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FIG. I.

When we have health we find the world a beautiful place in which to live.

ALL of us know that this is a beautiful and a pleasant world. We enjoy the songs of the birds and the beauty of the flowers. It gives us pleasure to feel the soft winds of spring and to watch the green come back on the trees. We love to watch the clouds sail through the sky and the snowflakes fall through the air. Everywhere we turn we find many things that give us happiness and contentment, and make the world a beautiful place for us to live in.

Year after year the world remains the same; it is always beautiful. Why do we sometimes enjoy

the pleasant things of life and at other times find ourselves unhappy in the midst of them?

Every

Work not the cause of unhappiness. person who comes into the world has a work to do. Many persons think that it is this work that spoils the pleasure of life for them; that if they could be freed from their tasks they would be happy. This idea is not correct. It is natural for man to work. Little children labor for hours over their block houses or their castles of sand. The blacksmith enjoys shaping the hot iron on his anvil. The artist delights in bringing out the picture with the strokes of his brush. And the pupil whose mind is alert finds enjoyment in the lessons he is called on to prepare.

On the other hand, a person who fails to do his work is unhappy and dissatisfied with his lot. The member of a family or of a school who is not trying to help the group to which he belongs is unhappy because he knows he is failing to do his share of the work. An idle man always comes to envy the man who is doing something and who counts for something among his fellow men. It is not work, but failure to do our work, that interferes with our pleasure in life.

Good health necessary for our enjoyment of the world. When our bodies are strong and well we rejoice in them; we go to our tasks gladly and perform them with ease; and we see and feel the beauty of the world. But when sickness and pain

come upon us we feel neither the joy of living nor the joy of work, and all the things that have been provided for our pleasure seem of little worth. Of all our treasures none is so precious as health; for it is health that opens to us the richness and fullness of life.

Hygiene important because it teaches how to care for the body. It is the purpose of this book to teach you how to care for your body and keep it in health. The study of this subject is called hygiene. It is a most important subject to you— so important that if you cannot afford to take time to study it and understand it, there are few things that you can afford to take time to do.

Questions: 1. Mention some of the things that make the world seem to you a good place to be. 2. Do you think you would be happier if you had no duties to perform? 3. Are you happy when you are sick? 4. Give two reasons why this is true. 5. What is hygiene? 6. Why is the study of hygiene important?

Suggestions and topics for development: Call the attention of the class to the fact that the world's honors and rewards go to those who are able to accomplish its work, and that ordinarily health is a necessary condition for successful labor. It means much to a pupil who is carelessly inclined to have aroused in him a desire for worthy achievement, and there is no better approach to this subject than through hygiene. The biographies of eminent men will show that a body capable of withstanding longcontinued and arduous toil is usually one of the chief components of greatness, and there are many passages from the lives of the great men of literature that will help the teacher in showing the relations of health to life and work.

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