Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-10-06
MORNING APPEAL.
NOTES AND QUERIES.

not made their appearance. When they reach
this sanctum sanctorum we shall see what we
shall see. Meantime word from this unac.
customed hand Your unworthy Querist is
conscious of having shared the advantages and
disadvantages of the back seats and the foot
of his classes, yea, and the corrective rod, in
the days of his school-going. Latin grammar
and Greek Roots he believed to be an inven-
ton of the Tormentor. Arithmetics he held
in parallel estimation with castor-oil, calo-
mel and the tooth-ache ; he fed from the
fathomless riddles of Algebra-that intensified
outbreaking of the mathematical jim jams,
whose symbols are craze and whose prob
lens are the pitiable, pathetic, hopeless calm
of settled lunacy-as from the buzzing below
ings and mad incoherences of very Bedlam
He is not therefore in any sense a scholar nor
entitled to any jurisdiction in matters of
school teaching or the forms and phenomena
of pedagoguery. But Ito assume the traditional
pronoun, which is easier), we do heartily sym
pathise with those children who do not and
cannot like their school books, who hate the
hitting to it with patient obedience) and we
do believe that it would be advantageous to
all concerned, teachers, scholars and parents,
if our school-rules called for fewer hours of
study and teaching. In some of the Eastern
States the plan has been adopted of keeping
the school but five hours-from in the morn
ing till l in the afternoon-and then dismis-
sing all hands for the day. This plan contem-
plates a recess-say from half past eleven till
twelye-of thirty minutes. The plan in vogue
here is the old six-hour plan-the old head
ache breeder and truant maker Now if we
the were directing these affairs we would have
pupils meet at 8 and stay till II, then a half
hours recess and lunch, then at it again for
another two hours stretch-till half past /
and then out into the free air and the health
full sunshine and the equally healthful mis-
chief for the rest Of the day. -Four hours of
study is enough for anybody, big or little
and any more than that wears out the impa-
tient and imposes on the studious. Indeed,
that is what the schools do, too often-break
and bride the FESTIVE until they cannot learn
if they would, and ride the free horse to death.
We who have charge of the minds and bodies
of the little folk act as if there was constant
pressing need of hurry; and We force the
minds of our boys and girls as if they were SO
many tomato vines or prize gooseberries. |
Look beyond the school days and see what |
commonly happens. What proportion of the
late school children cudgel their brains with |
as much as one hour per day of study! You
try it, Mister Adult of the hard head and
rigid notions,-you try it as much as half
hour a day of Sallust or Bowditchs
or Trench on the Study
Of Words or Yam on the Atonement if
you will, and see how much of a task it is
Try sitting on jury, catching flies and list
ening to the romantic law pedantics of the
and see now you like the confne
ment. The hoary edges of fifty heave into
the horizon and are not afar off; but, in
wholesome dread of the unbearable irksome-
someness of the schoolrom, we do not sigh
for return of the days when December was
Ill mirth and July the climax of all earthly
1eatedness. Moreover, we have a half formed
notion that there is an effort on the part of
III teachers (the task being imposed on them
oy very faulty system), to teach too many 1
Kings to the same scholar at the same sitting.
We do believe that ION an average) all at
empts at imparting knowledge before the
,upil can read intelligently are so much time
nd labor wasted Here is little girl, for
Example, who finds the big words difficult of
limbing She must not only have her read
ng lesson, but her lessons in arithmetic, ge-
,graphy and writing. Now, suppose we were
o wait until she had become a ready and pro-
icent reader Could not and would not she
earn what is required of her in the way of
igures and knowledge of the topography of
his world great deal more readily We
believe SO. ct will be noted that we have
lot got over our early dislike for school going l
nd school discipline, and so are disposed to I
riticise the practices now in vogue. We may
re all wrong about the matter but it seems h
o our understanding that the present order s.
f things might we'll be simplifed and made h
ess comprehensive, pretentious and exacting I
We take the liberty Of hoping that what we a
aid may receive consideration with the Pow !,
rs that be, even tho our ideas should be 1
dealt with at the smutted end of i,
air of tones. Speaking of the business