Exercise: A Therapy for Physical and Mental Fitness of School Children

Abstract

The enhancement and maintenance of physical and mental fitness of the pupils in school is one of the cordial objectives of every good education system. Physical fitness does not only imply the absence of diseases or deformities, but the ability of the pupils to undertake their studies efficiently and effectively each day without undue fatigue imposed by any of the systems of the body and to have reserve energy for other activities at home. Physical and mental fitness cannot be developed and maintained mainly by reading them in books. They are attained through participation in regular graded physical exercises outside the classroom in the open air. This was the primary preoccupation of the classroom teachers in the forties and fifties. Today the story is different. Teachers do no longer pay attention to the development and maintenance of physical and mental fitness of the children. Consequently, the physical and mental fitness of the pupils has dropped tremendously and school administrators are virtually powerless to do anything about it.