The Dickinson press., 1889-11-30
SPARE THE CHILDREN.
DO NOT STUFF THEIR HEADS BE-
FORE THEIR BODIES ARE STRONG.

FORE THEIR BODIES ARE STRONG.
Ruinous Effects of Rushing the Little Ones
Into Schocl-Thcy Should he Given Time
to Stretcl, Thcir Jimbs-A Warning to
Mothers.
"But she is five years old, and don't
know her letters"
"Well, good woman" replied our fam
fly doctor, "your little 5-year-old is as
blooming as a rose. Why not keep her
so for n lifetimc?'
My wife was sure she would only be
too glad to do so. But how? The wise
old man replied: "By keeping her out of
the hot, close school room just rs long
as possible"
The child never entered a school house
till she was 8 years old. She could read
at z, but how she learned no m knows.
No effort whatever was made to teach
the child anything from books. Yet
within n year she swiftly traversed
all that many children are compelled to
drag themselves ovcr in drudgery from
five to ten years. MOI is she any more
than ordinarily intellectually endowed.
She is, however, of robust health, of iron
nerve, of great vitality. The physician
was right. Thanks to him, the little girl
is well launched.
Nothing can exceed the unspokcn mis-
cry of childhood sent into the prison of
school before its time. Mute, inglorious
suffering. Alittle fellow of my acquaint-
ancerecently caught sight of u weeping
willow" as VIC stopped at a railway sta
ton on the Boston and Maine railroad.
1t stood nca a blacksmith Shop. "Why
do they call them weeping willows"
asked a lady of Il party. "Causc they
gently grow near school houses" was
the lads instant reply.
The useless grind, as it seems to the
child, before any sort of interest is taken
in the studies, must appear to him moth
ing else but pure cruelty. A tyranny
that he is powerless to resist fastens him
into a scat-for what? He is a reason
able little creature and he can see nc rea-
son whatever for this imprisonment.
There is no motive whatever. Men toll
for a motive. The child of five or six
SSttlS SttIl lllNS LO lIlOUlNc lOk lIlc SCllOOl
toll, except to crafty the unreasonable
parent.
To make q child love school is impossi-
bic. To enticc his interest forth with
skillful effort is possible with almost any
child. BY eight years old, say, he IAN be
made aware of the great world into
which learning is the window. He loves
a story by that time. He wants you to
read to him as often as you can find
time these three or four years past. Now
tell him to read to himself. He wants
nothing so much rs to "bc q man like
father" Well. what does his father, all
day at the Office? lie practices this "hate-
full arithmetic" adding and %subtracting,
multiplying and dividing. You can't be
a man, my boy, unless you have whiskers
and know the multiplication table.
"You are as tall as I am" says his
mother; ''but I am q woman, who can
add and substract. Will you allow mo-
thcr to distance you? You are head and
shoulders above little Tom. Equal him
in knowledge: ho a speak a piece like
al orator." In short, you must and now
a easily touch his self esteem. Be-
sides, you will not succeed. And if you
should succeed, your child would be a
sort of unnatural creature, neither in
fantile o manly. Everybody can be
enticed, charmed, led into a good course
far better than driven.
"Why IRE not the good things all as
lovely as the bad thingsy" child once
asked me. They are-far more so. Ig-
norance is hateful. knowledge is love-
ly. But we are just beginning to pro-
coed on this line in schooling. All, that
old red school house at the cross roads,
where many Of us begun! Contrast its
hard bench, its small windows, its box
stove, rosy hot on one side and emitting
smoke through q crack on the other
contrast it with the new elegance of the
modern kindergarten. Think of the
mean books, the learning by rote with
out a particle of understanding-the COM
mingling of big boys and little, girls and
boys indeed; the culture of rudeness by
strength toward weakness; and I remem-
Der that even the pretty farmers girls
took on hearish manner in the struggle
of the promiscuous playground. The
world moves. No one thing in this great
century deserves more notice than the
emancipation of the school child from
many of his woes which we fathers re-
member.
Yet the forcing process remains. Too
young, they are sent to school. Hear
me, all you ambitious parents! l plead
for q little more time to expand the
chest, to stretch the limbs, to preserve
and strengthen the young eyes, to attune
the young spirit with a sure belief that
there is such q thing as having a good
jolly time In this toilsome world.
BY every sigh that escapes a weary
mans lips: 81 wish I were a child
again" By every golden sky that glows
IN woman's vision as she takes the back.
ward look. By the memory of sleer
that came as soon as we touched the pill.
low, and u waking as fresh as Il new
birth. By the echo of joy that comes
even now as you hear far off the CRY OF
eli spy" and the shout of the victor in
the happy games of the past that will
never come to you again. BY the hope
of Saturday, and no school," which
thrilled you once as no hope of fortune
ever did in later, sterner years. BY
sweet little friendship fit for the gods
alas, how many are broken never to be
restored! By all that childhood ever
was to the most favored reader of these
lines, 1 pray you see that your child has
a happy childhood. And since school is
necessary, see to it that tho school con.
forms to this purpose of yours, Let moi
the teacher be a bandit to rob your child
nor the room a prison. In no one way
can You do more to these cody ends
than by insisting hat your little one:
shall not begin prematurely. Give then
time. Remember that time is theirs
1t is you who are hurried, for your tim,
is shortening. A child's time is vel
'ong.-Hankley Harker in New Yorl
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