Year: 1871

Immediately dangeroua to body or soul ?
Mothers send their children TO school to
get them out of the way and IL they
come home tired at night, all the better,
for weariness insures quiet. Whether
the children learn at school or not, or II
they are diligent whether their studies
are q profit, or merely o vexation-these
questions are made of secondary inn
portance. Yet as the child grows to man.
hood, sooner or later time comes when
he sits down, not In sentimental rem0rse
over time misspent, but in regret that OPP
portunity was not given him to acquire
information that he must do without, or
acquire by sacrifices he cannot affordH
But children's time is not wasted in
| play-far from II. Any one who OBJ
serves the gravity and selfconsciousness
of American children will wish that, even
il they never see book, time may be had
for them to spend in hearty, rollicking
fun TO cure them of premature old age,
Let them play all they will let them
have abundant time to sleep and grow
there is more danger of giving them too
little than too much-and we shall still
find that all play and no work is not only
improbable; but impossible for our Jack.
Jack must learn. 1t is what he is hero
for, and he is willing and eager for work,
not lazy and stupid If he appear so,
nine cases in ten it is the fault of igno-
rant or impatient parents and teachers
The trouble is, that he is set to learn
things that he doesn't want to know, and
doesn't need to know, while he isprompt-
ly snubbed il he venture to inquire about
things in the world that really do interest
him.


We have in mind one Jack, who is fast


4 1. a, Ii
of his country. The subject doesn't dis
please him. He likes that, especially the
Indians and the wars. But he is made to
learn not history, but the words of the
book and in the recitation business he
may as well mistake johnson for John
Smith as skip an adjective. The author.
of Jacks book is " a successful teacher"
(his name is Muddle) but his early edu-
cation was neglected, for all that. His
grammar is not always good; his rheto-
ric is always bad, and he never deviates
into liveliness. Now, we protest that it
is a wicked squandering of time to make
Jack commit to memory every paragraph
of Mr.. Muddle's history. If his memory
must be cultivated, let it be by some
thing worth the learning, not the long,
dry seesaw of an intolerable school-room
history.


This is only an example of the boys
troubles. He wrestles manfully, but hope
lessly, with English grammar; is pushed
too fast into new difficulties in arithmeticI
and tortured by long-tailed names in ge-
ography. Instead of being allowed to
take his mental food and digest it in
natural way, he is made to swallow it in
great boluses, and is fast becoming vic
tim of intellectual dyspepsia. We are
told, too, that there are several hundreds
Tor thousands) of children in the city
where Jack lives whose troubles are the
same as his. 1t is a pattern city; but
somehow the schools don't seem to be
conducted for the children, but to the
glory of ''the system" and the result sug-
gests that we need less so-called system
and more science in the management of
schools The kindergarten promises
something for the youngest children; but
where shall we find hope for some equal
reform for children too old for the kin
dergarten


UnproitablS study is the great source
of time wasted in schools. 1t is not true
that all study is good. That which is ex-
pended upon matters too difficult for a
child's mind, or uncongenial to it, is bad.
Bad, because it is Intellectual, and there
fore wasteful and bad, because it induces
state of mind to which even proper
studies are distasteful. We must abandon
the theory that the object of schools is to
train all children to certain mental stand
ard. That theory results in a system that
teaches children too little, though it may
at the same time work them too hard
that is a system that wastes time instead
of ecSnomizing it. The better and more
economical idea is, that schools are to aid
children, by means suited to their differ
ent natures, to gain a certain degree of
mental strength. Certainly in some way
they must conform to reason in the mat
ter of saving time, for it is one of immense
practical Importance, if not to us imme-
diately, to our children. The education
of the next generation is in our hands, and
we have no more right to squander its
time, by our negligence, than we have
willfully to waste the property or destroy
the institutions which will be its rightful
/ nheritance-He0Fshd and Home


Nor A SATISFACTORY EXPERIMENT