o the point of
fatigue, while the other organs rest; as e.g. the lungs, in speaking,
while the other parts are quiet; on the other hand, it is not well to
speak and run at the same time. The idea that one can keep the organism
in better condition by inactivity, is an error which rests upon a
mechanical apprehension of life. Equally false is the idea that health
depends upon the quantity and excellence of the food; without the force
to assimilate it, it acts fatally rather than stimulatingly. _True
strength arises only from activity._

--The later physiologists will gradually destroy, in the system of
culture of modern people, the preconceived notion which recommended for
the indolent and lovers of pleasure powerful stimulants, very fat food,
&c. Excellent works exist on this question.--

Sec. 56. Physical Education, as it concerns the repairing, the motor, or
the nervous, activities, is divided into (1) Dietetics, (2) Gymnastics,
(3) Sexual Education. In real life these activities are scarcely
separable, but for the sake of exposition we must consider them apart.
In the regular development of the human being, moreover, the repairing
system has a relative precedence to the motor system, and the latter to
the sexual maturity. But Pedagogics can treat of these ideas only with
reference to the infant, the child, and the youth.

FIRST CHAPTER.

_Dietetics._

Sec. 57. Dietetics is the art of sustaining the normal repair of the
organism. Since this organism is, in the concrete, an individual one,
the general principles of dietetics must, in their manner of
application, vary with the sex, the age, the temperament, the
occupation, and the other conditions, of the individual. Pedagogics as a
science can only go over its general principles, and these can be named
briefly. It we attempt to speak of details, we fall easily into
triviality. So very important to the whole life of man is the proper
care of his physical nature during the first stages of its development,
that the science of Pedagogics must not omit to consider the different
systems which different people, according to their time, locality, and
culture, have made for themselves; many, it is true, embracing some
preposterous ideas, but in general never devoid of justification in
their time.

Sec. 58. The infant's first nourishment must be the milk of its mother. The
substitution of a nurse should be only an exception justified alone by
the illness of the mother