he formal education
of the child at too early an age is physiologically and psychologically
erroneous. In doing this we are neglecting the lower centres at the time
when by nature they are reaching their full functional activity, and
exercising the higher which are at an unripe stage of development.
Moreover, lower centres not exercised during the period when they are
attaining their full development never attain the same functional
development if exercised later. Hence the difficulty of acquiring a
manual dexterity later in life. Again, it is on this theory of lower and
higher centres maturing at different rates and attaining their full
functional activity at different times that we now base our education of
the mentally defective. We must organise the lower centres; we must
educate the mentally defective child to get control over these already
partially organised centres, before we begin to educate the higher and
less organised centres. Moreover, it is only in so far as we can secure
this end that we can stably build up and organise the higher centres of
the nervous system. Hence also such qualities as alertness in receiving
orders and promptness and accuracy in carrying them out are, at first,
best learned through the organising and training of the centres of the
middle level. What we really endeavour to do here is to organise and
establish systems of means for the attainment of definite ends, which
through their systematic organisation can be brought into action when
required promptly and quickly, and once aroused work themselves out with
a minimum of effort and with a low degree of attention, so that their
performance involves the least possible physiological cost.

From this the reader will understand that the aim of physical education
is the aim of all education, viz., to acquire and organise experiences
that will render future action more efficient.

Moreover, the early training of the centres of the middle level is
important for the after technical training of our workmen. The boy or
girl who has never been educated in early life to co-ordinate and carry
out bodily movements promptly and accurately is not likely to succeed in
after-life in any employment which requires the ready and exact
co-ordination of many movements for the attainment of a definite end.
The proper physical education of the child is therefore necessary for
the securing of the after economic efficiency of the individual, and it
can also by t