GINN AND COMPANY
BOSTON . NEW YORK . CHICAGO . LONDON

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL

COPYRIGHT, 1909
BY WILLIAM H. ALLEN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

910.4

The Athenaeum Press
GINN AND COMPANY . PROPRIETORS . BOSTON . U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

It is a common weakness of mankind to be caught by an idea and
captivated by a phrase. To rest therewith content and to neglect the
carrying of the idea into practice is a weakness still more common. It
is this frequent failure of reformers to reduce their theories to
practice, their tendency to dwell in the cloudland of the ideal rather
than to test it in action, that has often made them distrusted and
unpopular.

With our forefathers the phrase _mens sana in corpore sano_ was a high
favorite. It was constantly quoted with approval by writers on hygiene
and sanitation, and used as the text or the finale of hundreds of
popular lectures. And yet we shall seek in vain for any evidence of its
practical usefulness. Its words are good and true, but passive and
actionless, not of that dynamic type where words are "words indeed, but
words that draw armed men behind them."

Our age is of another temper. It yearns for reality. It no longer rests
satisfied with mere ideas, or words, or phrases. The modern Ulysses
would drink life to the dregs. The present age is dissatisfied with the
vague assurance that the Lord will provide, and, rightly or wrongly, is
beginning to expect the state to provide. And while this desire for
reality has its drawbacks, it has also its advantages. Our age doubts
absolutely the virtues of blind submission and resignation, and cries
out instead for prevention and amelioration. Disease is no longer
regarded, as Cruden regarded it, as the penalty and the consequence of
sin. Nature herself is now perceived to be capable of imperfect work.
Time was when the human eye was referred to as a perfect apparatus, but
the number of young children wearing spectacles renders that idea
untenable to-day.

Meanwhile the multiplication of state asylums and municipal hospitals,
and special schools for deaf or blind children and for cripples, speaks
eloquently and irresistibly of an intimate connection between civics
and health. There is a physical basis of citizenship, as there is a
ph