The Autobiography of Edward Jarvis: Part III

PHYSIOLOGIES In 1843 Horace Mann asked Dr. Jarvis to write a book on physiology as the basis of the law of health and life, to be used in schools. This proposition was very pleasant to him. He felt a strong desire that these ideas should be given to and used by the people. It seemed to him they were more important than most things taught in the schools, and should take precedence even of arithmetic and geography and grammar. They are the beginning and the guide of true and full life on earth; for, before one needs to count and calculate, before he [sic] needs to travel or read concerning any foreign state or country, and before he needs to talk English correctly, he must eat and breathe and sleep, and must take the consequences of good or ill that inseparably follows the right or the wrong way that /147/ he does these things. Before any use of any other knowledge, he must obey or disobey the physiological law. So it seemed to Dr. J. that the first step in education, after learning the language, is to learn how to live. He was therefore glad that Mr. Mann wrote his eloquent and persuasive report on this subject, and that he thought it could and should be made an essential part of common school education. He only doubted whether he could present the subject in such a form and manner as to be intelligible to the people, and especially to the children; and, moreover, in such a way that they not only could understand it, but would be drawn to it. Beyond all this it seemed a necessity that this law should be so expressed as to command full faith and implicit obedience, and be incorporated into the daily life of those who should study it. He told Mr. Mann that he could not promise to write the book, nor to publish it when written; but that he would make the attempt, and, if he should succeed and it should be satisfactory to himself and the friends whose judgment he valued more than his own, he would publish it. He then wrote all that it seemed to him should be known to the scholars and to the world, for this purpose, without regard to the length of book it would make. He then revised this, and, by rigid process of exclusion, reduced the manuscript to the quantity needed for a book of suitable size. There his wife read it carefully and proposed such alterations as her excellent common sense suggested. These were made, and then /148/ he read it aloud to her for her second judgment, and new corrections were made. Next she read it aloud to him, that he might judge by the ear whether anything was omitted or anything redundant or inappropriate, or whether everything was clear to the common understanding; and again the whole was corrected according to the last revision. Then his wife copied it into the several books on food and digestion; respiration; circulation of the blood and nutrition; animal heat; skin; bones, muscles, and labor and rest: and brain, nerves and mind. In order to be certain that the book was scientifically correct, these several parts were sent to medical friends who were the best scholars and judges in these respective departments. They examined their parts cheerfully, and gave their opinions and corrections freely: