The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-24
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

LID ODLIC OCAOOLO.
IT is matter of common complaint among
the parents of children sent to the public
schools of Philadelphia that they are still
obliged to devote large portion of their
time to the task of teaching these pupils their
lessons. This subject was agitated some
months ago, and, if we recollect Alright, it
was decided by the proper authorities that
new system should 60 into operation under
which the who'e business Of school education
was to be conducted in the schools
during the hours allotted to their
regular sessions. But this improved method
is not in practical operation at the present
moment, and while the brains of the children
are overtaxed, undue exactions are also made
upon the time and attention of obliging rela-
lives, friends, guardians, and parents. There
can be no doubt of the bad effects of this sys-
tenn. If the public are willing to afford
good easy time to the professional teachers,
and to assist in developing to an extraordi-
nary and unhealthy degree the mental
faculties of some of their brightest
pupils, it may be we'll enough to continue to
submit to such an outrage. But if the public
schools, which are sustained at an enormous
cost, are to benefcently answer the real pur-
poses of their establishment, the whole bust
ness of sending children home to learn their
lessons cannot too soon be broken up. One
of the greatest and most prolific writer's of
the present age, Bulwer, or Lord Lytton,
attributes his success to the fact that
he never devoted more than two or three
hours per day to his literary labors, giving
his whole attention to them during this
period, and spending all of the remainder of
his time in other work or recreation. This
principle has at least this application to
school instruction, that the time during
which the pupils are confined in the public
schools is as long "a period as they should
devote to any form of study. AS a rule,
children should never be compelled to spend
more than five or six hours per day
either in learning or reciting lessons; and
when this rule is violated, we
must anticipate many repetitions of the evil
which has been frequently and fearfully illus
trated in the public school system of this
city, of injuring the health and in some cases
of driving to their graves ambitious aud over
taxed young students. 1t is crime to de-
Velop brains by process which undermines
puyblCdl COnblltutlOus, uSStIONS Vitality, anu
renders all the book knowledge that gramm .r
schools can stuff into young heads worse
than useless, and it is wicked folly
for a great city to pamper such
vicious and ruinous system. If the
pupils in our public schools are usefully en-
ployed during the hours consumed in the
school sessions, that time is sufficient, in all
conscience, for the requirement of every
species of useful and important book know
ledge. If their time is not usefully spent
there must be something radically wrong or
rotten in the method of instruction, and
measures should at once be devised to i'm
prove it. At all events, it is dangerous and
wrong to continue the stereotyped plan
now generally prevailing of condning
children for five or six hours every day ia
crowded school rooms, and supplementing
1 is confinement by long and wearying
h ours of devotion to lessons at their homes.
If book education is TO be a home work, let
it be put on that basis, and the teachers be
asked merely to give an hour or two per day
to the task of hearing these lessons rected.
But youthful flesh and blood cannot endure
without serious injury the double strain now
imposed, and relief for them is imperatiyely