Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1861-04-26
OUR HEALTH COLUMN, OR MEDICAL
AND ANTI-MEDICAL.
SCHOOL cHILDREN's SORROWS.

do vet allow them In tnese uepiiiVa.ihS
spring months, to spend from six to eight
hours in the putrefying air of an apart
mcnt, where a dozen and upwards are
breathing each others breaths over and
over again, and then allow them to come
home with load of books, foot or two
high, to be pored over for greater part
of the time until next morning. But
there is one good thing connected with
such management, three out of four of
such children will die before they will
have chance of perpetuating their en-
feebled brains and bodies, to be curse to
themselves, or charge upon the charities
of society.
We plead here for the little ones. We
have had personal means of observation
as to the patience, the fidelity, and con-
scientiousness of the teachers of New
York, especially of those connected with
the Twelfth and Twentieth streets schools
for girls. Attic same time, we do OCCASION
ally feel, perhaps when in an indigo con-
dition, or when some east wind is blowing,
or the upper house is in a state insubor
dination, from sewing and patching darn
ing until past eleven the night before,
that it admits of debate whether it would
not be better to race every public-school
building to its foundation, provide all
the young ladies who are teachers with
good, thrifty, handsome husbands, and
turn the children out to grass, Literally,
because an ignorant healthy young wo-
man is worth more to the government and
worth more to her husband when she gets
one, than CARLOAD of educated skeletons,
or bags of bones, SO thin and skinny, and
lettering and frail, that literally a breath
of air puts them off their feet, and sends
them to bed 1t is better to forego edu-
cation than to sacrifice the bodily health.
But to fact: we know family which
sends two daughters to public school.
within half mile of Union Square; they
leave home at half-past eight, and return
at half past three, a duration of seven
hours. By four o'clock they have eaten
their dinners, and instead of going out to
play, they have lessons which can not be
mastered thoroughly by sitting up until
nine o'clock, and waking by six next
morning. The lessons given on Friday
afternoon are such, "because you have a
good long holiday" that they have had
to give up the Sunday school, and study
large portion of Sunday, in order to
make proper preparation for Monday
morning. Of course there is no time for
music-lessons. 1t is certainly known that
no child can become moderately well vers-
ed in piano music, unless put to it before
ten years old. The consequence is, that
the public-school children must either neg
lect their school-lessons or grow up igno-
rant of music, deprived of all the advan-
tages of well-conducted Sunday-school,
and are taught practically the constant
perversion of the proper uses of the Sab
bath-day. This view of the case is not
a whit short of horrible, and we vouch for
the literal truth of every syllable here
penned. While this is going on, the cd
itors of this city, "civil and religious, "
have not q word for the abatement of
nuisances so fearful, but are head and
ears in political or sectarian controversies,
stirring up the people to greater political
differences and to greater sectarian ami
mosities. This is :" the progress" of the
nineteenth century. On the other hand,
parents are 50 immersed in money getting,
that they give no heed to these things.
Death alone, brings them to their con-
seriousness. II see it now," said retired
merchant to us, not long ago as he gazed
on the emaciated form Of his dead daugh-
ter, just graduated at eighteen, his only
child {! abiding to her acknowledged over
application, in her ambition to maintain
herself at the head of the class.
Father said bright-eycd little girl
of twelve in our hearing to-day, "the
girls in our class who miss most, study
their lessons all the time from recess un.
til next morning" There is fearful
meaning in this, that in their effort to
master their lessons in the exhausted con.