The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 6, 1904, Page 14

14 THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. THE DBTERIORATION OF g\ BRITISH HBALTEL earthiy wicssings there greater than the posses- physical health and but how few there are thousht to the sub- . v come conscious of the mzchinery of . wuning heavily, generally : wn negiigence, we rush . enairer, or even to ng guock, and are willing fer which can neglect to > occasioned r would it be, tively, we which far jerstand the laws of ntain their own and s bodies in health More Knowledge—Less Learning. o 1 od of book learning if g of the nature of our those laws which hake life happy, but ade it 2 burden and a prospe or that of our through ill be of rity, if or to r our friends? re the sub- which lead 1if an increase in sanitation, cookery and it would be t C ch children re elements, of some but the general prin- es which underlie the preservation might well the atten- teachers ar a rea- s umt 4 ch year. If we look through the branches of tudied by our children at dom do we come across a subjects which may be of use to her fter years in isting them eserve their bodies in health, and ese subjects are taught how attended are the classes? Why 1 a large measure to lack qualified to struct in at head- and the real needs no small degree c P 1ts to a misap- f the present conditions of the part of P prehension « are ant to argue that be- never learned these sub- h in plain English only study of how best to keep n heaith, it is unnecessary dren do so. They for- t the most rapid he ch taki racter of the g place befors hat the Engtand of their the Engiand we know, England of ten, twenty hence will be en- the England of to- the British, y an agricul- Iy becoming an urban whereas for- in the courntry, mow he towns. y with which this change hardly realized by Health is pot so jeopar- country as it is in town; 1 lace is dized in the and hence men and women who hav to live i s should study more care- fully how to ve their health. In 1801 the whole population of England, only 10,942,000, 36,998,181, and this L ntirely urban. Twenty-five ago only about half the population lived in urban districts now the proportion is three-quarte; that is to say, that now three persons live in an urban to ®ne who livesin a rural district. It is‘a well-known ax- jom of hygienic science that the health of a population, other things being erse ratio to its density lish, other things being population crowded together L unhealthy than one that is scattered. The British people are be- ng daily more crowded together, and hence, unless some steps are taken, and that soon, to counteract the effects of undue concentration, the national health must inevitably saffer. Some Remedies. What are the steps which can be taken? Ther are many and various, but we may mention a few 1. Every effort should be made to counteract all unnecessary increase of towns, and, when possible, new facto- ries or industries should be established in and 8id ones transferred to the country. Care should be taken that all vns should be furnished with a suf- ficient number of parks,*and especially with a large number of small play- grounds, fitted with gymnastic apy ratus and und the charge of care takers, and so placed that no work- man’s house should if nossible more than a quarter of a mile from guch a ground. 3. Children should be taught the ts of hygiene, sanitation and physiology, so as to } knowledge of the ca of and the means which can be taken avoid it. 4. They should, by cookery classes in schools, be shown how to obtain the largest amount of nourishment with the smallest expenditure on food; what kind.of foods are wholesome; and how food should be cooked so as to make it not only palatable but easily digest- ed and consequently nourishing. 5 They should be taught self- restraint in order to learn when they grow up how to rule themselves, and gences which are harmful to health. 6. The muscles and lungs of chil- dren and their general bearing should be improved by physical exercise and drill, and it should be the duty of the educational authorities to see - that, while attending school, the children are properly fed. The authorities should be empowered also to bring the parents to account if they neglect their nat- ural duties. 7. The girls should be taught by housewifery classes “how tc make a home clean, wholesome, buight and at- tractive, and as o many. have to act as nurses from their earliest years, the proper way of feeding and tending in- fants. The ignorance of many mar- ried women has wlecked before now the physical walfare of their offspring. It is not an unccmmon thing to hear of a young mother among the poorer classes giving beer, whisky and gin to infants, and feeding them on the same food as she takes herself, long before the proper time has arrived for wean- ing the children, with the result that a quite unnecessarily large percentage of infants die before they are three years of age. If the hcme were made more attractive, and the food more palatable and rnutritious, the men would nrot be tempted to leave it so frequently for the public house. It can- not be too widely known that there is no nourishment in stimulants, that raw spirits destrcy the degestion, and that a man who desires to-retain his health will do well either to entirely abstain from nulants, or to take them only at meals, and then with the most rigid moderation. AlIl' these things should be taught, and they would be of more alue to the children than.many y now learn, and which are iptly forgotten as soon .as they The Workingman's Part. Such matters are of the utmost im- portance of the working classes of Great Bri n. They Tect their daily lives and their personal health, which in the case of many is their only capital. Working men and women should therefore bestir themselves to see that these vital questions are carefully con- sidered in their interests by municipal and educational authorities. Let it be once known that the working classes how to place a bridle on their appe-_are alive to the necessity of their chil- tites and passions, and on those indul- dren being trained in school in such a ——~ ¥ way as to develop tneir podies, to ren- der them capable of enjoying life, of be- coming useful citizens and of producing a healthy generation .to succeed them, and it will not be lomg before their elected servants, the ‘members of mu- nicipalities, county councils and educa- tional committees, will find ways of putting a stop to the lamentable drain: on the vitality of the nation which is daily taking place. If it be questioned whether it be a fact that the British people are deteriorating in physique, how comes it, as has often been stated in the public press without contradic- ticn, that during the war in South Af- rica out of 11 000 men who offered them- selves from Manchester for the army only 3000 could be aceepted as recruits owing to physical defects, dnd that of these 2000 only 1000 were found to beAit to be sent abroad to fight the battles of their country? How comes it that the colonel of the Birmingham voluntcers has lately stated in public that on ac- count of similar bodily defects he is obliged to reject annually some 32 per POPE'S BULL AGAINST 4] THE BRITISH RECRUIT ABOUL ZQUALLFD THIT GEIUTAN IN HEIGHT, LS WEIGHT, THE SURER CRITERION OF PERSONAT, SIRFENGIH LAND DL TVE, WS CONSIDFE2CRELN LB SS . % —re cent of the men who offer themselves? Let it also be remembered that these are volunteers, and presumably there- fore men who have been brought up in comparatively well-to-do homes in Bir- mingham. Moreover, as these men would not under ordinary circum- stances be required to serve in the fleld we may reasonably suppose that the physical tests to Which they would be subjected in examination would, not be as severe as those yhich the érdinary regruit of ‘the regular army would be required to undergo. Furthermore, from information which the writer of thig article lately obtained it appears that sorfie 50 per cent of the lads from certain British towns who annually of- fer themselves for service in the B‘lllsh navy have to be rejected by the re- cruiters on the spot for similar reasons, and that the services of a furthen 25 per cent are declined owing to the discov- ery of more obscure physical disabili- ties when the lads have reached head- quarters. Our Recrauits. It cannot be denied that these facts point to a most serious condition of af- fairs, threatening the very foundations of British social, commercial and na- tional life. But, Indeed. statistics are not neces- sary. We only réq to go into the more Crow¢ our large towns and to use our eyes in order to perceive how weak, stunted d ill-formed are many of the you agd young women who are un® in their idst. m“ll is sor s " said the Daily a T issue, “to learn from good auth that, al- though the T efore the late war ab: q . German in height, hi s criterion of physic . wWas conside to t ffective bout tion of af- A A gy more in k but at pres t fall 13 the physic rit ! n. The I Comnr tland on P g has borne impor- >t ‘tory ana be sure tI t th land and n Required. t mportance th selves in point int fare of the p opportunities tinyation cla ‘ to develop, in their practical application to the requirements of life, the faculties of those who have left the day schools and thus to contribu toward the sources of national strength. In the me h ople of Great Britain, and especia the working classes living In our large cities, who 41 n of our population tly Interested in should bestir themsetves and use all the legitimate influence they possess to Impress members of Parliament, Corporations, Town and County Councilors, educational au- thorities amd other of the urgent ne- cessity which exists to turn their most serious attention to matters appertain- ing to the health, strength and physical condition of the people of this coun- try and to take steps to Improve the physique of the British race. compose that pc which is most dt the subject, 'ESTANTS as well as Cath- olics will be interested in the recent bull of the Pope direct- ng a radical reform in church Only the other day the Presby- ane at their conference of the of the San Francisco Theo- | Seminary at Saint Anselmo dis- this very subject and agreed mously that church music should be “stately and dignified,” and t theatrical airs and sentimental nes have no place in a religious ser- The Episcopalians have the same view and have encouraged the by ishing male choirs in h boys take the part usually sung And now comes the Pope in a lengthy letter on the subject es that the great religious or- tion of which he is head must to the solemn and impressive chant of its earlier days, must banish fancy singing and female voices from its choirs. In his bull, entitled (from the first two words) “Mortu Proprio,” the Pope points out that a great departure has place from the intention of the in authorizing the use of mu- t services, which was to supple- ot supplant, the religious cere- and to add additional solem- to the occasion. His Holiness re- merks that when the music is very women. return Gregorian monies elaborate and theatrical it distracts the aUkuUOi of the worshipers, leads their thougfits away from the religious veremonies being performed at the altar, delays the priest in the per- formance of his functions and has, therefore, just the opposite tendency from what is intended by the church permitting its use. _The qualities at church music should possess, he saye, gre possessed in the highest de- gree by the Gregorian chant and, therefore, he directs that the chant “be largely restored to the function of public worship and everybody must take for certain that an ecclesiastical function loses nothing of its solemnity when it is accompanied by no other . music but that.” _ The Gregorian chant dates from the vear 590, when it was arranged Jor church service by Gregory I, one of the most famous and brilliant of the Popes, who has been surnamed the great. There were sixteen Popes who were known as Gregory, and of them two, the author of the chant and Hilde- brand, who brought Henry of Germany barefooted and penitent to Canossa to hold his stirrup as he mounted his horse, have been designated as great. Even as long ago as the close of the sixth century there was a tendency to introduce theatrical music at church services and to give undue prominence to the musical part of the ceremony, so Gregory, taking the Ambrosian chant, then In general use in the western church, founded on it his style, banish- ing from the church all rhymetical singing. He founded a school for the teaching of his chant, and for severai centuries the Schola Cantorium was a famous musical institution. But the tendency to drift into elab- orate music showed itself so strongly in the fourteenth century that Pope John XXII issued a bull restraining musicians and singers from the lengths to which they had gone and recalling them again to the- use of the earlier Gregorian chant. Two hundred years later, on the recommendation of the council of Trent, in 1576, Gregory XIII again insisted on a reform in church music and the use of the chant; and once more the successor of John and the Gregories indorses and repeats their admonitions and directions. The Gregorian chant is of a slow and solemn measure, and any one who has visited® a Catholic church for vespers or the evening service has probably heard it, and also at some parts of the mass. Pope Pius X directs that only Latin shall be sung at solemn liturgical func- tions, and forbids any undue repeti- <+ tion of the words of the text, any breaking of syllables or inversion of words, or separating any part of the mass into separate pieces in such a way as that each of such pieces may form a complete composition in itself and be capable of being detached from the rést and substituted by another. In other words, the Pope does not approve of the same airs and style of music be- ing used for a ballet dance Saturday evening at the opera and for a solemn religious ceremony the following morn- ing in the church. People, therefore, who go to both the opera and the church will not be led to imagine the scenes they have seen at the former while sitting in the latter, as not infre- quently happens at present. As ‘it frequently happens that the choir is so elaborate with its music that the religious ceremony proper is entirely lost sight of, the Pope directs that the singing shall be cut down so as not to keep the clergyman waiting S before indicated. training means the formation of habits. Other animals learn by instinct; man only by practice. He is therefore said to be but a bundle of habits. A person’s character is de- termined by the character of the habits of which the bundle is composed. It is represented by the sum of our good and bad habits, If we were not creatures of habit we could make but little if any progress, s all our time and at- tention would have to be given to the simplest functions of body and mind. Good habits are the result of the repetition of right actions; bad habits the resuit of wrong actions. The child who gets into the habit of doing what is right, because it is right, will not only be a good child, but will almost certainly develop into a noble man or woman. The opposite is also true. Habits not only determine the mental and physical action, but also the moral - as well. More than this, to a large extent they warp the consclence, that divine guide which is the highest au- thority given to man. Very few fully appreciate the im- portance of correct habits. No one who does not appreciate the power of habit is fitted to train a child. It is not merely second nature, it is far stronger than nature itself. Dr. Mauds- ley, in his psychology of mind, em- phasizes the effect and importance of habit as follows: “If any act became no easier after being done several times, if the careful direction of con- sciousness were necessary to its ac- complishment on each occasion, it is evident that the whole activity of a lifetime might be confined to one or two deeds—that no progress could take place in development. A man might be occupied all day in dressing and un- dressing himself; the attitude of his body would absorb all his attention and energy; the washing of his hands or the fastening of a button would be as # HOW YOU SHOULD STUDY YOUR By Wm. J. Shearer] - £ difficult to him on each occasion as to the child on its first trial; and he would, furthermore, be completely ex- hausted by his exertions. Think of the pains necessary to teach a.child to stand, of the many efforts which it must make, and of the ease with which it at last stands, unconscious of any effort.” Even though we may begin to appre- clate the importance of habit in the life of the individual, few have any conception of the influence which the habits of individuals have upon the prosperity and- even the very life of government. - Seldom, if ever, has this been better stated than by James, in his latest psychology. Speaking upon this point, he says: “Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its' most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds until it has got through with its flourishes. He also forbids all bands in churches and banishes pianos absolute- 1y from religious worship. Orchestras when allowed on special occasions must play only solemn music suitable to accompany the organ. The result of these regulations will be to consid- erably cut short the length of the serv- ice while gregtly increasing its solem- nity. The Pope says that as the singers, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir formerly employed in all churches, therefore women, as being incapable cf exercising such office, can- not be admitted to form part of the choir or of the musical chapel. When- ever, then, it Is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contral- tos these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the church. Finally he directs that “only those are to be admitted to form part of the musical chapel of a church who are men of known piety and probity of life, and these should by their mod- est and devout bearing during the litur- gical functions show that they are worthy of the holy office they exer- cise. It will also be fitting that sing- ers while singing in church wear the ecclesiastical habit and surplice, and that they be hidden behind gratings when the choir is excessively open to public gaze.” To carry out the return to the Gre- gorian chant of early days special com- missioners are to be #ppointed by the bishops to see that the churches con- form to the Pope’s directions; and ec- clesiastical students preparing for the priesthood are to be especlally trained in the chant and the solemn style of church musie. Of course it will take some time be- fore all these regulations and direc- tions of the Pope can be carried out, CHILDREN'’S HABITS o of -ordinance, and saves the chiidren of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It keeps the fisherman and the deckhand at sea through the winter; § holds the miner in his dark- ness, and nails the countryman to his log cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert and the frozen zone. It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nature or our early choice, and to make the best of a pur- suit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again.” The same writer has sald, “The hell to be endured hereafter, of which the- ology tells, is no werse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realiZe how soon they will become mere - walking bundles of habits they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of vir- tue or vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson’s play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, ‘I won't count this time.’ Well, he may not count {t. and a kind heaven may not count it, but it is to be counted none the less. Down among the nerve cells and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temp- tation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become perma- nent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we Become saints in the moral and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres by 80 many separate acts and hours of work.” THEATRICAL AIRS IN CHURCH though in many parts of the Nast male choirs have long been the rule. In this city male choirs sing the ves- pers at the Cathedral, St. Ignatius and other Catholic churches, though often parts of the services are sung in very elaborate style, which ‘will now have te be discontinued. The choirs are to De- come a far less Important part of the service than they have been, which 1s exactly what the Pope purposes. Of course, in the smaller towns and wil- lages it will probably be found imprac- ticable to have all male cholrs, and women will be retained, although the style of music will have to conform to the Gregorian: as a result of this reform by the Pope people who go to Catholic churches to hear the musie will in future probably stay at home. The Pope himself is so determined to have his views carried out that in Rome he has supplemented his bull by a spe- clal letter to his Cardinal Vicar direct- ing him to carry out the changes re- commended at once in order that Roms may set an example In the reform to the rest of the world. It was said that Archbishop Farley of New York had gone to Rome to protest on the part and In the name of the American Bishops against the rule excluding women from choirs. The rumor, however, is positively denied and it is said the Archbishop of New York has nmo such purpose in visiting the Pope, but on the contrary he strongly favors the bull and for years male choirs and Gregorian chants have been the rule so far as possible in hig diocese as they are in Baltimore under Cardinal Gibbons. Under any circumstances the Jocal Archbishop or Bishop is charged with putting the Pope’s directions into force and of course can use his discretion as to time and methods ¢ carrying them out, though undou v thare will be as Jittle delay in the matter as possible. Archbishop Riordan, quently, will decide on the (-()ursensl’;c will take for this archdiocese, Bishop Conaty for Los Angeles and Bishop Grace for Sacramento and the north and they may all have different meas' and pursue different methods in com- plying with the Pope’s wishes.