The Rock Island daily Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1872-1873, 1873-08-16
A GREAT ABUSE.
Day Schools Sunday Schools, Eyes and Health

Little bows and girls who are overtasked
will thank us for republishing the Iollow-
inc communication. which we found in a
Chicago paper, on subjects alluded to in
the heading of this article;
A good thing may be run INTO the
cronrd We are said to have the best
Common schools and Sunday schools III the
world. This may be true 4ut 'Rey may
be fatally overdone, Let hr, arlaDle
Bateman keep on as he has peeh uoiig Tor
several years past tluSerilS WIN the
school law, and with his puol,c motions
about teachers and teaching ana II the leg
islature or the people pay any attention to
what he says our common SCHOOLS Will
soon degenerate TO having but TWO objects
first to ruin US with taxes ana second,
TO kill off our children
wish to saw few words about the pre-
sent ,ausage- stufHg tendencies of the
present approved manner OF teaching,
The God of heaven has so arranged
things. that bows and girls have, or should
| have from twelve TO fifteen years at least
To acquire a proper schooi education. But
the fact is especially ignored by modern
teachers, particularly those OF the higher
yr.des in our graded schools. Teachers
/ having attained to high wages have too
/ hich q calling to submit to drudgery, but
/ thpv must make IA show OF giving back
..yane received" So they dispense with
/ fsorbiug. and convert their rooms into
mere recitation rooms where the pupils
are required to recfS the whole six
/ hours of the schoo. day. At the
close of school for the day each
pupil is loaded with text books and
sent home, in each of which he, or she, is
required to learn before the opening of
school the next morning lesson, the
length and difficulty Of which plainly indi-
cate that the teacher cannot appreciate the
fact that twelve year-old girl cannot
learn as much in one night as said teacher
only acquired by fifteen or twenty years
learned, or woe 10 the delinquent. No
matter how the ewes OF bones may ache.
No matter how weary the whole body or
brain may be. No matter how long or
hard the tasks No assistance only from
father and mother, who, though perhaps
good scholars, when Brown, Dabol, Web
ster and Morse were in vogue, find them
selves totally incompetent to comprehend
the nonsensical iargon and crotehets of
modern approved text books. No time
for play. 10 time to rest, and hardly time
to sleep The fact entirely ignored that
eyes and health are tar more precious than
book learning. To such an alarming ex-
tent is this fatal nonsense insisted upon by
our high priced teachers, that iudici0us
parents consider ii their duty to invent ex
cuses from time u time 10 keep their
children out of school, in order to save
them frem ruin of both body and mind.
So it goes during the week. Then Sun
day comes, and with Sunday, the Sunday
school. Nobody cal belong 10 the IF. F.
/ Y. $ unless he sends his children 10 the
Sunday school $ the little ones are
primmed up in Their Sunday starch and
/ Sunday tnggery. and driven off to the
I church where they are put through a
course of sprouts aoout Nebuchadnezzar.
/ Belshazzar, Judas. Maccabees. or some
other old biblical -odger who has been
dead long enough IN all reason to be de-
Gently forgotten Then the librarian comes
around and distributes the books from
the library, and into each schol-
ars hand he puts Hocei-none of
your yellow back sinners, that would be
against the discipline, but a novel with Il
religious squint AM moral tale. and your
little girl who has had to study So hard all
theweek TO evade the tender merctes of an
over taSking teacher, is required to take
home with her To b. read through during
the week. one Of taose piOus books, con
tanning from 400 10 900 pages We were
( taught in the old caiechism, that the chief
object OF man is I. glurify God and enjoy
! Him forever. That is played out The
chief object Of the cniing man or woman
Rotc, Judging from the action OF Sunday
schools in the premises, is to read every
week, to the exclusion Of every useful &C
cupation, and Ia the detriment of health. a
huge religious novel, the size of which
ought to condemn any Sunday school which
dispenses it.
| have always believed in Sunday
schools, butwith Their Nebuchadnezzar and
Belshazzar lessons, and their huge Sunday
school books, my judgment is that a ride
on the cars or steamboat, trip To the
country, OF a dance on the grass plat IN
Sunday, would be better for both the
health and morals q the children.
Another thing This sausage stuffius
business must be stopped, both in commcn
schools and Sunday schools, or anywhere
else tor that matter. as applied to Chi
dren, or all the god boys and girls viii
prematurely die, or grow up to be race
of imbeciles. while those boys that wouldn t
be stuffed, whip II no whip, will, whel
they grow up, be the leading men and
women Of the land