Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-09-30

the next day. The fourteen and six
teen hours a day OF healthy, active
child-life will be reduced or three or Jour.
The effect of such an entire revolution in
the life of the healthiest and most vigor-
GUS child must be very great. 1t is a tor
ture which children dread with abhor-
renee. But children must be educated,
and education cannot be obtained without
discipline and hard study. Educators are
intelligent, h~ard-worked, self-denying peo- |
pie, who nave really at heart the best in
terests OF their pupils. 1t is often the
case, however, that they are more intent
on the development OF the mere intellect
ual side of the child's nature than upon
the symmetrical development of all its
powers, physical, mental and mora, which
alone constitute a true education. Those
in charge of the general management of
the public schools are often to blame for
the evils of the school-room. They have
a limited sum Of money, and their object
seems to be to keep the teachers constant
ly occupied in craming the children during
the few months that the public schools are
open. Hencet the inelastic curriculum which
looks only to securing the greatestnumber
of perfect Rotations within a given time,
and which is made to apply to all children
in the same grade, without regard to their
physical ability to perform the task as
signed them. Teachers and those who
have charge of the public schools should
not lose sight of the fact that the sudden
withdrawal of the children from the
active and buoyant life of the vacation to
the restraint and hard study of the school
room is an entire reversal of the natural
and instructive life of the child and
should be made gradual and easy as pos
sible, and the further fact that the nervous
and delicate children should not be given
the same intellectual tasks as the more
vigorous and healthy. 1t is strange that
the torture of long confinement should
be inflicted on children by teachers
or permitted by parents when every
adult remembers and can never
forget how the nerves writhed and
squirmed under long restraint. Too much
study and too little recreation prevents
physical development and dwarfs the
brain instead OF expanding it. 1t is re-
ported that the public schools will open
tomorrow under more favorable auspices
than ever before. There will be, it is be-
lieved, quite a large increase i'll the
number of pupils and that every school
room will be crowded to its fullest capac-
ity. The two leading private schools-one
conducted by Miss Higbee, and the other
by Miss Conway, and who have no supe-
riors as educators in the United States
opened three weeks ago with a large ac-
cession to the number of their pupils and
under the most brilliant prospects. The
increase in our schools, public and pri
vate, is an unerring indication Of the in
crease in population and the genera
prosperity of the city. After a long rest
the teachers of the public schools vii
tomorrow morning resume the most la
borious, important, and yet thankless o
all avocations in life. They will do 81
with a full knowledge OF the tremendou
l responsibilities imposed upon them. Chill
dren are not like trees, or plants, or flow
ers, from whose buds we can ~accuratel
: predict what will be the future fruits. Al
acorn always produces an oak an apple
blossom is sure to ripen into IN apple;
rosebud bursts into the full-blown fragran
rose. But the child has no such certain
natural maturity, for the NEST precociou
and affiuent grow into beasts instead O
human beings, while the unpromising tow
path boy becomes the President OF tn
f United States.