Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-07-02
TOrtures of School.

J
assume such attitudes and make such
movements as are most favorable to ele-
gance of carriage and business of proper
ton. When noticed during their unre-
strained moments Of play, nothing is more
beautiful in animal life than the vigorous
boy and girl in action or during their
rare moments of repose. Their rapidity,
facility and precision of movement are
marvellous to behold. Anatomy has been
termed a hymn to Deity. It's display in
the full vitality of childhood gives the
highest expression to all its sacred music.
Divine harmony and order are most
strikingly illustrated by the free action of
the young, whose muscles, great as they
are in number and various in purpose,
are worked with such accuracy and
quickness of alienation that the only re-
suit seems to be a Uniform flow of grace
full motion.
Children, naturally so graceful in free
dom, become exceedingly awkward I'M
der constraint. No sooner do they OBJ
serve the eye Of authority upon them
than they are changed creatures. Their
heads hang, their eyes blink, their eX-
preston assumes scared look, their step
becomes hesitating, and their whole body
stiff and angular in movement. So great
is this change that the frank and flexible
child, so beautiful to sight in the play
ground, seems Only a shy and ungainly
BOBBY in the schOol-roOm.
The constraint to which the young are
ordinarily subjected in school is unneces-
sarily severe, and is apt to have very i'll
effect not only upon their bearing, but
upon their health. The fixed pastures
they are expected to assume are so repug-
nant to their organization that, however
disposed to comply, they are forced by ma
ture to resist them. The very effort they
make to obey leads to the most ungainly
variations from the perpendicular and
rectangular requirements of school de-
pertinent. The grotesque movements OBJ
served in a class of pupils while reciting
under the eye Of master are so many in
stinctive protests against his rigid rule
that they must stand, like a platoon of
soldiers, erect to their work. Fastened to
a certain spot, and forced to keep their
heads more or less upon common level,
their natural elasticity, unable to find the
vent it require, bulges out, as 1t were, in
strange and irregular movements. Some
will swing like pendulum, some twist
their two legs into the semblance Of a
plated whip-cOrd, some veX the leaves
of their books into dog's-ears, some
wrench off the buttons of their waistcoats,
some torture their pockets into holes,
some devour their handkerchiefs, and the
rest will be either squirming their bodies,
squirting perpetually, or be seized with
an irresistible fit of coughing.
Again, behold them at their forms, with
the desk of unvarying height and the
seats without back. Who would recog-
nize the graceful child of the play ground
in the crumped deformity, with tongue
lolling out, rounded shoulders, twisted
spine, sinking head, arms akimbo, and
fingers cramped over the slate or copy
book?
A continued subsection to a system of
school constraint of the kind is, of course,
destructive of all the grace with which
the young may have been naturally en-
dowed. This, however, unfortunately, is not
all the mischief. There frequently result
some serious deformities which not only
dist1gu the subjects of them for life, but
greatly impede their usefulness, imbitter
their happiness, and prove not seldom
fatal to their health. Curvature of the
spine and short-sightedness are among the
most common of these deformities, and
are generally developed during attendance
at school. There is no doubt that they
are directly caused by certain conditions
common in the school-room, and which
are highly favorable for their develop
ment. Both of these serious deformities
are to be attributed to constraint of
posture.
hortsightedness is the consequence of
an undue frightening of the axis of the
eve, and this during the period of child
hood, when the ocular apparatus is es-
pecially endowed with power of adap-
tation to distances, is frequently pro-
duced by habitually exercising the sight
upon very near objects. The child
kept bent to his book or copy
for a long period, and either for
hidden to rest his back or unable to do it
for want of proper means, has no alterna-
tive in his WEAKNESS but to bend forward
and droop his head. In thus seeking a
rest he cannot dispense with, his eyes are
brought close to the page where he is
reading or writing. This habitual prox-
iritv of sight to it's object causes the
fluids of the eve to jut forward, lengthen
its axis, and permanently shorten its
vision.
The awkward pastures assumed by the
child under the ordinary restraints of
school discipline are the main causes OF
the crooked spines so common, especially
among growing girls. Whether assumed
while standing or sitting, habitual con-
tortion of the body is sure to result in
permanent deformity of the back. The
act of resting on one leg, which will be
found as general in a class of school chill
dren as among a flock Of geese, sets at
once the figure awry, and if persisted in
day after day for long time, as it gener-
ally Is, will be sure to result IN what the
surgeons term lateral curvature of the
spine. The constrained posture at the
desk and piano is also frequent cause
OF the same affection. This is not merely
detormity but disease. The frame, IN
losing its symmetry, is deprived at the
same time OF one of its main functions.
It can no longer, as it was designed, af-
ford space for the free exercise of the
functions of the internal organs The
lungs, the liver, the stomach and the bow
els are pushed away from their original
sites and thrust one upon the other in
such a way as to hinder all business of
action. Thus comes dlsordered function
and finally organic disease and premature
death.