The Portland daily press., 1886-07-10
SCHOLARS AND THEIR STUDIES.

The effect of the courses of study upon the
health of the children in our public schools
is subject of more than passing interest.
If the evil effects of study are so great as
asserted by some physicians and teachers,
the subject rises to the dignity of great
social problem. 1t certainly is worthy of the
most thoughtful consideration Of the teach
ers of the land; and of the discussions at
Bar Harbor this week none have been of
more practical interest than President Hyde's
paper on ''0yerwork in the Public Schools"
He presented the answers of one hundred
and fifty teachers and physicians to a series
of questions concerning the health of pupils
in public schools OF these only five found
oyerwork an important cause of poor health.
One hundred said that there was no over
work in the schools of their cities, and the
remainder found merely individual cases.
Nearly all attributed whatever evil effects
there are in the system Of school work, not
to oyerwork, but to the worry and excite
ment occasioned by the system of grading
and too frequent and severe tests. All were
unanimous in their complaint of the bad
effects of social dissipation on school girls.
Over heating and lack of ventilation in
school rooms were specially noticed as seri-
Gus evils in half the schools of large cities
and towns and well nigh universal in the
country regions.
The conclusions to be drawn from these
answers are that the work itself is response
bic for only small part of the physical harm
wrought by the schools. The responsibility
of by far the greater part must be laid to the
grading system, the accommodations of the
school room, and the home training. 1t is
probable that parents themselves are respon-
sible for greater part of the evils which
they attribute so readily to the studies of
the school. With scholars of highly sensa-
tive temperaments the ranking system may
operate injuriously, but such cases are prob
ably few. A much more serious evil than
this is undoubtedly the poor accommodations
afforded by the school rooms; but this is
gradually being remedied. In the home
training that the scholars, and especially the
girls, receive, there is little apparent i'm
proyement, though perhaps this may be ac-
counted for by the slowness with which such
reforms are brought about. A master of
the Girls High and Normal School of Bos-
ton, who is said to have spent the first hour
of the day in going from room to room, at
the call of the teachers, to see pupils who
had tainted or vomited, or were in ''spasms,"
in Mysteries, or in some other way had come
to pass which alarmed the inexperienced,
attributed these phenomena unhesitatingly
to fatigue, insufficient sleep and want of an
adequate breakfast-a meal which these
girls were too tired to eat, or which they did
noe think worth wasting time upon, when
home duties demanded their cooperation,
morning lesson was to be looked over, or a
neglected task to be made up. In dis
course before the Massachusetts Medical So
ciety this year, one of the physicians who
had given the subject careful attention, sta
ted this as his conclusion:
The alleged overpressure in schools is, in the
main, a fallacious assumption. Sound study is an
advantage, il the general rules of health are at
tended to, and for one youthful person injured by
excessive application there are hundred whose
vw VIZ mental exercise. The special provo
catives of delicate health in young females
in great part social. The deleterious influences of
a multiplicity OF engagements, of the exactng de-
mands of ambition, fashion aud gayety-and not
unfrequently of an early betrothal-are intensified
the so called weaker sex.
In a widely read report on educational ov-
tIpIessuue III LoHuol, pupHoHou Wy oh
James Crichton Browne, two years ago, he
stated that of $3.50 school children examined,
1904 or more than as per cent. suffered from
headache. He attributes this state of things
largely to innutritious and insufficient food,
and takes pains to say that partial and occa-
sional starvation is not confined to children
of the lowest class.
To attribute to the teacher and the studies
the calamities which are almost wholly the
fault Of the parents is a very frequent and
natural way of accounting for the pale faces
and lstless actions of school girls and a few
school boys. But it is hardly just; and the
instructors at Bar Harbor do well to improve
their opportunity for denying the charges
which are made so carelessly against our
school system.