Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1911-07-06
Advocates Shorter School Hours.

In response to your invitation, beg
to suggest three ways in which our pub-
lie schools might be changed to the
great advantage of the American child.
writes Ellen E. Foster in a recent issue
of Golfers Weekly.
First, the hours devoted to purely
mental training are too long. When an
eight-hour day is considered a proper
working day for an adult, is not five
hours of mental effort, close confine-
ment in poorly ventilated room-and
most schoolrooms sre insufficiently ven
tliated-with more or less nervous
strain, too much for a growing child?
Is not it positive crime, when we are
realizing how great a factor fresh air is
In the cure of disease, to keep growing
children shut up indoors for five of the
best hours of the day? Moreover, this
five hours does not include the time de-
manded by many schools for home study.
With the knowledge of the twentieth
century concerning fresh air and proper
physical exercise open to him who will
investigate, are not the schools at the
very foundation of American nervous
ness? believe that morning session.
say from $50 to II, is sufficient time
for mental training. One-third of the
school day under the present system is
wasted time, because no child has the
power to be mentally alert for five
hours. 1t is a hard task for an adult.
AS result, we graduate pupils with
little power of concentration and poor
habits of application. Let US shorten
the hours of mental effort, get greater
concentration and better application.
and lengthen the school period to nine
years for the eight grammar school
grades if necessary.
The second point in which we fail is
in educating children for efficiency.
When the nation was young, children
learned to do things at home. All real
education comes through experiences.
No one really learns anything that is of
value to him until he can apply it to
some act or use it to express his own
emotions. When the industries were
taken from the home, the chiId's work
and with his work his opportunities for
responsibilities and experiences were
taken away, and nothing has been SUD-
piled to take their place, so that the
child grows into less efficient citizen.
For that reason the schools should SUD-
ply the lack, for it can come through no
other channel Therefore, in order to
make efficient citizens, we must have
vocational training, not only because
each child should be a skilled worker
with his hands in some line, but because
we must furnish that experience which
builds character and dignifes labor.
Let US devote an hour and half a dav
to vocational training.
Third and last, but by no means least.
there is the necessity for a sound BODY.
Ten minutes day for physical culture
in schoolroom! How unkind and blind
we are! If we would grow great as a |
nation, we must conserve the energies
and build the bodies of our children.
Few reach their maximum mental DOW
er with weak bodies. Let US, then. de-
vote the rest of the afternoon, say from
three to five, to carefully directed play
play-following the direc- |
lions of physicians after rigid physical
examination, and thus scientifically |
building the body into a perfect ma
chine. These three things-shorter |
hours for mental work with greater con-
centration and no home study; vocation |
al training toward some definite end. |
and every day instead of once week,
as is the case in many cities; and direct
ed gymnastic playground, in my opin-
ion Il have been teaching twenty years)
tend to benefit US greatly as nation.