The School World Volume 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...stimulus (e.g., word of command) with alertness, decision, and control--belongs to all exercises in a certain degree and at a certain stage; in learning to use a knife and fork no less than in learning to walk, to dance, or to ride a bicycle, certain complex co-ordinations of muscular movements are involved, which require, for their proper accomplishment, carefully repeated exercises of the will and of tlfc memory as well as of the nerve-centres immediately concerned. A certain amount of fatigue accompanies the earlier practice of all movements of this class, and this fatigue will be shown most and earliest in proportion as the structures called into action are immature and sensitive. But a certain amount of somatic memory is stored and added to by each successive repetition of the exercise, which thus itself grows less tiring until it becomes practically automatic. At this point the education of the nerve-centres involved is complete, and is not increased by any further repetition of the exercise. But the continued practice of the exercise thus mastered still possesses a "nutritive" effect, by serving to maintain the bulk and potential activity of the parts involved. Hence, as a means of physical training, one and the same exercise may be used for two purposes quite different--for its "educative" effects during the time of learning, or for its "nutritive" effect when it has been mastered. And this distinction is of primary importance in determining the times at which and the manner in which any exercise should be imposed, having regard particularly to the varying extent to which fatigue is produced in the two sets of circumstances. Hence the recommendation that at stated intervals, twice or thrice a week, there should be exerc...