This is the big task that the school must essay if
it would emancipate itself from the trammels of tradition and become a
leader in the larger, better way. Complete living must become the ideal
of the school if it would realize the conception of education of which
it is a professed exponent.
=Incomplete living.=--The man who walks with a crutch; the man who is
afflicted with a felon; the man who lacks a hand or even a
finger,--cannot experience complete living. Through the power of
adaptation the man with a crutch may compass more difficult situations
than the man with sound legs will attempt, but he cannot realize all the
possibilities of life that a sound body would vouchsafe to him. The man
without hands may learn to write with his toes, but he is not employed
as a teacher of penmanship. His life is a restricted one and, therefore,
less than complete. We marvel at the exhibitions of skill displayed by
the maimed, but we feel no envy. We may not be able to duplicate their
achievements, but we feel that we have ample compensation in the normal
use of our members. We know instinctively that, in the solitude of their
meditations, they must experience poignant regrets that they are not as
other people, and that they must pass through life under a handicap.
=The sound body.=--It is evident, therefore, that soundness of body is a
condition precedent to complete living. The body is the organism by
means of which the mind and the spirit function in terms of life; and,
if this organism is imperfect, the functioning will prove less than
complete.
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