Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1851-08-29
For the Journal.
Etiucofton-No.7


minor, though essential requisite is good school
houses. have said in a former article that educa-
ton was two-fold: physical and mental, and that
sound and vigorous mind could not long exist in an
unsound and unhealthy body 1t equally follows as
true that it anything binders the growth of one, it,
in like manner thwarts the development of the 9TH
err and that if good water, exercise, and cleanl-
ness and free and unrestricted use and position of
the main parts of the human organism, ndispen-
sable prerequisites to good health-tha they, in
equal degree, necessary concomitants of good
school houses The better to illustrate our ideas of
the Importance and necessity of good schoolhouses.
let us briefly appeal to a few of the more obvious
laws of human physioogy-that very useful science
of the functions or offices of the human SYSTEM so
strangely and lamentably neglected in most of our
semnaries of learning. Know myself is of divine
origin and is of great value in physical well as
mental science. and in systems ofeducaton should
stand prominently forth, teaching that 1--WE fear
fully and wonderfully made" The Creator, in his
goodness and wisdom, gave us our lungs to breathe,
our limbs for exercise and labor the brain the seat
ofthe mind, the sennels to transmit sensa-
tons to the throne of the intellect and convey the
votions of the mind and the determination of the
will to the muscles and voluntary organs and these
In their turn serve to obey the conceptions and di
rectlons of the mind and so have the various
parts which 60 to make up that beautiful, we'll |
adapted and wonderful machinery-the human bo-
dy-their respective and appropriate duties to per-
form So long these duties faithfully perform
ed as nature directs so long is the whole system in
health, and the mind in suitable condition for study
First, them as to the lungs. They must have
pure air to BREATHE the system, both mental and
corporeal, is or less deranged and the mind in
consequence, unfit to study to advantage. Two i'm
porant elements of the atmosphere are oxygen and
carbonc acid; these invisible gases are indispensa
BILE to the life of animated lungs, and when, from
want of due ventilation the air breathe does not
contain them in the relative proportions of nature
when free egress is not allowed to the essentials
and free ingress to the essentials of good air. the bo
dy becomes languid, the lungs oppressed, the head
aches, the mind becomes inactive and unfit for stu
dy and all this follows from that necessary decar-
bonizaton of the blood, which cannot go on in our
bodies without good air, and therefore. proper VEN
tilatiOn. School-houses, then, should be properly
ventilated. There should be ample space in every
one to allow the rejected vapors constantly issuing
from the body to escape and to allow the pure and
healthy elements of respiration to have free entrance
And when consider the large number of scholars
often huddled together in small pent-up, contract
ed schoolhouse. built so from mistaken notions of
economy, and each pupil breathing and re-breathing
through the day this pesterous atmosphere increas
ing as it does in its poisonous effects as the school
session advances, can we wonder at their pale faces
or drowsy, lisless action, their unconcealed aver
sion to these Calcutta holes of confinement Nor
indeed. are we surprised at the number constantly
absent from such schools through ndisposition.
which their very kind parents assign to the unhealthy
locality of the school-hou Says recent writer
"A physician in Massachusetts, selected two schools
of nearly the number of children, belonging to
families of the condition of life and no causes
independent of the circumstances of their several
sctool-houses, known to affect their health
One house was dry and properly ventilated the 9TH
err damp and not ventilated In the former during
period of forty-fve days five scholars were absent
from sickness to the amount in the whole of twenty
days. In the latter, during the period of time
and from the same cause, seventeen children were
absent to an amount in all of one hundred and forty.
five days, and the appearance of the children not
thus detained by sickness indicated marked differ
ence in their condition to health.' And although
school-houses should be kept properly ventilated
Instead of imperfect, there is too free ventila
ton, enabling not only the cold winds of winter te
whistle through the crevices to the manifest codnes,
and shivering of the little urchins as they sit with
; SCATTERING teeth and benumbed bodies around the
embers and smoking chunks of the fire place; but
actually permitting the boys to go in and out thro
the large spaces between the logs, rendering the
doors but little value passages to and fro.
Next in Importance to pure air and suitable enclo
in the construction of school houses is the
arrangement of proper Seats tables desks, &c. fol-
: the comfortable occupation of children. The posi-
ton of the bodies of children in school is question
. of no minor Importance. The student should not s
nor stand in cramped position Nature here, as il
many other instances, gives wise counsel, and
a should hearken to her teachings She tells tina
the chest should not be bent so as to nterdict the
free respiration and expansion of the lungs, The
back curved to crooked position, often the
of spinal disease is the former violation the cause
of dyspepsia and lung complaints. These Immature
l. positions of the body and limbs easy ad
vantageous, but on the prolific sources of interrup
tions and mental disturbances in study as we'll as
disease, decay, and death in ripper years How stand
the with district school houses in this State
" and particularly in this county Small, marrow
benches without backs and of such height that vii
scarcely permit the feet of the child to touch tn
= puncheon floor, with plank put up in an ncline
position writing desk form their only furniture