It is your bounden duty to instruct your pupils in the laws of health. If you fail to do so, you are not fit to be their teacher.
The vices of cigarette smoking, of tobacco chewing, of beer and alcoholic drinking, threaten the very existence of the rising generation. You cannot be too earnest and persistent in impressing this truth upon the boys who look up to you for counsel.
You need not be reminded that the most powerful teacher is your own example. Boys respect and admire manly vigor. You ought to be able to outrun, outjump, outthrow, outswim, outwrestle, outspar, and outplay, at all points, the largest and most active boy in school. Many a teacher, when he attempts to take part in an athletic game, becomes the laughing-stock of the youngest urchin, by reason of his flabby awkwardness.
While our youth often need to be restrained rather than encouraged to cultivate their muscles, yet they should be told to play when the opportunity is theirs. You ought to take the lead in their games. Your eye should be as bright, your sight as true, your cheeks as rosy, your step as elastic and your physical prowess the equal at least of any lad in school.
All the text-books in the land are less effective than a few timely words from you. Occasions are continually presenting themselves which should be utilized. When a boy has been playing too violently, or when he neglects play, when he is careless as to his clothing or shows evidence of falling into any bad habit, a kind but pointed warning will accomplish more than weeks of study.
There are other dangers to which boys are peculiarly exposed, and which obviously cannot be referred to in these pages, concerning which it would be criminal for you to remain silent, but in all such cases, your warning must be uttered to the offender in private, or by the father to whom you may make the suggestion.
Of course you will see that the school-room is properly warmed and ventilated; that the pupils are kept out of all drafts; and that the air is as pure as possible. The faithful teacher will find almost hourly opportunities for impressing these vital truths upon the children, and, only by doing so to the fullest extent, can he approach a proper fulfillment of his own mission as the friend, counselor, and guide of the coming generations.
What has been said to your co-laborer about assuming the lead in observing the laws of health, applies with equal force to you. Your experience and knowledge give you invaluable opportunities for instructing the girls in what is truly the great question of life and death.
Cleanliness, clothing, food, and all the subjects treated of in the following pages, should be supplemented by the practical illustrations which the girls themselves continually present. No observant teacher can have failed to become acquainted with the rudimentary laws of her being, and to none is given so golden an opportunity to make that knowledge a living truth as to her whose calling it is to instruct the future mothers of our country.
Every boy and girl ought to live a hundred years. When worn out at last by old age, death will come like sweet sleep, without pain, or suffering.
No one can live very long, unless he obeys the laws of health. These laws are so simple that all can learn them. Many people remain ignorant of them until they grow to be men and women, when they find it too late to escape the penalty which nature visits on those who break her laws.
One of the first things that boys and girls should study is how to keep the health which their kind Creator has given them. Such knowledge will save them days and nights of suffering and perhaps bring them many years of enjoyment.
Children give little thought to the care of their bodies, and often form habits whose ill effects are not seen for a long time. Let them, therefore, try to learn, in early life, what is right and wrong in this respect.
It is not a hard study. What is more interesting than to learn about the most wonderful machine in the world? That machine is yourself. There never can be any invention to compare with it. God alone can create it, and it is your duty to do all you can to keep it running until worn out.
Anatomy is the study of the structure or make-up of our bodies. Physiology tells of the offices or purposes of all the parts of our bodies. Hygiene, or Good Health, is the knowledge of the laws by which all the organs and parts of our bodies are kept in the best possible condition.
How long ought every boy and girl to live? What is said of death from old age?
What is necessary to secure long life? Are these laws simple? What mistake is made by many people?
What should be one of the first things for boys and girls to learn? What will such knowledge save them?
What do children do? What, therefore, should they try to learn?