others show that the period of 12 corresponds in brain development to the development in the cortex of the tangential fibres. These fibres are exceedingly fine and occur in three main layers. They seem in some way to be permanently connected with the parts of the brain that are neither sensory nor motor and are usually known as the association fibres. Flechsig is of the opinion that the areas of the brain in which they have their origin are association areas, and that all the higher capacities of an individual are closely related to the development of these association areas.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND PLEASURE.-A London publication ("Health") quotes some of the statements of Prof. K. Moeller, made in a recent address, concerning the importance of associating pleasure with physical education. "We live in an age of hyper-culture," he said. “There is no lack of instructions as to how we should live properly, but we are far from living according to Nature's ways. In our efforts we must not overlook that most important element, pleasure. For the pleasure derived from them we take up such exercises as bicycling, swimming, etc. Only when combined with pleasure are physical exercises performed with vigor. In a great many places physical training is made one of the ingredients of the school curriculum and is thereby robbed of the glamour with which the natural instinct for physical exercise is surrounded. Whenever possible such training should be undertaken in the open air, and the arrangement of lessons should be such as to favor the development of the general vitality (especially of the lungs and the heart) in preference to the building up of a powerful muscular system. Running games and contests must have a prominent place in physical training, since they seem to meet these requirements more fully than does a monotonous, strictly scientific gymnastic lesson."

The main trouble in such gymnastic lessons seems to be, as pointed out by Dr. D. M. F. Krogh, in Mind and Body for October, that teachers try to impress pupils with a lot of insignificant details which are of little practical value, and thus tire them out and cause them to lose interest in the broad benefits and pleasures that may be asso

ciated even with the harder parts of the gymnastic work. "If we are unable to interest the pupil, our cause is lost. We have but one way to create interest, and that is by combining actual pleasure with the hardship of the work." "HOME-MADE TOYS AND APPLIANCES.-There is a growing tendency to make use of the play instincts of the child in developing its constructive ability. This tendency is shown in the increasing number of articles on homemade toys and appliances in the Boys and Girls Departments of popular periodicals and in the growing interest taken in the subject by kindergartners and primary teachers. The insistence of the constructive instinct of the child to express itself in making things has long been known; but, with the fuller recognition within the last few years of the value of play, has come a new and, it is to be hoped, a more fruitful interest in the matter. Parents often wonder why a child will desert its skilfully made and brilliantly painted mechanical toys to play in the sand or to build houses and railroads out of blocks and scraps from the carpenter shop. Interested for a little while in the costly toy because of its novelty, it soon neglects it, or destroys it in an effort to solve the source of its movements, and takes a far more intense and lasting interest in the crude waste pieces of lumber or in the readily handled sand. And even where these are not at hand and there is a wealth of variety in the bought toys, the lack of genuinely fruitful interest is shown by the haste with which the child goes from one toy to another. The fickleness of the interest of the child who possesses a number of toys is due not only to the fact that the toy is apt to offer the minimum of appeal to its constructive instinct, but also to the fact that it leaves nothing to the child's imagination. The tendency of the child to clothe the old rag doll and the things built up from the crude ends of lumber with all sorts of marvellous qualities and powers is a natural instinct clamoring to be fed. And the child's lack of appreciation of the expensive toy is not an ingratitude, but only the expression of dominating instincts, which it can no more control than it can the insistence of the hunger instinct. In fact the constructive and imaginative instincts

are also hungers. And meeting such normal hungers in a normal way solves the most important problems of education.

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In a very practical article in McCall's Magazine for July, Grace L. Brown, of Columbia University, emphasizes the value of giving the child access to a room where it is free to 'make things" and to an abundance of material for the exercise of its imaginative and constructive instincts. Besides satisfying these instinct-hungers, children take a personal pride in their own handiwork. Although crude, it is their own work. If the first kite made will not fly or the doll's house is too small, they realize that they can try again. And when they do succeed they have the joy and the profit of having accomplished something. And this feeds the purposefulness and determination which are so essential in later life. Children of all ages have loved this sort of work, and those of to-day are no exception. Give them materials, a few simple tools, and a little sympathetic guidance, and they will surprise you with the number of playthings they are capable of making." Such discarded things as heavy wrapping paper, cardboard boxes, spools, string, small wooden boxes-all of them are transmuted by the little child into what are for it wonderful dolls and doll-houses, articles of clothing, wagons and other implements, things that go and things that can be made to appear to go. But the tools with which the child works should be good tools and adapted to its size. It is unreasonable to expect the child to be able to do anything at all with the cheap toy tools so often given it and with which even grown-ups with their greater strength and skill could do nothing.

An important phase of these appeals to the play instinct is the valuable instruction that can so easily be combined with them. A knowledge of colors, of the nature and source of materials, and of the geometric forms of the articles constructed; ability to measure, to plan, to draw, to test; and the development of desirable traits of patience and self-control, of persistence and resourcefulness, of helpfulness and generosity-all these things find a normal opportunity in this great field of self-expression.

PHYSICAL EXERCISE AND DISEASE.-Dr. H. M. Fried

man, in the July issue of the Journal of Outdoor Life, says that "Physical exercise is of value in the prevention of tuberculosis, first, because it accelerates the blood current, bringing increased nutrition to the whole body; secondly, because it increases the general health and vigor and this presents a greater fighting force against our common enemy, disease; and, lastly, because exercise develops the body and tends to eradicate the physical defects which accompany poor physiques and which predispose to the development of tuberculosis."

The same journal, however, contains a caution in regard to the kind and amount of exercise that is beneficial to persons with weak lungs. "Exercise which in health would help to build up the normal body and to increase resistance to disease might, in this illness (tuberculosis), when injudiciously carried out, lead to much harm, weakening the resisting powers and hastening the progress of the disease. When judiciously regulated, however, after the acute manifestations have passed, exercise may be of inestimable benefit in helping the body to regain once more its normal functions and capacity for work.' It should be needless to state that such exercise must be in the pure air of out-of-doors. The more hours any one of us spends out of doors, breathing the fresh air and drinking in through every pore the sunshine of heaven, the better defence we are building up against the encroachments of disease and the more fully we are adding to our capacity to work and to derive greater benefit and joy from life.

A moderate degree of fatigue in connection with bodily activity is not detrimental, but care must be taken not to allow it to become excessive when the body is diseased. "The healthy body is provided with great recuperative powers, and does not readily succumb to even excessive demands on its energy. But it should be allowed the proper condition for recuperation, and that condition is adequate rest. There is danger when the fatigue of one day's labor is not eliminated before the next day's work is begun. The effects may then be cumulative, the tissues may then be in a continued state of depression, and the end may be disastrous. In a body depleted by disease there is all the more reason for avoiding excessive fatigue. Espe

cially is this true of one suffering from tuberculosis, for the very conditions of fatigue are already there present, the excessive consumption of body tissue and the accumulation of poisonous substances. The poisonous substances that exist in a tuberculous body are derived from two sources: part of them come from the destruction of the body's tissues; and part are products of the activities of the tubercle bacillus. These latter are no less fatiguing to the tissues than are the normal fatigue substances.'

FATIGUE. In her book on the effects of overwork, Miss Josephine Goldmark calls attention to the well-known fact that a feeling of fatigue is nature's warning that waste products are being produced in the body more rapidly than they can be eliminated. As these uneliminated waste products are dangerous to the system, it is entirely correct to say that a fatigued person is in this sense a poisoned person-poisoned by the toxins of fatigue. The cells of the body of a living person are constantly seizing upon nutritive elements in food and air, and casting off the outworn, dead matter that arises from the cell changes which constitute what we call life. When a person is at work these changes occur more rapidly than while he is at rest, both the breaking down and upbuilding of the cells being accelerated by exercise. As the breaking down soon goes on faster than the upbuilding, the person begins to tire and activity must be balanced by rest. If, however, the work or exercise is still continued, the waste products from the broken-down cells, which ordinarily are carried off as rapidly as formed, begin to accumulate and to overburden the eliminating processes. We say the metabolic balance of the body has been disturbed. But just as truly we could say the body has become poisoned by its own uneliminated waste products-by chemical poisoning due to the unexpelled toxins of fatigue.

What is needed is due respect for rest and recreation in connection with all our activities. And, as Miss Goldmark says, "The essential thing in rest is the time at which it comes. Rest postponed is rest more than proportionately deprived of virtue. Fatigue let run is a debt to be paid at compound interest. Maggiori showed that, after a doubled task, muscle requires not double but four times as long a