Physical training should occupy an important place in every system of education. It is the duty of parents and teachers to become acquainted with the human organism and the laws by which it is governed, and so far as possible, to secure to their children and pupils that greatest of all earthly blessings, “a sound mind in a sound body.” Myriads of children die annually, and many more are left to drag out a life of wretchedness, perhaps of sin, because of the ignorance or neglect of parents and teachers. (FE 59.1) MC VC

Many a mother spends hours and even days in needless work merely for display, and yet has no time to obtain the information necessary that she may preserve the health of her children. She trusts their bodies to the doctor, and their souls to the minister, that she may go on undisturbed in her worship of fashion. To become acquainted with the wonderful mechanism of the human frame, to understand the dependence of one organ upon another, for the healthful action of all, is a work in which she has no interest. Of the mutual influence of mind and body, she knows little. The mind itself, that wonderful endowment which allies the finite with the infinite, she does not understand. (FE 59.2) MC VC

For generations, the system of popular education, for children especially, has been destructive to health, and even to life itself. Five and even six hours a day young children have passed in schoolrooms not properly ventilated nor sufficiently large for the healthful accommodation of the scholars. The air of such rooms soon becomes poisonous to the lungs that inhale it. And here the little ones, with their active, restless bodies, and no less active and restless minds, have been kept unoccupied during the long summer days, when the fair world without called them to gather health and happiness with the birds and flowers. Many children have at best but a slight hold on life. Confinement in school makes them nervous and diseased. Their bodies become dwarfed from want of exercise and the exhausted condition of the nervous system. If the lamp of life goes out, parents and teachers are far from suspecting that they themselves had aught to do with quenching the vital spark. The sad bereavement is looked upon as a special dispensation of Providence, when the truth is, inexcusable ignorance and neglect of nature’s laws had destroyed the life of these children. God designed them to live in the enjoyment of health and vigor, to develop pure, noble, and lovely characters, to glorify Him in this life and to praise Him forever in the future life. (FE 59.3) MC VC