The Home Club Growth and Physical Training There is a most important article in the June number of the "Forum" by Dr. William O. Krohn, Psychologist of the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane. The subject is "Physical Growth Periods and Appropriate Physical Exercise." The writer has examined over 32,000 children in the State of Illinois, and his deductions are those of a scientist who questions before he forms an opinion. His attention was drawn to the physical growth of children, and the care of them during the period of growth, by the patients under his charge, whose mental condition he believed was often due to neglect, or failure to give the body needed training, or the still greater evil of the wrong kind of physical training at specific periods of development. The failure to recognize this periodicity in growth lies at the root of the physical failures during school life. He points out that the muscles of the upper arm are ready for training one year and a half before the muscles of the fingers; the shoulder muscles, six months before the muscles of the elbow; these muscles, five to eight months before the muscles of the wrist; while the wrist muscles develop six months before the finger muscles. This development proves the necessity of much work during this period of growth, and justifies the protests of the oculists as to the nervous strain of small pricking and sewing during the kindergarten age. Large needles, large stitches, large writing and large drawing tools should be used by young children. The finger muscles should not be called upon to work at this period. The work should be done by shoulder and arm muscles. Dr. Krohn divides the growth period and the exercises for each period into three periods and classes. From six to nine, all the exercise should be to develop growth, increase circulation, and for purposes of recreation. During this period exercise is of peculiar importance to the child's whole future. That the child does not have the watchful care that this period demands is proved by the fact that examinations by specialists here and abroad have proved that the school-children tire more easily at eight than at seven; the heart especially showing fatigue. The result is loss of mental interest. Some children never recover. The lightest forms of exercise alone are permissible-simple games of motion. During the period of from nine to fourteen three kinds of exercises are necessary : exercises tending to growth and blood formation; exercises that tend to improve poise and carriage; those involving skill. Dr. Krohn protests against trials of endurance at this period of physical development. If entered upon, games of endurance must close before exhaustion. Drill and calisthenics aid in training to secure muscular quickness. Baseball is particularly recommended for the close of this period. The period between fourteen and twenty this writer calls the period par excellence for physical training. To quote : "The crying need of exercise during this period is in the purpose, above all, of inciting strong activity of heart and lungs; and, to be of any real benefit, the exercise must conduce to the development of skill, daring, and courage." Dr. Krohn, with feeling born of knowledge, points out that a rich store of physical power will enable the child to resist not only physical disease but “various forms of psychological taint that may result from the stress of social conditions in which he may be compelled to pass his later life, real mental abnormalities that would certainly befall him if his powers of resistance should be weakened, owing to a poorly developed body." The First Acquisition Superintendent Gilbert, of the Newark (N. J.) public schools, in an address delivered before the Schoolmasters' Association, attributed the loss of pupils between the grammar and the high school, not to the desire of the pupils to enter business, but to the fact that the pupil sustained a shock that severed his interest by a sudden plunge into school work that threw him on his own resources. The reply to this made by some of the masters present was that the failure to teach self-reliance, the habit of work, the love of study for the sake of acquiring self-mastery, of learning how to use books, how to use the knowledge the pupil possessed in the elementary schools, all contributed to the failure of many grammar-school pupils to continue through the high school. They had not learned how to apply either their minds or their knowledge to new questions; they had acquired a habit of dependence which in the nature of things was wholly out of place in the high school. What was needed was the kind of training that put the pupil in possession of himself. The high school must in the nature of things drop all the nursery elements, and leave the pupil free to work out in a measure his own problems. What the elementary school must do is to teach the pupil how to study, and the relation between different studies. Pupils must learn, above all things, how to use what they do know in progressing. It is not only that each study is taken by itself, but each grade is taken up by too many pupils as isolated factors in an unknown and too often unknowable whole. The trouble with us is that no aim is kept before the children, unless it be a certificate which often represents, in truth, nothing but a good memory. How to study is the first step in education. Master that and education becomes almost a royal road. Why Not? The Woman's Club of Jersey City decided several months ago to improve the condition of the streets in that city. The members began by speaking to every sweeper and cartman who was careless in doing his work, reporting to the Commissioner all who did not improve. A man who was spoken to knew that his number went on file, and that when a certain number of reports to the Club's committee about that one number went in, with date and place where negligence occurred, he would be reported to the Commissioner. It took but a short time for the men in the department to learn that this Club was in earnest. To the sweepers every woman was a volunteer inspector always on duty and not lenient. The result of this energy was a marked improvement in every direction. The children of the schools were interested, but as the city did not provide cans for papers and fruit-skins, the method was to arouse interest, create a standard, develop civic interest and community pride. A committee of the Club visited the Street Commissioner to urge further improvements, when the Commissioner suggested that the contract for street-cleaning be taken by the women. The papers report that the proposition is being seriously considered. In small towns women have taken the contract and have succeeded; a garbage contract was taken by a woman in Chicago, and the results were so eminently successful as to arouse the active animosity of the district leaders, and it was discovered by the authorities that such a contract must not be renewed. If the experiment is made in Jersey City, and successfully for the good of the city, it will give a new factor to the municipal problems, by throwing out of the political horizon a large field of patronage. A large percentage of the people in all our great cities would see in this an evil far worse than dirty streets. He The Eyesight of School-Children At a recent meeting of the Optical Society of New York a paper was presented by a physician who had examined the eyes of over seven hundred schoolchildren. He stated as a result of his work that he believed about twenty-five per cent. of the children of school age were suffering from defective vision. held that this defective vision was at the bottom of much of the friction between teachers and parents, for the reason that objects are conveyed to the child's brain in confused lines, producing a muddle of ideas and a consequent headache. This causes a distaste for school in the child and a belief on the part of the parents that the fault lies with the teacher. This physician advised: "Before starting in school the eyes of children should be carefully examined by one competent, and any errors of refraction or accommodation existing corrected. This examination should be repeated each succeeding year or until the child reaches maturity." Not only should the condition of the eyes of the child be known when it begins scho~* life, but also the condition of light school-rooms, and the kind and qu of light used at home when studying reading. Vol. 63 Published Weekly September 9, 1899 No. 2 General Deloye, officers of all arms. In spite of the charge The Dreyfus Trial from the French Supreme Court to the Rennes court martial that evidence could be taken only on the question, Did Dreyfus betray army secrets to a foreign power? that court martial has continued to fulfill the desires of the prosecution by taking evidence upon four charges of guilt. These are: (1) The authorship by Dreyfus of the bordereau (or memorandum of French army secrets found in 1894 at the German embassy); (2) the communication by Dreyfus of these secrets; (3) the additional proof found in the secret dossier, or bundle of papers bearing on the case; (4) the alleged confession of guilt by Dreyfus. As to the first of these matters, the authorship of the bordereau, last week's testimony bore specially on the notes in that document on the pneumatic brake of the "120 gun," and on a firing manual for field artillery. As to the 120 gun, Lieutenant Bruyère and Captain Carvalho both said that its inspection was easy for any officer to obtain, and that detailed explanations concerning The Communication of Dreyfus as the bethe brake were given to the officers present when the gun was fired. On two such occasions Lieutenant Bruyère noticed the presence of a group of non-artillery offi cers. As to the firing manual, not only was a copy given to each battery, but all officers could obtain as many copies as they liked. Each witness had bought copies. Major Hartmann, of the artillery, whose testimony before the Court of Cassation is supposed to have influenced that Court's decision as much as any, affirmed that the author of the bordereau did not know what he was writing about, since he spoke of the " 120 short gun," when he meant the " 120 long gun.' Major Hartmann's evidence was to the effect that Dreyfus was not the author of the bordereau, and that the artillery information mentioned in it was accessible to many I reassert most emphatically that the bordereau was not written by an artillery officer or by an officer who passed through the Polytechnic School. I have been sustained in giving my evidence by my firm belief in the entire innocence of Dreyfus, and I am glad I have had strength enough to bring here the stone which I have to lay on the edifice of fully and conscientiously. reparation which you are constructing so care of Secrets The formal indictment trayer of army secrets to a foreign power (by which phrase Germany is understood) contains the following passage: As regards the journeys of Captain Dreyfus, it is clear from his answers under cross-examination that he could go to Alsace by stealth almost whenever he wished to do so; and that presence there. This faculty of clandestine travel may properly be made a charge against him. the German authorities shut their eyes to his As a matter of fact, whenever Dreyfus desired to visit his old home, once the French Mulhouse, but, since the war of 1870, now the German Mühlhausen, he was obliged to apply to his superior officer, who forwarded a request to the German authorities for a passport. Without such authorization, any French officer attempting to enter Alsace would have been apprehended as a spy. A groom named Germain deposed to seeing Dreyfus at the German army maneuvers. Germain testified that he had been employed in a livery stable at Mulhouse, had saddled a horse for the prisoner, and that he knew him to be Captain Dreyfus, as Major d'Infreville had told him so. Maître Demange, senior counsel for the defense, inquired whether the witness had not been prosecuted for embezzlement. At first Germain denied this, but afterwards admitted it, whereupon the counsel also showed that he had been sentenced a second time for the same crime. Dreyfus's comment was as follows: Every year, both while studying_and_attending the Gunnery and Artillery Training Schools, I passed one or two months at Mulhouse. But I can positively affirm that I never was present either in an official or semiofficial capacity at the German maneuvers. The prisoner's testimony, however, was not altogether necessary, so far as this particular witness was concerned, for Germain's employer testified that Dreyfus had never hired a horse at that livery stable, and that all the groom had said was untrue. Major d'Infreville followed, and declared that he never knew Dreyfus at all, and hence could not have identified him. The "Confession" at Last week's work Rennes had not much to do with the secret dossier. As that bundle of papers has already been found to consist of perjuries and forgeries, its apologists wisely let it largely alone. They made their great stand, however, on the fourth and final charge against Dreyfus, namely, that he had made a confession of his guilt to Captain Lebrun-Renault, of the Republican Guard, who had been intrusted with the task of conducting Dreyfus from his prison to the courtyard of the Military School where he was degraded. The wording of this confession, which has been printed and reprinted ever since January, 1895, is: "If I have given up documents to a foreign power, they were of no consequence, and were delivered in order to obtain more important ones." On the first day of the present trial Dreyfus declared that, while he continually protested his innocence, he did tell Captain Lebrun-Renault that Colonel In du Paty de Clam came to him in his cell, urging him to admit that, if he gave documents, it was in order to obtain others. This suggestion Dreyfus had emphatically repudiated. As stated before the court last week, Captain Lebrun-Renault's account of the prisoner's words, after the degradation, reads: "I am innocent. three years my innocence will be acknowledged. The Minister knows it well. He told Du Paty de Clam to tell me so, some days ago in my cell. He said to me that, if I had communicated documents to Germany, they were of no importance, and that they were given to obtain more serious and more important ones." On this "confession" Dreyfus commented thus: I have already explained the meaning of these words concerning the Minister. It was the answer I gave when Colonel du Paty de Clam visited me in prison, when I also said I was innocent. I completed this declaration by a letter which I wrote to the Minister in response to this visit, again asserting my innocence. Colonel du Paty de Clam asked me if I had given up documents without importance in the hope of obtaining others of more importance. I told him no; that I wanted the fullest investigation. cence, Permit me to express my emotion on seeing that, after five years, a person who heard words of mine beginning with a protestation of innotransformed those words in repeating them to his superiors, without asking of me, the person most interested, a clear and succinct explanation, a proceeding which must rouse in any honest man a sense of shame. Where did Captain Lebrun-Renault get the idea that this was a confession? If that was his idea, why did he not make it certain by a direct question? Why, if my words made no definite impression on his mind, did he permit his superiors, without any protest on his part, to pervert and transform them into a formal avowal of guilt? I say that this is an action against which the conscience of all honest men must protest! In reply to this denunciation Captain Lebrun-Renault had not a word to say. fus admitted that, after his degradation, he wanted to commit suicide, but that, if he succeeded in enduring all the torture inflicted then and later, it was owing to his wife, who made him understand his duty. He then added: It is also to Forzinetti I owe that I am here to-day. I determined, after my condemnation, to commit suicide. It was Forzinetti who pointed out to me what my duty was. It was he who told me to walk with my head high at the execution of the sentence and cry out my innocence. Major Forzinnetti further deposed that Colonel du Paty de Clam asked him to surprise Dreyfus in his sleep, catching him off his guard by throwing the light of a bright lamp in his face. The witness also testified that Captain Lebrun-Renault denied any admission of guilt made by Dreyfus to him. Captain Lebrun-Renault admitted this, explaining it by General Risbourg's order to him to deny it to every one. The sum of the week's testimony was thus distinctly favorable to Dreyfus. Nothing about the Alleged New Evidence management of the Dreyfus case by the accusers on the General Staff has been more significant than the fact that as each piece of evidence alleged to tell against the prisoner has been examined, and its futility exposed by the defense, some quite new and apparently startling evidence has been produced, in its turn again to be brought to naught. On Monday of this week, when the trial was coming toward its end, the public was startled by the assertion that an entirely new secret dossier existed, which is now called the general espionage dossier. Secret sessions were ordered to be held to examine this late-in-the-day evidence. Still another surprise was sprung upon the defense on Monday in the testimony of a witness who called himself Cernuschi, but who is said by some late despatches to be an irresponsible and hardly sane person of another name. This witness says that in 1894, in Paris, where he was staying as a political refugee, he was told by the Austrian military attaché at Paris (Colonel Schneider) that Dreyfus and three other French officers were systematically supplying foreign embassies with the military secrets of France. Catherine Harbor Russia is not only start ling the world by such great transportation enterprises as, in railways, the Trans-Siberian and the Central Asiatic systems, and, in canals, the internal waterway which is to connect the Black and the Baltic Seas; she has also nearly completed another adjunct of transportation, namely, the new ice-free port of Catherine Harbor on the Arctic Ocean, to which a railway from St. Petersburg will be built at once. The naval and commercial advantages of this last manifestation are important. The Russian fleet in the Baltic is always compelled to pass through narrow and easily blocked channels, but now a naval station will shortly be opened to which war-ships may sail from the open ocean, and from which a seven-day journey will bring them to the North Sea. On the coast immense shoals of fish, especially cod and herring, come in spawning-time. Next to the fishing trade expected, the Government hopes that a lumber trade will be developed from the hitherto almost inaccessible forests of Olonez and Archangelsk. These forests stretch from Lake Onega to the Ural Mountains; they are mostly pine. At Catherine Harbor the sun does not rise at all for two months in winter but during the entire year the harbor is kept free from ice by the warm Gulf Stream. When work began at Catherine Harbor there were no inhabitants there. The Russian Government, however, following its magnificent if sometimes oppressive autocracy, erected dwelling-houses and then transported the entire population of the nearest town, Kola, forty miles north, to the new town. |