TII. Trends in the Evolution of Physical Education

During the middle of the 19th century the dominant interest of
scientists was focused on biology. Soon biological theories were applied
to the field of the social sciences. Recreation and way activities biologized
themselves with an over emphasis of the physical benefits to the individual
organism. As an offshoot of biology came psychology with interest in the
nervous system and the stimulus response mechanism. This too focused the
attention on the physical structure of the organism with implications a the
mental workings and the emotional meanderings. Physiology assisted both biol-
ogy and psychology to penetrate the realm of biochemical reactions within
the organism via the analysis of the gaping and the ductless glands, valences,
and autonomic activities. Not until the turn of the twentieth century did
the so-called scientists see much relationship between the organic tools of
the homo sapiens and their extended, meta-organic or the superorganic tools
known as culture. Since the emergence of cultural interpretation of humen
behavior, physical education has made an unprecedented metamorphosis by shift—
ing its axis from the physical sciences to that of cultural or the social
sciences. Today physical education and its two sisters, health education
and recreation, have become master riders on two horses, the physical and the
social, sciences, at the same time.

The shift from the physical to the socio-cultural bases on the part
of health, recreation, and physical education is revealed in many ways.

(1) Work Complex. Puritanic and pioneering Americans idealized work
habits in their early history. There were trees to fell, stones to cut, canals

to dig, buildings to erect, Indians to subdue, lands to cultivate, communication