Conservation of The Child

Parent and Child, Volume III
by Mosiah Hall

(Page 9 of 13)

By Dr. J.M. Tyler

When the good Lord sets out to develop a child, the first organ with which He starts is the stomach. The stomach is the foundation of all greatness. It is a matter of daily observation if not of experience that a man can get along very well with very few brains, but a man can't get along at all without a good digestive system. The digestive system furnishes all the material for growth and the fuel which is continually burned or consumed in our nerves and muscles. Now, any furnace requires besides fuel, a good draught. When we burn the fuel, by uniting it with the oxygen thus brought in, we get the energy which draws our locomotives and our great ships. Similarly in our bodies, our lungs bring in the oxygen and the heart and blood-vessels carry the fuel and the oxygen to every part of the body. But every furnace requires a smoke-stack to carry off the waste, and, similarly, we must have in our bodies an excretory system to remove the waste of the burned-up material and of the used-up tissue of the heart, muscles and nerves. This constitutes the digestive system; the lungs, the excretory system and the circulatory system are absolutely necessary to support the combustion which is going on in nerve and muscle and without which energy is impossible.

All productive labor manifests itself through the muscles. Our muscles directly write the book, speak the word, build the railroads, do the deeds. Our muscles are of very different ages. In the child the trunk muscles are developed first; the shoulder muscles next; the arm muscles next; the finger muscles last of all. The heavy muscles of trunk, shoulder and thigh require but a small amount of nervous impulse or control, and they react strongly on all the vital organs, as is shown every time that we take a walk. The finest and youngest muscles of the fingers require a very large amount of nervous control for a very small output of muscular energy and their exercise stimulates the very highest centers in the brain, and this is the great argument for physical training, that through one muscle or another you can stimulate and develop as you choose either any vital organ or the highest center in the brain.

Never forget the maxim of the old German physiologist that "Health comes in through the muscles and flows out through the nerves." The nervous system was created for good and wise ends, but in many people it has become a nuisance. Its use is to insure that every stimulus from the external world shall call forth a response suited to the emergency. A fly lights upon my face; I wave my hand and drive him away. The fly has tickled my face; there is the external stimulus. A sensory impulse travels to the brain or to some other center and a motor impulse goes from there to a certain muscle in my arm which moves my hand and drives away the fly. The impulse has called out a response suited to that emergency. You watch a cat walk across the lawn; you will think that fool cat is going to fall down, it is going so slowly and it can hardly raise one foot above the other, but watch it when it sees its prey; every muscle seems to turn to steel; it is ready for the spring. When that spring is made there is no energy wasted. After that the cat does not move for two hours; no wasting energy there. Wasting of energy is a sin.

I awaken in the morning, and the first horrible emergency of the day confronts me at once, I have to get up. How I get up I have no idea. Professor James once said that when a man thinks about it he never does get up, and that's right; but I find myself in the middle of the floor and that is all I know, and then the cold air or the sight of my clothes or something reminds me to start dressing, and the putting on of one garment leads to the putting on of another. The pangs of hunger call me to the breakfast table; the bell calls me to work; and so all day long response follows stimulus; the day's work is a success or a failure according to the response which I make to the stimuli which I receive.

There is a marvelous picture given in the scripture in the parable of the poor man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and getting wounded and left by the road-side. Three men pass that way. They all see the same thing. The light is reflected from the poor sufferer into the eyes of these passers-by; a flood of vibration passes on to the brain and then the motor impulses go out to the muscles. In the case of the good Samaritan, the impulse went from the brain or the spinal nerve to the arms and he stooped down and picked the poor fellow up and carried him off; while in the priest and the Levite the impulses all went down into the legs and the cowards hustled off for Jericho.

A healthy nervous system is the rarest thing in this wide world. I have one illustration in mind, which I always like to think of, which I am going to give you of a perfectly healthy and normal nervous system. It was possessed by a good old negro minister. He had been preaching to his congregation for a long time on the subject of meekness and it had not produced the desired effect; so he said to them one morning: "Brethren, I'se gwine to give you the illustration of meekness for a week now and show you what it is," and the old man did. His congregation naturally rose to the occasion: They insulted his wife; they abused his children; they stoned his dog; they stole his chickens; they did everything under the heaven to break down the meekness of that man; but he went on through the week and came into church the next Sunday and began to preach. The congregation recognized that their time was short and they redoubled their efforts, but all in vain. Finally, about five minutes before the closing of the service, he turned to the congregation and said: "Brethren, I think I ought to denounce to this congregation that my week of meekness is just about up, and when the clock in yonder steeple strikes twelve, I'se gwine to quit preachin', close this blessed Bible, go down from this pulpit, and then, Brethren, Judgment day and hell is gwine to break loose on some of you." Now, that old colored minister had an ideal nervous system. There had not been one single response all that week long, and not one single stimulus which had come in from the outside had been lost either, but it was all waiting to leap into that good right arm when the emergency was to be met, in the fullness of time, and I commend you to go and do likewise.

Child Study and Training
1916