Health and Efficiency

Health is an inestimable blessing and one more closely related to conscience and religion than many realize. It has a great deal to do with one’s capability for service and should be as sacredly guarded as the character, for the more perfect the health the more perfect will be our efforts for the advancement of God’s cause and for the blessing of humanity.

There is an important work to be done in our schools in teaching the youth the principles of health reform. The teachers should exert a reformatory influence in the matter of eating, drinking, and dressing, and should encourage their students to practice self-denial and self-control. The youth should be taught that all their powers are from God; that He has a claim upon every faculty; and that by abusing their health in any way they slight one of God’s choicest blessings. The Lord gives them health to use in His service, and the greater their physical strength, the stronger their powers of endurance, the more they can do for the Master. Instead of abusing or overtaxing their physical powers, they should jealously guard them for His use.

Youth is the time to lay up knowledge in those lines that can be put into daily practice throughout the life. Youth is the time to establish good habits, to correct wrong ones, to gain and hold the power of self-control, to accustom oneself to ordering all the acts of life with reference to the will of God and the welfare of one’s fellow creatures. Youth is the sowing time that determines the harvest of this life and the life beyond the grave. The habits formed in childhood and youth, the tastes acquired, the self-control gained, are almost certain to determine the future of the man or woman.

The importance of caring for the health should be taught as a Bible requirement. Perfect obedience to God’s commands calls for conformity to the laws of the being. The science of education includes as full a knowledge of physiology as can be obtained. No one can properly understand his obligations to God unless he understands clearly his obligations to himself as God’s property. He who remains in sinful ignorance of the laws of life and health, or who willfully violates these laws, sins against God.

The time spent in physical exercise is not lost. The student who is constantly poring over his books, while he takes but little exercise in the open air, does himself an injury. A proportionate exercise of the various organs and faculties of the body is essential to the best work of each. When the brain is constantly taxed while the other organs are left inactive, there is a loss of physical and mental strength. The physical powers are robbed of their healthy tone, the mind loses its freshness and vigor, and a morbid excitability is the result.

In order for men and women to have well-balanced minds, all the powers of the being should be called into use and developed. There are in this world many who are one-sided because only one set of faculties has been cultivated, while others are dwarfed from inaction. The education of many youth is a failure. They overstudy, while they neglect that which pertains to the practical life. That the balance of the mind may be maintained, a judicious system of physical work should be combined with mental work that there may be a harmonious development of all the powers.

Students should have manual work to do, and it will not hurt them if in doing this work they become weary. Do you not think that Christ became weary? Indeed He did. Weariness injures no one. It only makes rest the sweeter. The lesson cannot be too often repeated that education will be of little value without physical strength with which to use it. When students leave college, they should have better health and a better understanding of the laws of life than when they entered it.

Overstudy

The student who desires to put the work of two years into one should not be permitted to have his own way. To undertake to do double work means, with many, overtaxation of the mind and neglect of physical exercise. It is not reasonable to suppose that the mind can assimilate an oversupply of mental food, and it is as great a sin to overload the mind as it is to overload the digestive organs.

To those who are desirous of becoming efficient laborers in the cause of God I would say, If you are putting an undue amount of labor on the brain, thinking you will lose ground unless you study all the time, you should at once change your views and your course. Unless greater care is exercised in this respect, there are many who will go down to the grave prematurely.

In regulating the hours for sleep, there should be no haphazard work. Students should not form the habit of burning the midnight oil and taking the hours of the day for sleep. If they have been accustomed to doing this at home, they should correct the habit, going to bed at a seasonable hour. They will then rise in the morning refreshed for the duties of the day. In our schools the lights should be put out at half past nine.

Voice Culture

Voice culture is a subject that has much to do with the health of students. The youth should be taught how to breathe properly and how to read in such a way that no unnatural strain shall come on the throat and lungs, but that the work shall be shared by the abdominal muscles. Speaking from the throat, letting the sound come from the upper part of the vocal organs, impairs the health of these organs and decreases their efficiency. The abdominal muscles are to do the heaviest part of the labor, the throat being used as a channel. Many have died who might have lived had they been taught how to use the voice correctly. The right use of the abdominal muscles in reading and speaking will prove a remedy for many voice and chest difficulties, and the means of prolonging life.

Diet

The character of the food and the manner in which it is eaten exert a powerful influence on the health. Many students have never made a determined effort to control the appetite or to observe proper rules in regard to eating. Some eat too much at their meals, and some eat between meals whenever the temptation is presented.

The need of carefulness in habits of diet should be impressed on the minds of all students. I have been instructed that those attending our schools are not to be served with flesh foods or with preparations of food that are known to be unwholesome. Nothing that will serve to encourage a desire for stimulants should be placed on the table. I appeal to all to refuse to eat those things that will injure the health. Thus they can serve the Lord by sacrifice.

Those who obey the laws of health will give time and thought to the needs of the body and to the laws of digestion. And they will be rewarded by clearness of thought and strength of mind. On the other hand, it is possible for one to spoil his Christian experience by abuse of the stomach. Those things that derange the digestion have a benumbing influence on the finer feelings of the heart. That which darkens the skin and makes it dingy also clouds the spirits and destroys cheerfulness and peace of mind. Every habit that injures the health reacts upon the mind. That time is well spent which is directed to the establishment and preservation of sound physical and mental health. Firm, quiet nerves and a healthy circulation help men to follow right principles and to listen to the promptings of conscience.

Ventilation and Sanitation

Special attention should be paid to ventilation and sanitation. The teacher should put into practical use in the schoolroom the knowledge of the principles of physiology and hygiene. He may thus guard his pupils from many dangers to which they would be exposed through ignorance or neglect of sanitary laws. Many lives have been sacrificed because teachers have not given attention to these things.

Sudden changes of temperature should be avoided. Care should be taken to see that the students do not become chilled by sitting in drafts. It is not safe for the teacher to regulate the heat of the schoolroom by his own feelings. His own good, as well as that of the students, demands that a uniform temperature be maintained.

The Reward of Obedience

The brain is the citadel of the being. Wrong physical habits affect the brain and prevent the attainment of that which the students desire—a good mental discipline. Unless the youth are versed in the science of how to care for the body as well as for the mind, they will not be successful students. Study is not the principal cause of breakdown of the mental powers. The main cause is improper diet, irregular meals, a lack of physical exercise, and careless inattention in other respects to the laws of health. When we do all that we can to preserve the health, then we can ask God in faith to bless our efforts.

Before students talk of their attainments in the so-called “higher education,” let them learn to eat and drink to the glory of God and to exercise brain, bone, and muscle in such a way as to fit them for the highest service. A student may devote all his powers to acquiring knowledge, but as he disobeys the laws that govern his being he will weaken his efficiency. By cherishing wrong habits, he loses the power of self-appreciation, and he loses self-control. He cannot reason correctly about matters that concern him most deeply, and becomes reckless and irrational in his treatment of mind and body.

The obligation resting upon us to keep the body in health is an individual responsibility. The Lord requires each one to work out his salvation day by day. He bids us reason from cause to effect, to remember that we are His property, and to unite with Him in keeping the body pure and healthy, and the whole being sanctified to Him.

The youth should be taught that they are not at liberty to do as they please with their lives. God will not hold guiltless those who treat lightly His precious gifts. Men should realize that the greater their endowment of strength, of talent, of means, or of opportunities, the more heavily should the burden of God’s work rest upon them, and the more they should do for Him. The youth who are trained to believe that life is a sacred trust will hesitate to plunge into the vortex of dissipation and crime that swallows up so many promising young men of this age.

The teacher whose physical powers are already enfeebled by disease or overwork should pay especial attention to the laws of health. He should take time for recreation. When a teacher sees that his health is not sufficient to stand the pressure of heavy study, he should heed the admonition of nature and lighten the load. He should not take upon himself responsibilities outside of his schoolwork which will so tax him physically and mentally that his nervous system will be unbalanced, for by this course he will be unfitted to deal with minds and cannot do justice either to himself or to his students.

Sometimes the teacher carries into the schoolroom the shadow of darkness that has been gathering on his soul. He has been overtaxed and is nervous, or dyspepsia has colored everything a gloomy hue. He enters the schoolroom with quivering nerves and irritated stomach. Nothing seems to be done to please him; he thinks that his pupils are bent on showing him disrespect; and his sharp criticisms and censure are given on the right hand and on the left. Perhaps one or more of the students commits errors or is unruly. The case is exaggerated in his mind, and he is severe and cutting in his reproof of the one whom he thinks at fault. And the same injustice afterward prevents him from admitting that he has taken a wrong course. To maintain the dignity of his position, he has lost a golden opportunity to manifest the spirit of Christ, perhaps to gain a soul for heaven.

It is the duty of each teacher to do all in his power to present his body to Christ a living sacrifice, physically perfect, as well as morally free from defilement, that Christ may make him a co-worker with Himself in the salvation of souls.