose training or care could have been accomplished ordinarily far better at an earlier period. These students present problems of posture, lung capacity, and regional weakness.

Supervision of athletics and recreation adds further to its problem

The College Department of Physical Training finds also a significant opportunity and an urgent duty in the fact that various types of physical exercise are intimately associated with social, ethical, and moral consequences. No other human activity gives the same opportunity for the development of a social spirit and personal ethical standards as do play, games, and sports of children and adolescents. Unsupervised, these activities degenerate and bring unmoral practices and an anti-social spirit in their wake.

Because of these opportunities and obligations, College Departments of Physical Training are including within their programs and jurisdictions more and more supervision of college athletics, and assume an ever increasing role in the direction of recreational activities of college students. It remains true, however, that these influences of supervised play and athletics should operate long before the individual reaches college age.

The intense interest of college students in athletic competitions, united with the opportunity which athletics offer for social and character training, has decided a number of colleges to turn athletic training over to the Department of Physical Training. This preparation for the supreme physical and physiological test must be built upon a foundation of safe and sound health. There is no more fitting place in the collegiate organization for these athletic and recreational activities.

Organization of Department of Physical Education

The college departments that cover this field in whole or in part are known by various names. We have departments of Physical Training; of Physical Education; of Physical Culture; of Hygiene; of Physiology and Physical Education; of Hygiene and Physical Education; of Physical Training and Athletics, and so on.

An analysis of these college departments shows that they all concern themselves with much the same important objects, although they differ in their lines of greater emphasis. We find, too, that in some colleges the department includes activities that form separate, though related departments in other institutions.

The activities of such departments fall into three large divisions, each one of which has its logical subdivisions. One of these large divisions may be called the division of health examination. It has to do with the health examination of the individual student and with the health advice that is based on and consequent to such examination. The second division has to do with health instruction covering the subject matter of physical training. The third division covers directed experiences in right living and the formation of health habits, and includes the special activities noted above.

We often refer to the first division noted above as the division of medical inspection, physical examination, or health examination; to the second as hygiene, physiology, biology, or bacteriology; and to the third as gymnastics, physical exercise, organized play, recreation, athletics, or narrowly as physical training.

The prime purpose of collegiate physical training, then, is to furnish the student such information and such habit-forming experiences as will lead him to formulate and practice an intelligent policy of personal health control and an intelligent policy of community health control. The collateral and special objects of physical training vary with the individual student under the influence of his previous training and his present and future life plans.

The Collegiate Department of Physical Training is primarily concerned, therefore, with the acquisition and conservation of human health—mental, moral, and physical health. Because of his physical training, the college man should live longer; he should meet his environments obligations more successfully; he should be better able to protect himself from, and better able to avoid, injury; he should lose less time on account of injury, poor health, and sickness; he should get well more rapidly when he is sick; he should be better able to recover his health and strength after injury or illness; and he should therefore give to society a fuller, happier, and more useful life.

Such a department is concerned secondarily with (a) those special defects of earlier physical training that bring to college, students in need of neuro-muscular training and organic development, (b) with social, ethical, and character training, and (c) with the conditioning and special training of students for athletic competition or for other extraordinary physical and physiological demands.

In the light of the above statements, the objects of physical training may be summarized as follows:

I. The fundamental and ever present object of physical training is the acquisition and conservation of vigorous, enduring health, the summated effect of perfect functions in each and every organ of the human body.

II. The special objects of physical training vary in their needs for emphasis at different age periods and under the changing stresses of life. Among the more important of these special objects are:

(1) General, normal growth. An object in the early age periods.

(2) Neuro-muscular development, coordination, and control. Accomplished best in early age periods.

(3) Special organic (anatomical and functional) development. Optimum period in childhood and youth.

(4) Social, ethical, and moral training. Character building. Objects more easily secured in childhood and youth.

(5) Preparation for some supreme physical and physiological test; e.g., athletic competition, police or fire service, military service. Most desirable training period in late youth and early maturity. Must depend, however, on the effects of earlier physical training.

(6) The formation of health habits. Best accomplished in early life but commonly an important function of the College Department of Physical Training.

(7) The conservation of health. Always an object, but more particularly so in the middle and later life.

THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION

In the American college of today, the student's first contact with the Department of Physical Training is very likely to be in the examining room. In the College of the City of New York[12] it has become the established custom to require a satisfactory health examination before admitting the applicant to registration as a student in the college. Entering classes are enrolled in this institution at the beginning of each term, and in each list of applicants there are always a few to whom admission is denied because of unsatisfactory health conditions.

In each case in which admission is denied because of unsatisfactory health, the individual is given careful advice relative to his present and probable future condition, and every effort is made to help the applicant plan his life so that he may be able at a later time to enter the college. Of course, it occasionally happens that applicants are found with serious and incurable health defects which make it very improbable that they will ever be in condition to attempt a college education.

Scope of health examination

The health examination of the student should cover those facts in his family and personal health history that are likely to have a bearing upon his present or future health, and the examination should include a very careful investigation of the important organs of his body. This examination calls for expert medical and dental service.

How to conduct health examination

The most useful examiner is he who is at the same time a teacher. Nowhere else is a better or even an equally good opportunity given to drive home impressively, and sometimes dramatically, important lessons in individual hygiene. Through a pair of experimental lenses placed by his examiner before his hitherto undiscovered visual brain cells, the young student who has had poor vision and has never known it, may obtain, for the first time, a glimpse of the beauty in his surroundings.

The dental examiner who finds bad teeth and explains bad teeth to the student whose health is being, or may be, destroyed by such teeth, has before him all the elements necessary for very effective health instruction.

The health examination should be a personal and private affair. It is often best not to have even a recorder present. The student should understand that whatever passes between him and his examiner is entirely confidential.

All advice given a student at these examinations should be followed up if it is the kind of advice that can be followed up. If the advice involves the attention of a dentist or treatment by a physician, time should be allowed for making arrangements and for securing the treatment necessary. After that time has elapsed the student should be called upon to report with information from his parent or guardian, or from his family health adviser, indicating what has been done or will be done for the betterment of the conditions for which the advice was originally given. In the hands of a tactful examiner—one who is a teacher as well as an examiner—the student and parent, particularly the parent, will cooperate effectively in this plan for the development of health habits of the student. Less than three tenths of one per cent of the parents of City College students refuse to secure special health attention for their boys when we do so advise.

These examinations should be repeated at reasonable intervals throughout the entire college course. We have found in the College of the City of New York that a repetition every term is none too frequent. Visual defects, dental defects, evidences of heart trouble and signs of pulmonary tuberculosis, and other defects, not infrequently arise in cases of individuals who have been seen several times before without showing any evidence of poor health. It is hoped that these repeated examinations may lead to the continuation of such habits of bodily care in postgraduate years.

A careful and concise record must be made covering the main facts of each examination and of each conference with the student subsequent to his examination. These memoranda enable the examiner at each later examination to talk to the student with a knowledge of what has been found and what has been said and what has been done on preceding examinations, and on preceding follow-up conferences. As a result, the examiner-teacher is in position to be very much more useful not only because of significant facts before him concerning the student with whom he is talking, but also because of the greater confidence which the student will necessarily have in an examiner who is obviously interested in him and who possesses such an accurate record of his health history.

These examinations should apply to every student in a college or a university, regardless of the division to which he belongs. The need for health instruction or for the establishment of health habits, in order that one may be physically trained for the exigencies of life, is not peculiar to any student age period or to any academic or technicological group, or to a college for men or a college for women.

One of the dangers present in these college examinations is the tendency of the examiner to become more interested in the number of students examined and the number of diagnoses made than in the good influence he may have upon the health future of the student.

Every "case" should be treated by the health examiner as if it were the first and only case on hand for the day. The student certainly classifies the examiner as the first and only one he has had that day. The examiner should plan to make every contact he has with a student a help to the student.

HEALTH INSTRUCTION

A second large division of physical training deals with health instruction. As has been pointed out above, the division of health examination produces a very important and very useful opportunity for individual health instruction.

Content of hygiene instruction

Hygiene, however, is presented commonly to groups of students in class organization rather than individually. Anatomy, physiology, psychology, bacteriology, pathology, general hygiene, individual hygiene, group hygiene, and intergroup hygiene are sciences, or combinations of sciences, from which physical training draws its facts. These sciences and those phases of economics and sociology that have to do with the economic and social influences of health and disease, of physical efficiency and physical degeneracy, supply physical training with its general subject matter.

Health instruction, then, as a part of physical training, draws its content from these sources. A logical plan of class instruction would, therefore, include the elements of anatomy, physiology, psychology, bacteriology (and general parasitology), pathology, economics, and sociology, as a basis for a more complete presentation of the facts of general hygiene, individual hygiene, group hygiene, and intergroup hygiene.

Method of health instruction

The most satisfactory presentation of these subjects involves the grouping of students into small classes, the employment of laboratory methods, the use of reference libraries, and the assignment of problems for investigation and study, with a general group discussion of these problems.

Unfortunately, college classes are large and the number of teachers employed in the department of physical training, or in those departments from which physical training draws its science and its philosophy, is small, so that it is impractical to plan to give this instruction to small groups of students covering this range of subject matter.

As a result, the lecture method with its obvious defects and shortcomings is the common medium for the health instruction of college students organized into classes. The more intimate and detailed instruction in these subjects is secured in special courses and in professional schools.

In the College of the City of New York, we expect that students who come to us from high schools and preparatory schools have had the elements of anatomy and physiology either in courses on those subjects or in courses in biology.[13] Our health instruction, therefore, has been developed along the lines of lectures on general hygiene, individual hygiene, group hygiene, and intergroup hygiene running through the four terms of the freshman and sophomore years.

These lectures are given in periods of from ten to fifteen minutes each, preceding class work in various forms of physical exercise. They are often called "floor talks." The shortness of the presentation favors vigor of address; necessitates a concise organization of material and a clarity and brevity of statement; and is more likely to command student attention and concentration. It has, however, its obvious defects. In these lectures persistent effort is made to influence the daily habits of the student. The lecture content is selected with reference to the practical problems of the daily life of the individual and of the community of which he is a part. It is obvious that the amount of time devoted to the presentation of the subject matter is utterly inadequate.

Short written tests are given once each month, and a longer written test is given at the end of each term. These examinations stimulate the student to organize his information and make it more completely his own property. The classes are too large[14] and the instructional force relatively too small to permit the assignment of references, presentation of reports, and the conduct of investigations.

Further instruction in physiology and bacteriology is secured in this institution through elective courses open to students in their junior and senior years. These elective courses, however, are not planned primarily for the health education of the student, but rather for his partial preparation as a teacher of physical training, a student of medicine, a scientific specialist, or for public health work.

HEALTH-FORMING ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The third division of activities contains the health-habit-forming influences covered by the Department of Physical Training. These influences are formed partly in connection with the follow-up activities associated with the health examinations and advice noted above; partly through impressions made by way of individual and class instruction concerning the laws of health (also noted above); and partly through systematic class work, group work, and individual work in gymnastics, organized recreation, games, play, and athletics.

The student who has been given a health examination each term throughout his college career will be very likely to continue the practice as a habit after graduation. This habit will follow more surely if the examiner has been a real health teacher and not a perfunctory recorder of observations made upon the student. A lack of sympathy and tact may easily prejudice the student against the examination.

The student who has been led regularly to care for defects of one sort or another; whose contact with his examiner-teacher in conferences following up the advice that has been given at the time of examination has been accompanied by the right sort of explanation and mutual understanding, will be more likely to continue to exercise that sort of care for the welfare of his body after he is no longer under the influence of the college.

The student who has seen the application of class health talks to his everyday problems is likely to be influenced to the practice of consequent health habits, particularly if those short lectures serve to correlate his various habit-forming experiences while in college.

And finally, the student who is brought into contact with regular systematic exercise may, if the exercise is attractive and interesting, achieve a health habit that will be carried out into his postgraduate life.

The existence of the Department of Physical Training would be amply justified if its influence upon the health and vigor of the student were limited to the period of his stay in college. The full success of this department, however, like that of all other college departments, must be measured by its influence upon the life of the student after he has left college. The formation of lasting health habits is, therefore, the most important object of this department.

Place of physical exercise in program for physical education

Regular appropriate physical exercise is one of our most important health habits. It is perhaps safe to say that for the average individual it is the most important health habit. This is true because of its intimate and impressive influence upon all the fundamental organic functions of the body. Physical exercise in the American college is provided either as organized class work in the gymnasium, or by means of voluntary recreational opportunities, or through athletics.

Class work in physical exercise

Class work may include: marching, mass drills with or without light apparatus, work on heavy apparatus, games, dancing, swimming, and track and field work. This class work may be indoors or outdoors, depending on the season or climate.

Additional facilities for physical exercise

Voluntary recreational opportunities are offered through free mass drills open to all students who may desire to take them regularly or irregularly; through open periods for apparatus work; and through facilities and space for games, swimming, mass athletics, and so on.

Recreational activities and athletics

Competitive athletics are typical of the American college. Theoretically, athletics are open to all students. Practically, in many of our colleges athletics are made available only to the student with leisure time and exceptional physique. Consistent effort is being made today by college authorities to provide opportunities for intramural (interclass, intergroup, and mass) athletics for the whole student body; at the same time preserving the desirable features of the more specialized intercollegiate competitions.

Inculcating habits of physical exercise

Physical exercise in these various forms has its immediate and valuable influence upon the health condition of the individual student, if taken in sufficient quantity. It has its lasting and very much more important influence in those cases in which physical exercise becomes a habit. It has, therefore, become the increasing concern of the college teacher of physical training to develop activities in physical exercise that the student may use after graduation. Teachers of physical training have become more and more impressed with the importance of interesting exercise, not only because interesting exercise is more likely to become habitual exercise, but also because exercise that is accompanied by the play spirit, by happiness and joy, is physiologically and therefore healthfully of very much more value to the individual. The relationship between cheerfulness and good health has become very firmly established through the scientific researches of the modern physiologist. We know that health habits which are associated with cheerfulness and happiness are bound to be more effective.

Opportunities for character building

The teacher of physical training finds opportunity for incidental and yet very important instruction leading to the formation of fine qualities of character and fine standards of personal conduct. These opportunities arise constantly in the various general types of physical exercise found in the curriculum of the department of physical training. They are especially present in those activities in which competition occurs, as in play, games, and athletics. These activities do not in themselves produce excellent qualities of character or high standards of conduct, but the teacher—whether he be called a coach or a trainer or a professor of hygiene—who sets a good example and who insists that every game played, and every contest, whether it be in a handball court between college chums or on the football field between college teams, shall be clean and fair, is using in the right way one of the opportunities present in the entire college life of the student, for the formation of fine character.

SPECIAL EXERCISES FOR SPECIAL GROUPS

In any given group of college students one will find a number of individuals in need of special or modified physical exercise. These students may be grouped commonly under the following heads: (1) undeveloped, (2) bad posture, (3) awkward, (4) originally weak, (5) deformed.

Some of these students suffer from defects that are remediable, Some of these defects are due to poor physical training in earlier years. Some are the results of disease. All of them call for modified exercise and recreation. The fact that a student may fall into one of these groups in no way justifies the assumption that he is therefore no longer subject to the laws of health or to the need for rational health habits. As a matter of fact, such cases generally call for greater care and attention in the formulation and operation of a rational policy of right living.

Every student physically able to go to college is physically able to exercise. No student in attendance on recitations anywhere can offer a rational plea for exemption from exercise, The individual whose physical condition contraindicates all forms of exercise needs careful medical advice and probably needs hospital or sanitarium treatment.

College Departments of Physical Training are planning for cases in need of special or modified exercise, through the organization of special classes and through individual attention. In the College of the City of New York we attempt to group the weak students in a given class, into squads of four such students with a squad leader, a student. The awkward students are grouped in the same manner. The exercise of the cripple and the student with serious organic weakness is individualized. These special individualized cases are under the direct supervision of a physician on the staff.

ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDENTS FOR PRESCRIBED WORK IN THE COLLEGE COURSES

In this college, organized, directed physical exercise as outlined above is covered in the division of physical training, the division of recreation, and the division of athletics, all of which are subdivisions of the Department of Hygiene.

The enrollment in the required classes in the division of Physical Training varies from thirty in the smaller classes to over two hundred in the larger. The total enrollment has been approximately eleven hundred each term for several years. These courses are required of all students during the first four collegiate terms. Each of these four courses requires three hours a week, distributed over two or into three periods, and credits the student with one half point toward graduation. This time allowance is, however, inadequate.

The class organization in the division of the Department of Hygiene is based on a unit composed of five students. Each of these units or squads contains one student who is designated as the "leader" of that unit.

Persistent effort is made to assign students of like physical development and needs to the same squads. In this manner a single class of a hundred young men will have a graduation on the basis of proficiency which makes it possible for the teacher to come very near to the rational application of exercise for the individual student.

These units or squads are organized into divisions, each division being made up of four squads. Each division is under the supervision and instruction of a member of the departmental staff. In any given class, then, there is a regular instructor for each group of twenty students, and a student leader for each group of four students. The aim in this organization is to establish a relationship between the instructor and his twenty students that will secure for him an intimate knowledge of each young man, relating to his physical training needs, general and special.

A class period in physical exercise

A typical class period is made up of a short health talk, 10 minutes; a mass drill, 10 minutes; apparatus period, two changes, 20 minutes; and a play period, 15 minutes. If the health talk is not given the play period is lengthened.

The mass drills referred to above are made up of drill in marching and in gymnastics with and without hand apparatus. These drills are graded within the term and from term to term so that a desirable variety is secured. They are devised for disciplinary, postural, developmental, and health purposes. During the progress of the drill the instructors present inspect the posture and work of the students in their divisions.

The apparatus periods referred to include work on the conventional pieces of gymnastic apparatus, with the addition of chest weights, an indoor track, and a swimming pool. The squad organization for this work gives opportunity for the development of student leadership which is often of extraordinary educational value to the individual boy. These periods, because of this squad organization, may be utilized for such special exercise emphasis as may be decided upon for any given group of students. It is here that special conditioning may be given those young men who are planning for military training or who need selected exercise for neuro-muscular development.

The play period in the regular class program is devoted largely to looser games that contain a predominating element of big muscle activities. Competition is a fairly constant factor. Here, again, our squad unit permits us to assign selected groups of students to special types of games. It is feasible, in this organization, to satisfy a need for the training that is furnished by highly organized games, fighting games, and by games and out-of-door events that develop special groups of muscles and special coordinations.

A well-organized Collegiate Department of Physical Training could cooperate very effectively with a Collegiate Department of Military Training. The squad organization in apparatus periods and in play periods offers the best possible avenue for a successful emphasis of several of the very important phases of military physical training.

Recreational facilities in addition to prescribed work

The division of recreation in the Department of Hygiene in the College of the City of New York, takes charge of all recreational and athletic space and all recreational and intramural athletic activities in those periods of the day in which regular class work does not take precedence. Students of all classes are admitted freely throughout their four collegiate years to these activities, and a studied effort is made to increase their attractiveness as well as to secure from them their full social and character-training values. Such values depend to a very large degree upon the experienced supervision and direction given these activities. It does not follow that the creation of play opportunity is bound to produce good citizenship. The quality of the product depends upon the quality of the man or men in charge of the enterprise.

The most important mission of the Recreational Division is its purpose to furnish the student lasting habits of play and recreation based upon the physical development he has secured in his earlier experiences in physical training. After all, one's physical training should begin at birth and continue throughout life.

The Division of Athletic Instruction is concerned with all plans for intercollegiate athletics, including organization, financing, training, coaching, and scheduling. All these activities are under the direction of members of the staff of the Department of Hygiene. There is no one employed in this relationship who is not a member of the staff. Constant attempts are made, in every reasonable way, to accomplish the athletic ideals that have been set up by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Clean play, honorable methods, and sportsmanly standards dominate the theory and practice of this athletic instruction and supervision.

The scope and content of physical training which I have attempted to present in these pages is brought out more clearly by the following announcement of the Department of Hygiene of the College of the City of New York:

HYGIENE (1916-17)

The Department of Hygiene is made up of the divisions of Physical Training, Physiology, Bacteriology, Health Examination, Recreational Instruction, and Athletics.

Through these divisions the Department attempts to train young men for the exigencies of life through the establishment of enduring habits of health examination and repair, health information and individual and community protection against the agents that injure health and cause disease, and through the establishment of wise habits of daily life.

This organization gives opportunity for the development of neglected organic and neuromuscular growth, coordination and control; for the social, ethical, and moral training (character building influences) inherent in wisely supervised athletic and recreational experiences; and for the special conditioning that accompanies training for severe physical and physiological competition and other tests.

Finally, preparation may be secured for life work along certain lines of research, certain medical sciences, various phases of public health, physical training and social work.

In addition, this Department is concerned with all those influences within the College which affect the health of the student. Every reasonable effort is made to keep the institution safe and attractive to the clean, healthy individual.

DIVISION OF PHYSICAL TRAINING

1. Course One.

(a) Lectures. "Some of the common causes of disease."

(b) Physical Exercise.

i. Graded mass drills.

(a) Elementary drills are used in order to develop obedience, alertness, and ready response to command, accurate execution, good posture and carriage and facility of control.

(b) More advanced drills are given in which movements are made in response to commands. Strength, endurance, and coordination are brought into play.

ii. Apparatus work. Continuation of graded exercises for squads of five students each.

iii. Selected, graded, recreative indoor and outdoor games and play.

iv. Swimming. Each student is required to learn to swim with more than one variety of stroke.

Prescribed. Freshman, first term; three hours a week; counts 1/2.

2. Course Two.

(a) Lectures. "The carriers of disease."

(b) Physical Exercise.

i. Graded mass drills. Two-count movements. These drills are continuations of, but more advanced than those given in the preceding term.

ii. Apparatus work. Continuation of graded exercises for squads of five.

iii. Selected, graded, recreative indoor and outdoor games and play.

iv. Swimming. Each student is required to develop endurance in swimming.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 1.

Prescribed. Freshman, second term; three hours a week; counts 1/2.

3. Course Three.

(a) Lectures. "The contributory causes and carriers of disease."

(b) Physical Exercise.

i. Graded mass drills. Four-count movements. More advanced work.

ii. Apparatus work. Continuation of graded exercises for squads of five.

iii. Selected, graded, recreative indoor and outdoor games and play.

iv. Swimming. Diving, rescue and resuscitation of the drowning.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 2.

Prescribed. Sophomore, first term; three hours a week; counts 1/2.

4. Course Four.

(a) Lectures. "Defenses against poor health and disease."

(b) Physical Exercise.

i. Advanced graded mass drills. Eight-count movements.

ii. Advanced graded apparatus work. For squads of five.

iii. Selected, graded, recreative indoor and outdoor games and play.

iv. Swimming. Advanced continuation of requirements outlined for Courses 2 and 3.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 3.

Prescribed. Sophomore, second term; three hours a week; counts 1/2.

Modified Course.

In each of the above required courses provision is made for those students whose organic condition may permanently disqualify them for the regular scheduled work. This special work is under the immediate direction of a medical member of the Staff.

5. Intermediate Physical Training.

This course is planned to supply the student with such organic development and efficiency as will enable him to demonstrate successfully as a teacher various type exercises for classes in elementary and intermediate indoor and outdoor gymnastics, aquatics, games, play and athletics.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 4. Three hours a week; counts 1/2.

6. Advanced Physical Training.

This course is a continuation of Course 5, and is designed for the physical equipment of teachers of more advanced physical work.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 5. Three hours a week; counts 1/2.

7. Class Management.

This course supplies the practical instruction and experience needed for the training of special teachers in the management of elementary and intermediate classes in various forms of physical exercise.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 6 and 32. Fall term, three hours a week; counts 1.

8. Class Management.

This course is a continuation of Course 7. It is planned to give a training in the management of more advanced classes.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 7. Spring term, three hours a week; counts 1.

9. Control of Emergencies and First Aid to the Injured.

This course supplies instruction concerning the management and protective care of common emergencies. The instruction is practical and rational. It covers such emergencies as: sprains, fractures, dislocations, wounds, bruises, sudden pain, fainting, epileptic attacks, unconsciousness, drowning, electric shock, and so on.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 32. Fall term, two hours a week; counts 1.

10. Theory and Practice of Individual Instruction in Hygiene and in Departmental Sanitation.

Students taking this subject will be given practical first hand experience of special use to teachers; (a) in connection with health examination, inspection, conference, consultation, and follow up service carried on in the departmental examining room; and (b) in connection with the sanitary supervision carried on by the department.

Prerequisites or Co-requisites: Hygiene 32, 41 and 48. Spring term, six hours a week in two periods of three hours each; counts 2.

DIVISION OF PHYSIOLOGY

32. Elements of Physiology.

This subject deals with the general concepts of the science of physiology, the chemical and physical conditions which underlie and determine the action of the individual organs, and the integrative relationship of the parts of the body.

One lecture, one recitation and two laboratory hours a week; counts 3.

33. Special Physiology.

A study of the fundamental facts of physiology and methods of investigation. The aim is to give a complete study of certain topics: the phenomena of contraction, conduction, sense perception and the various mechanisms of general metabolism. Laboratory work is arranged to show the methods of physiologic experimentation and to emphasize the necessity of using care and accuracy in their application.

Spring term, two lectures and three laboratory hours a week; counts 3.

34. Physiology of Nutrition.

The aim of this subject is to study broadly the metabolism of the human body. In the development of this plan the following topics will be considered: the food requirements of man, the nutritive history of the physiologic ingredients, the principles of dietetics and their application to daily living.

Fall term, two lectures and three laboratory hours a week; counts 3.

DIVISION OF BACTERIOLOGY

41. General Bacteriology.

Lectures, recitations and laboratory work introducing the student to the technique of bacteriology and to the more important facts about the structure and function of bacteria. Special applications of bacteriology to agriculture and the industries are discussed, and brief references are made to the activities of allied microbes, the yeasts and molds. The general relations of bacteria to disease and the principles of immunity and its control are included.

One lecture, one recitation and four laboratory hours a week; counts 3.

42. Bacteriology of Foods.

This includes the bacteriologic examination of water, sewage, air, milk, the various food products together with the methods used in the standardization of disinfectants, a detailed study of yeast and bacterial fermentation and their application to the industries. Numerous trips to industrial plants will be made.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 41.

Fall term, one lecture and six laboratory hours a week; counts 3.

43. Bacteriology of Pathogenic Micro-organisms.

This subject is devoted to the laboratory methods of biology as applied in the state and municipal boards of health. Practice will be given in the methods used for the diagnosis of diphtheria, tuberculosis, malaria, rabies, and other diseases caused by micro-organisms, together with a detailed study of the groups to which they belong.

Prerequisite: Hygiene 41.

Spring term, one lecture and six laboratory hours a week; counts 3.

44. Potable and Industrial Water.

Very few industries are independent of a water supply. No one is independent of the source of his drinking water. Water varies in its usefulness for definite purposes.

This subject differentiates between various waters, takes them up from industrial and hygienic standpoints, considers softening, filtering, purifying and water analysis.

Work is divided into three groups.

A. Industrial Water ) } given in the Chemistry Department. B. Potable Water )

C. Water Bacteriology ) } given in the Department of Hygiene. (microscopy of water) )

Municipal students may elect any or all of the three groups.

Prerequisite: Chemistry 4 and Hygiene 41. Chemistry 9 is desirable.

Spring term, seven hours a week; counts 3.

48. Municipal Sanitation.

Lectures, discussions and visits to public works of special importance. The principles which underlie a pure water supply and the means by which the wastes of the city, its sewage and garbage may be successfully disposed of, and the problems of pure milk and pure food supplies, the housing question with its special phase of ventilation and plumbing, and the methods by which a municipal board of health is organized to fight tuberculosis and other specific diseases will be studied.

Fall term, two lectures and one field trip a week; counts 3.

49. Municipal Sanitary Inspection.

Professor B—— and Bureau of Foods and Drugs, New York City Department of Health.

The seminar work of this subject is done in the College and the field work in company with and under the direct supervision of an Inspector of the Department of Health of the City. The subject is limited to six students each semester, and is intended for those planning to go into this branch of the City's service. The qualifications will be based upon individuality, personality playing an important part.

Previous Part     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14     Next Part
Home - Random Browse