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11
appreciated. The importance of health to individuals
is assented to by every person to whom the question
could be put; many would even assent to the proposition
that every sacrifice should be made to establish
health, and yet how few we meet with who sacrifice
what they think a personal gratification, even if told that
it will impair health. It is not known, or not believed,
that health depends on the individual management of
each for himself, that no one can be really healthy who
does not know enough of his own structure, and who
has not watched the daily actions of his own organism,
to know where it is seriously going wrong. So much
of the happiness of life depends on health, that it will
some day be a branch of education in which all will be
initiated. Not only is it to the welfare of the individual
in question, but the welfare of children of future generations,
and clearly the prosperity of the whole state.
Whether our children shall be healthy, or the reverse,
depends on our own management, and on our knowledge
of the Laws of Health. Every attack of illness is not a
special interference of Providence, as is supposed by too
many, but the result of our own ignorance, or our disregard
of those sanitary principles so much talked about,
but so little acted on. The ventilation and drainage of
our houses are among the most important of these laws,
but perfect ventilation and perfect drainage will not
insure health without attention to food, exercise of mind
and body, with a sufficient general knowledge of our
structure, as to enable us to judge when we are doing a
thing likely to be injurious to health. A very little
genuine reflection on these subjects must lead to the
conclusion that the general welfare can never be materially
advanced but by making the structure and functions
of our minds and bodies a part of general education.
This point is becoming more and more obvious
year by year; it must be right that the principles on