East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1860-05-17

full expanded chests and all crowne
with vigorous and Joyous health?
Six hours Of hard intellectual labor j
the school room is as much as the mos
vigorous can long endure, and even this
for the time our schools are in session
ten months in the year-would breal
down many robust and healthy men,
What then, must become of that olas
in our schools-who are feeble and de
licate and sickly? AS nation, intellect
ually, we are making rapid strides. i
we have not found the royal road to learn
ing, we have foun1 all the short ones
and all the means of rapid progress oil
them. But physically, we are, as a peo
pie, dcgenerating. Machinery is doing
much Of the labor Of the land manly
sports are out of date and ignored, and
we are fast becoming nation of pigmie'
in body, but giants in mind, especiallyir
chidhord. This ought not to be so edu
cation, in our day, should give well-bal
anced, wcll-disciplined and well devel
oped minds-minds prepared to think, tc
reason, and to determine, in strong
healthy and vigorous bodies.
The modern writer who endeavored to
show that murder was one of the Fine
Arts" must have had in mind an Ameri,
can school.room, where the Board of Ed.
ucation, teachers and parents are all en-
deavoring in the most refined and gen
teel way, to render valueless or extin-
guish the lives of those placed in their
charge. The tyrant who gave orders for
the destruction Of all the first-born of his
dominions, has justly been regarded as a
monster of cruelty, and his name has
been anathmatized for the last 1900 years,
and will be to the end of time. What
measure of condemnation should then be
meted out to those who 60 to work sys-
tematically, not with the intention, to be
sure, but no less effcctuslly, to destroy,
not only the first born of the land, but
all, from five years old and upward?-
More than half Of the children born die
before the age Of eighteen; how many Of
them die of education, it may be difficult
accurately to determine; but that many
of them are educated o1 Of existence, and
others suffer from this same fearful NAL
ady, none who are visitors to our school
rooms, and are observers of what they
there see, will for moment deny. -
Horace Mann said, years ago and the
evil has been constantly on the increase
since, that, so far as the body is concern
ed, "our schools provide for the natural
tendencies to physical ease and mactirity,
as carefully as though palcness and Ian
guor, muscular enervation and debility,
were held to be constituent elements of
national beauty" And such is the case;
languid and sickly body, bending in
childhood under the weight of mental Ia.
Dor that would crush most persons of ma
ture years, is regarded as interesting
promising beautiful if from that same
wan worn body on examination day,
come torrents of French, Latin, Philoso-
ply, Astronomy, and the higher Mathc-
mates, all, in the enunciation Of every
word, syllable and letter, in exact accor-
dance with Worcester and Webster.
II it be true, as q prominent and faith
ful lsborer in the cause of public educa-
tion once asserted. that IN man without
good health is as much at war with Ma
ture as guilty soul is at war with the
spirit of God )" and if everlasting the
mind in childhood tends to destroy or
impair,the constitution or the health, then
surely our Board of Education cannot be
guiltless if they permit any everlasting
in the schools under their charge, on any
prctence whatever. Strict discipline
and hard study are the only certain
grounds Of success; but that discipline
and study should only last during the
five, or at most six school hours of the
day, and then the books should be cast
aside, and the balance Of the day devoted
to hard physical labor, athletic sports
gymnastic or such other bodily exercise
as shall tend to harden and develop the
system. 1t should not be un-
derstood that our schools are especially
faulty in this particular, but that refor-
nation is needed, and that less hard men
tai labor should be required and more
attention given to the physical, especially
in our classes is too apparent to need
further remark. i cannot but commend
this subject, not only to the Board of
Education of this city, but to all having
charge Of educational instiutioRs--the
evil is national one.
A WOMAN OF THE WoRLD.-"A wom-
an of the world!" 1t is her form elegant
ly draped moving on with slow ana
stately step, fearful lest q fold shall be
displaced, and ever, in her forward pro-
gress, casting ruthlessly from her bosom,
without sob or sigh all real womanly
feeling oil tenderness and affection ;,
and every appearance of them, except
that slight assumption which will attract
the pleased attention Of her world. Be
ware Of her as q friend She draws
from you the very life of your emotions
to-day, but to laugh musically about you
tomorrow. Beware Of her rs wife -
She fears your attention to her in public,
as that would be transgression of its
rules; she cares not for them in what lit
tie home life she knows. She fears your
children about her knees for she is al
ways in telcgan negl,gs, or evening full
dress; and she fears, and still more than
all, to bring her offspring through child