Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-03-14
THE SCHOOL MACHINE, WORRY.
DIR. d. f. wright's Report on school Hy-
giene.

!, pCJlJIOu WHICH aLlcctS uiOSt ThLIlt
{ lower down in the scale, and some {
4 them more profoundly, perhaps, tina
t the class above described; at least
: larger number are brought under il
influence. | speak of the incessln
} push 10 keep scholars up with th
stu les of their grades which the
hoe to do under penalty of falling I
a lower grade. This peculiar stimuli
, takes effect upon a larger numbe
/ than any other, and is in fact the chic
motor-power which keeps the who'll
in motion. 1t differs from that pre-
viously described in this, that the ex
citing motive in the one is the hope o
getting ahead, in the other the fear o
falling behind-of losing grade, il
short Now, hope is an elevatine
agency, fear depressing one. Here
comes in that peculiar state of mind
now thoroughly recognized by ner
vous pathologists. called by them
worry. 1t was first used, / believe, by
Forbes Winslow, in reference to nu
merous cases of dementid occurring
among business men. 1t was shown
that, in most cases, it was not overex.
ertion that produced insanity, or al
least not that alone, but excessive la,
Dor under depressing circumstances
overwork, with fear and despair in the
background; thus, while business is
prosperous, healthy man can get
through an astonishing, amount ol
work without iujury, but let the
affairs become involved with daily in
creasing complications ominous oi
/ fail laf bn h.,s
its exactions on theover wrought brain,
while hope gives away to ioreboding,
and foreboding 10 dread, and dread TO
despair-then the harrassed brain gives
way under the double burden OF work
and dependency, and our lunatic
asylums are full of oorTy so produced.
Worry then is the prevailing trouble
of large schools in which the machine
is worked with vigor and energy char
acteristic OF the modern public school
system. A boy finds himself literally
part of great machine there, a single
wheel, perhaps, but the machine works
on and he must work with it or be
crushed by it; he feels that he must
keep up with the machine and make
his grade, and he feels every day less
able to do so; failure implies disgrace,
loss OF self-respect and seli-conhdence,
grieved and, perhaps, angry parents,
the jeers of shool-lellows; he redoub-
les his efforts and goes home with
headache-ultimately sickness com.
pels him to desist, he loses days, per-
haps weeks, and finally the grade.
Fortunate is he if no more permanent
injury is done to a nervous system
subject to such tension. Added TO all
these notifications is an underlined
sense of injury; he feels that he is not
less intelligent than those who trample
him down in the race, he can't tell
why, and he is right, for it is not the
stupid and naturally defective alone
who fail under this trial; frequently
the beaten scholar has better mind
than he who walks over him. At the
risk OF prolixity, must here distin-
guish two types Of youthful intellect
not sufficiently Disseminated between
in school practice-they are the per-
ceptive and reflective types. The
perceptive boy catches an idea quickly
retains it well, and applies it promptly,
he is bright and active in school and at
play; the machine works well with
him, and his advance is rapid; his
teacher makes brag scholar of him
but his is not the best mind there.
The reflective boy does not take it in
50 quickly, from the very fact that rs
the seed falls in deeper soil it takes it
longer to sprout; his quicker rival
sees thing at once, if he sees it ut
all; the reflective boy has 10 reason it
out, and this takes time; the machine
cannot stop for all this; he is passed
over and, as this takes place frequently
he is gradually recognized as the stupid
boy OF the class. The effect on the
boy himself depends upon his nervous
organization; if it is sentitive and ir-
ritable, he wears himself out with
futile efforts to keep up; il it is less
impressible he gradually subsidies with
sullen contentedness into the stupid
boys place, falling grade after grade,
until his friends conclude his case to
be hopeless, and put hlm at some |
work they hope he can do. But stupid |
boys OF this sort have become some OF |
our greatests men. Sir Isaac Newton,
Sir Walter Scott, and hosts of other |
men, illustrious for intellect, were rec |
ognized as stupid boys at school, and |
the phenomenon has been often stated
and wondered at that, in so many |
cases, stupid school boys have become |
men of vast intellectual power. The
solution is that, not they but their
teachers were stupid in not recogniz-
ing type of intellect which required
other than machine methods for its
development.
But it is not with those who have
survived the blunders of their school
and become great men that
| am now concerned; it is those who
have more excitable nerves and less
stalwart frame, whose nerves have
been torn to pieces by the inexorable
of the machine, and whose
spirit is cowed by repeated failure,
that are the victims of the machine.
| am not writing from theory, but
from observation. | have not only
been engaged in education myself in
carly life, but have been for several
years a member OF the Board ol Edu
cation, in Clarksvllle, where the public
schools are among the best in Ten
nessee, and the system of instruction
includes all the modern improve
ments. AS a part of the duties Of that
office, have practiced a constant in
,pection OF the schools while at work,
and familarized myself with the meth
DDS Of teaching and discipline and
their results.
And what are these results Als,
cannot give statistics for them, for
such results have never been tabulated,
and cannot be tabuIated; they are
read in their effects in after life, pro-
lucing helpless, hysterical women,
md feeble, irritable men, producing
and as their extreme results,
epilepsy, insanity and idiocy. / am
that this will be looked upon
Is exaggeration, and have no remedy
ior that impression, though am GER
ain that it is within the truth. One
act, however, j can state In the
grammar department of the schools |
lave mentioned, consisting OF a num-
per OF scholars varying from 120 TO
)yer 200, five cases OF chorea occurred
Turing the session which closed last
Tune; the cases yielded readily TO
treatment while the patients were re-
moved from the school, but the malady
Ilways returned il they returned 10
heir desks. Now, it will be said that
i've cases out OF two hundred scholars I
8 not very serious amount OF disease,
,ut take it as test of the tenden-
lies OF the school system. Mr.. Ruiz, I
N the French dictionary of medicine,
inds 1S9 cases OF chorea out Of 32S