The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-06-09
lustrial school If there are any education.


dustrial school. If there are any education
al enthusiasts who believe that instruction in
sewing is one of the articles of salvation in
our school system, let them put their hands
in their pockets and endow special schools of
embroidery and artistic needle-work, for
common sewing takes care of itself. in virtue
of the fact that girl takes to sewing much
the same as a boy does to spinning tops and
playing base ball. Our schools are already
too much crowded with studies that overtax
/ the brain and fret the nerves. Cramming is
the curse Of our educational system. The
/ juvenile human brain is treated as a reservoir
of infinite capacity, into which an endless
stream of material is to be passed without
regard to its digestion and assimilation.
Professor Treichler, an expert in education
al matters, recently delivered lecture be-
fore the German Association of Naturalists
and Physicians, which was full of interest.
He says that headache in schools decidedly
increases, until in some schools,
] and notably in Nuremberg, one-third
of the scholars suffer from it. He be-
lieves that the cause is over intellectual exer-
ton, caused partly by the adoption of too
many subjects, but principally by the ten
dency to demand night-work. The brain is
then freshly taxed when its cells are exhaust
ed. We begin to hear the same complaint in
England especially from London schools,
and the English journals assert that in most
of them an imperceptible but steady increase
in the amount of night-work demanded has
been going on, which is passing safe limit
1t does not hurt the quick, and it does not
hurt the stupid, but it does hurt the boys and
girls who want to fulfill all demands, and
! have not quite the Quickness to do it. The
sooner that teachers act on the same intelli-
gent principle which guides the arboriculturist
in growing and tending the vegetable crea-
ton, the sooner will our numerous education
al fallacies be exploded. We want less cram
ming and forcing, for children are not like
asparagus and green peas, to be stimulated,
to an early ripeness for the delectation of
fond parents who serve up the pert and shall
low smartness of their offspring to be ad-
mired by their friends, but the raw material
of useful men and women, who can only
grow solidly by ripening slowly.
Healthy Women.
A writer, in urging the necessity for more
attention to physical culture, notes as a ia.
vorable sign, the fact that ''the pale and in
teresting" type of beauty is fast losing its
popularity, and that men of position and in
ffuence are declaring for the healthy standard
of womanly beauty, such as was ever recog-
nized by Greece and Rome. This is certainly
an important and happy change in public
taste, and already the effects of it are to be
detected in an improved condition of femi-
nine health; for it will hardly be denied that
on an average the women of to-day are phys
ically superior to what they we're few years
ago, when tight-lacing and similar destroy
ing customs prevailed.
Young women take more exercise than
they formerly did. They ride and walk
more and more in the open air. They have
not the insane dread of the suns rays which
they once had. But there is much room for
improvement yet. Many homes are still
presided over by invalid wives and mothers,
who furnish q constant spectacle of sadness
and misery to their family and friends, and
are a subject of unlimited expense to their
husbands. In such homes the greatest of all
blessings that could be hoped for would be
the health of the mistress restored; but too
often it is the one blessing which never
comes.
American homes, more than any other,
perhaps in the world, have been saddened
| by sickly women. And the remedy is SIM
pie. American men are as strong and
healthy as those Of other nations; there is
no good reason why American women should
not be. All that is needed is proper atten-
ton to dress and exercise. Let women dress
rs men do, so that their bodies shall not be
squeezed and pressed together. but have
free room for motion and let them go out
into the air and sunshine, as men do, and
exercise their bodies, and the race of Amer
/ can women will not become extinct, as it
once threatened to.
On the contrary, it will be improved,
built up and beautifed, and a time will
/ shortly come when a healthy man will not
have to hunt whole country over to find
healthy wife. We are on the right track
now; all that is needed is to go ahead and
the result will soon be manifest. Women
will die to be in fashion; therefore, let the
fashion OF female beauty be vigor and
/ strength, and all the ladies in the land will
be swinging dumb-bells, practicing archery
riding on horseback, and walking as for
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