Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-04-14
For the Spy.l
The Health of school Children,

The Health of school Children.
The question whether q due regard for the
general welfare of the rising generation requires
shorter daily sessions of the public schools in
this city, has now been several weeks before the
school committee. AS, however, the board
rarely comes together oftener than once in a
month, the proposed innovation has not yet
been made the subject of any decisive action
Honest differences of opinion exist in regard 10
the necessity of a change that must be made IN
| all, if in any, of the schools; and htte tllne
may be well spent in deliberatioh before passing
a vote that can be easily Interpreted as formal
acknowledgements of the physical degeneracySof
our native population.
AT the regular meeting of the committee in
March, a petition was received asking that the
Pleasant-street schools might be kept but five
instead of six hours day. This petition was
signed by very large majority of the parents
Of the pupils and is said to be supported by the
opinion of nearly all the physicians in the city.
The injury that the children are receiving
arises, it is asserted, not so much from excessive
mental exerton, as from the confinement and
the impure atmosphere Of the school rooms.
Having thus stated what is the strong argu-
ment on one side of this question, it will not be
amiss to say word in defense OF the school
system, as at present administered.
Iu the first place, it may be claimed that both
family government and school government have
been gradually loosening the rein for half CEN
fury or more. Solomon's injunction in regard
to sparing and spelling has become antiquated.
| 1t would be invidious to cite the misanthropic
sneer,-uDjust in any general application
parents are now ruled by their children, still it
is almost everywhere manifest that balyhood
and youth have their own way more than is for
their good. Not only private but public schools
are altogether pleasanter places than they were,
when men now tottering on their "shrnnk
shanks" were whining schoolboys. Teacher and
| tyrant are no longer Synonymous terms as they
| used to be when the birch rod and the
| ferule were considered the most approved
stmulants of educational progress, and
when the dismal, grim, freezingy venti-
lated schoolhouse was tolerabe only as dreary
refuge from despotic government at home. In
these days, the hardships and asperitieS of the
old system have been varously softened and re-
lieved by the introduction of music, gymnastics,
and diversified exercises; harsh, repulsiVe dis
cipline has nearly disappeared; teachers are no
longer cold and reserved, but kind and concilia-
tory; and the amenities of higher civilization
beguile the irzsomeness of school life to such
an extent that very little-possiby too little
remains Of the rigorous restraint that in some
cases cast a sombrous cloud over childhood, in
the stern old times of the Puritans.
Nevertheless, in spite of all these ameliora-
tions, formidable array of medical testimony
has just been brought against the schools, some
of it going so far as to denounce them as hot-beds
of disease and premature old age. Arguments
drawn from the history of the time-honored
system OF popular education, hitherto the glory
of New England, avail nothing; for if former
generations of school children survived the
| "middle passage" between infancy and maturity
it was only through sheer Obstinacy or ignor-
ance of the laws of hygiene, just as even now
a-days an invalid sometimes has the etfrontery,
to get well, after all the doctors "have given him
Overp
The atmosphere of the public school rooms,
1t must be admitted, is not always of the purest.
Neither, on the other hand, is the ventilation of
domestic apartments what it should be- The
great attention that ventilation has received
within the last quarter of a century, has indeed
been much more devoted to public than TO pri-
vate buildings,-to school houses perhaps more
than to any other edifices. Confinement in hot,
close rooms, at home, is doubtless the occasion
Of much sickness. 1t might indeed be difficult
to prove that majority of the children in this
city breathe less wholesome air where they re-
cite their lessons, than they do where they eat
and sleepl
However this may be, foul air enough is
doubtless inhaled outside the schooLrooms to
impair the health, more or less, of majority of
the entire community, young and old! Con-
ceding, for the sake of argument, however, the
full extent of the evils complained of, an
abridgement of school hours may not be the one
indispensable remedy. Surely, club and sis,
taking gymnastic exercise in the fresh air pour
ing into the school-room windows Wednesday
morning, ought to be as well off as they are
dancing, in a close, dusty hail. to squeakng
fiddle Wednesday afternoon! If not, why not?
Cannot, also, the exercises of the schools be
changed? OF course, very easily. Let there be,
for the lower grade schools, three recesses each
half day; let there be more singing, more gym
nastics, more opening of doors and windows.
This is not difficult to be done. Even the faying
of felines is not restricted to a single method,
and there certainly should be various ways to
preserve the rosy cheeks of school children,
rather than to turn them loose for a single addi-
tional hour, to learn immortality in the public
streets. Before shortening the school sessions,
some experiments, as above suggested, ought
certainly to be tried When every other eXpe-
dent shall have failed it will be time enough to
curtail the precious hours of study,-doubly
precious to the poorer half of the population,
to many of whom this depriving their children
of one-sixth part of their schooling, as SANTA
ry measure, would seem ridiculous, were it not
felt to be grievous wrong. j.