Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1862-05-03
Important 10 Parent. and Teachers.

When a child comes in fresh from the play, says
the Scientific American, with the blood bounding
through his veins, his brain is full of life and
vigOr, his ideas all clear and he can learn
in fifteen minutes than he can in two hours after
his brain is fatigued and his whole system has be-
come languid by confinement ut his desk. From
pretty extensive inquiry we are satisfied that the
present murderous system of long confinement in
school is continued BY want of frankness between
parents and teachers. Nearly all parents are op-
posed to the practice, but it is kept up by the
teachers under the mistaken idea that they will
give dissatisfaction by reducing the hours of their
own labor. Not only should the gross amount of
study be greatly diminished, but recesses should
be more frequent Thirty minutes is quite long
enough for any young child to study, and one hour
for a child of any age. The human brain is not
like steam engine. that the longer you it the
more you get out of it. What the brain can do de-
pends wholly upon its condition. Any person can
accomplish more mental labor in one hour when
the brain is in healthy and active state than he
can perform in a month when the brain is tired and
exhausted.
Among the parliamentary papers recently issued
in England, are two small volumes containing some
information collected by Mr.. Edwin Chadwick du-
ring the recent education inquiry. Mr.. Chadwick
shows in these papers that the present practice of
long hours of teaching is wide cause of enerva-
ton and predispostiOn to disease, and induces also
habits of listlessness and dawdling The half-time
system is found to give nearly, if not quite, as
good education as the whole time and common
sense tells us that boy who has acquired the
amount of knowledge in half the time of another
boy, must have obtained proportionately superior
ndbit IF mental activity 1t is this alertness COM
bined with the bodily aptitudes created by drill,
that gives the comparatively stunted boys of the
town preference over the strong, robust lads from
the coast. Good schoolmasters say that about
three hours day as long a bright, volun-
tary attention on the part of children can be Sc
cured, and that in that period they may really be
taught as much as they can receive all beyond the
profitable limit is waste. Hence it is urged that
part of the present long school hours be devoted to
gymnastc exercises or drill. part of the system
of education, that the half-time system be more
adopted. 1t is a frequent complaint by runaway
apprentices and vagrant children, that the work to
which they were first put was really very painful
to them; but children, while at school, might be
gradually introduced and accustomed to labor and
exertion. Early physical training would remove
congeniai defects or bodily weakness. 1t is esti-
mated that an addition of at least fifth might be
made to the efficiency and value of boy as
laborer in after life-an addition equivalent, in the
mass, to the produce of the one-ffth more of pop
ulatiOn, without the expense of additional food,
clothes or shelter to maintain them.