Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-06-21
OYerMOrk In School.

Much has been written of late years con-
corning "high-pressure education," and es
pecially with reference to girls in our public
schools. Both sides of the question have
been ably presented. On the one hand it
has been urged that too much is exacted of
the pupils, who often become victims to the
desire for knowledge as completely as Adam
and Eve did in the Biblical garden. They
are crammed with the fruit of the tree of
knowledge until hopeless ruin is the result
If they escape with nothing worse than
chronic mental dyspepsia, they are lucky.
On the other hand, it is maintained that the
actual demands on mind and body in our
educational system are moderate and reason
able, and that the mischief which is ascribed
to the school is rather to be attributed to
faults in home training, and to additional
burdens imposed upon the young student in
outside pursuits-music, drawing, needle
work and the like-or of social amuse-
ments, which though they pass for recrea-
tion, are really hard and wearing labor.
Of course both sides, as in the majority
of such disputes, are partly right. The mere
demands of the average school curriculum
upon the average mental power of boy or
girl are not excessive. If school work is
viewed as the regular employment of the
pupil for the time, which is to be attended
to on strictly "business principles" it is
not likely to be too severe strain upon
boys and girls of ordinary capacity in fair
health. 1t is not too much, but it must be
borne in mind it is enough; and the occu-
tions of the pupif for the remainder Of his
time must be regulated accordingly. The
man who has the work of a trade or profes
sion to do cannot, as rule, attempt much
other work and the same is true of the
school-boy or schoolgirl. The surplus time
must be given either to play, or to such en-
ployment as is practically equivalent to play,
or recreation. To burden the pupil with
outside studies, or with domestic duties that
weary and worry instead of giving refresh
ing change of activity to body and mind, is
ness man do a second days werk when his
worse, for the young laborer is less able TO
endure the double strain upon his powers
On the other side it should be kept in
mind that the real strain of school upon the
pupil is not fairly measured by the amount
of work, viewed simply as work. This, in
Decd is often-and in the case of girls we
may say is generally-the least important
element in the strain. The ordinary school
course involves not only mental effort, but
nervous tension, anxiety as well as work (;
and this worry, which is not put down in
the "course Of study" and which is not
measurable or recognizable by the usual
school tests, is far more mischievous than
the work. 1t is an unknown but constant
quantity in the problem which materially
affects the final result.
1t is unfortunate that much of the school
machinery is specially adapted TO increase
this nervous tension of the pupil. The
daily "marks for rectations, the frequent
written examinations, the annual "promo-
tions depending upon marks and examina-
tions, the classification according to rank
all tend to keep the scholars in a state of
chronic excitement and anxiety, which is a
severe strain upon the nervous system.
Girls suffer from this far more seriously
than boys. They often work much harder
than their brothers, and they worry infin-
itely more. They are generally more am
bilious and more conscientious, more sensi.
tive in regard to crank" and more "ner-
yous" about all their duties and relations in
school. Not unfrequently they carry some
thing of this nervous excitement into their
very recitations. The schoolgirl who has
had the hygienic Importance of exercise i'm
pressed upon her, often sets about it as a
regular task, and is worried lest she should
do too little or too much. The boys who
fling all school cares aside when once out of
doors, and throw their whole souls into their
sports, as they may or may not into their
studies, have great advantage here over
their sisters.
But it is not the schoolgirls alone who are
liable to be the victims OF our educational
system. In an able paper in the Boston
Medical and Surgical journal, for March
9th, DIR. Robert 4. Edes calls attention TO
the fact that so many cases of "nervous
prostration," or "neurasthenia," as 1t is now
the fashion to call it, occur among female
teachers. OF ten patients under his own
care "whose cases may fairly be called
nervous prostration, seven had been teach
ers," certainly knowing that "teachng is
one way of breaking down nervous strength .
Women are more liable TO this breaking
down than men, just as school girls are
more liable TO ii than school-boys, and for
similar reasons. They worry more over
their work than men do; are less ready TO
spare themselves when they begin to feel ex-
hausted, and more obstinate in keeping at
work when really unfit for it. AS DIR. Edes
remarks, though at first il seems paradox