Page 15 - All India Magazine Jan-2025

its true value. In any case, children should be taught to respect
health and admire the healthy man whose vigorous body knows
how to repel attacks of illness. Often a child feigns illness to avoid
some troublesome obligation, a work that does not interest him,
or simply to soften his parents' hearts and get them to satisfy
some caprice. The child must be taught as early as possible that
this does not work and that he does not become more interesting
by being ill, but rather the contrary. The weak have a tendency to
believe that their weakness makes them particularly interesting
and to use this weakness and if necessary even illness as a means
of attracting the attention and sympathy of the people around
them. On no account should this pernicious tendency be encour-
aged. Children should therefore be taught that to be ill is a sign of
weakness and inferiority, not of some virtue or sacrifice.
That is why, as soon as the child is able to make use of his
limbs, some time should be devoted every day to the methodical
and regular development of all the parts of his body. Every day
some twenty or thirty minutes, preferably on waking, if possible,
will be enough to ensure the proper functioning and balanced
growth of his muscles while preventing any stiffening of the joints
and of the spine, which occurs much sooner than one thinks. In
the general programme of the child's education, sports and out-
door games should be given a prominent place; that, more than
all the medicines in the world, will assure the child good health.
An hour's moving about in the sun does more to cure weakness
or even anaemia than a whole arsenal of tonics. My advice is that
medicines should not be used unless it is absolutely impossible
to avoid them; and this "absolutely impossible" should be very
strict. In this programme of physical culture, although there are
well-known general lines to be followed for the best development
of the human body, still, if the method is to be fully effective in
each case, it should be considered individually, if possible with the
help of a competent person, or if not, by consulting the numerous

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