If the science of keeping rested were given in schools in the way
that, in most cases, the science of ethics seems to be given now,
the idea of rest would lie in an indigestible lump on the minds of
the students, and instead of being absorbed, digested and carried
out in their daily lives, would be evaporated little by little into
the air, or vomited off the mind in various jokes about it, and
other expressions that would prove the children knew nothing of what
they were being taught.
But again, I am glad to repeat--if instruction, _practical_
instruction, were given every day in the schools on how to form the
habit of keeping rested, it would have a wonderful effect upon the
whole country, not to mention where in many individual cases it
would actually prevent the breaking out of hereditary disease.
Nature always tends toward health; so strongly, so habitually does
nature tend toward health that it seems at times as if the working
of natural laws pushed some people into health in spite of chronic
antagonism they seem to have against health--one might even say in
spite of the wilful refusal of health.
When one's body is kept rested, nature is constantly throwing off
germs of disease, constantly working, and working most actively, to
protect the body from anything that would interfere with its perfect
health. When one's body is not rested, nature works just as hard,
but the tired body--through its various forms of tension that impede
the circulation, prevent the healthy absorption of food and oxygen,
and clog the way so that impurities cannot be carried
off--interferes with nature's work and thus makes it impossible for
her to keep the machine well oiled.
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