Show are our schools injuring the bodies of our children 7 there is not a more important interest in the state slate than that the common school occupying the exclusive attention of those who are to be tiie the men and women of the next generation for many hours of each day its influence upon society can call scarcely be overrated and any error of physical training that hy by implication or by constitution it circulates becomes a erious fi rious wrong we have often queried whether there were not something decidedly wrong in the amount of time lime that the go common school demands of our children for study and in the still greater greiter amount that it spoils for recreation our city schools require and it amounts to about the same thing throughout the state that the scholar shull shall be on hand from 9 to 12 and froin from 12 14 to 3 now 5 hours would not be loo too much tor any healthful child if it with the ringing of the tiie dismissal bell there came a season of relaxation until 9 of or tiie llie next day but when we meet our boy of ten years old returning from school we find him film always loaded down with books geography astron astronomy orny physiology and a half a score of the sort beside iu several of which lie he assures us that he must get a lesson before morning and upon farther lii iti inquiry we find that except exercises in arithmetic reading spelling and writing all his studying is to be done out of school hours of or course if lie he is bri bright ht lie soon learns learus how to make short work of 1118 lils lii ili lessons and by hurried cr etolen reviews in school to stuff for recitation but if ha he is dull ne he has lias a harder lot corning coming home from school lle lie is jaded and weary ile he loathes loat lles lies the tiie ight of a book lie longs to put his old I 1 trow sers se 11 on oil and kneel in the tile gutter or on the crossing to have one good game of marbles or lie he ag louises for a game at bali ball or tag lag 1 ile he wants to expand his lungs ant stretch his les legs and shake himself u unhampered by a nice coat alid and out of the sight of grumbling teachers or guardians the prudent parent may consent to his this in the summer time but in winter there is no larger margin for play between the last hour ilour of school and tiie tile e first night than thau a supper of proper length should 0 d entirely occupy and none like to have their children out noting after dark then tilen with w ith tile coming dark the tiie lad must sit down to his books under the tile most favorable circumstances he be shares a light with the other members of tile the family and while they talk of new dresses and gossip of the days affairs he must keep his hia attention oil on problems that lie abominates or strive perpetually to commit to memory dates dales names figures in which lie he can cau have no mortal interest ile he is three times as long about it as if he had learned the same lesson in school has acquired a habit of studying lazily or rath rather r has fallen failen into a habit hadit of bf 11 mocking over books and calling it study besides finding his ins temper soured and liis his spirits broken by the constant repetition of rebukes that really kind parents and sisters inflict upon him for listening to their conversation rather than attending lo 10 his business but with tiie tile end of his labors it is bedtime and with the tiie end of breakfast it is school time lime again so whatever of recreation whatever of physical trai training nimg whatever of development of muscle 0 or r exercise of body lie gets is stolen during tile tiie week or lumped together upon ft saturday when there is no school 0 our oun u r board of education and excellent corps of afi teachers could scarcely adopt a more ingenious device to secure a generation of puny people they inject great quantities of elementary knowledge into ito the le rid ild iid and ud surfeit it where ti they ley should feed it wit with ill lii the greatest ca care re th the e body is ignored its organs recognized oni only y as things to be mortified they struggle vigorously to crowd boys in the free academy but take very feeble measures to prepare them to face the world and take part in its stern conflicts our own impression is perhaps it may be a crude and undigested one that the five and a balfor half hair or six hours a day is an ample time to detain young children upon any intellectual exercise that is not positively alluring bothem to them weare we are nota not alarmed I 1 lest on our r children should study too much they and na turc tuva conspire to prevent any such eril evil but butna nature and add the child together are incompetent to lit ift tile the wrong that our system imposes impo gesin in abbreviating the hours flours of physical exercise we are aware that some of or tile the order and fine show of the schoolroom school room must b be sacrificed if thir this doctrine is adopted but we thinks neither the health of the scholar nor the convenience of families can afford to construe our schoolrooms school rooms into mere recitation rooms ox 01 halls in which to parade the military precision of classes let the school hours be divided between recitation and study and the scholar will have time enough for exercise the tile body will be encouraged to keep pace with the tiie growing roV rovilla illg intellect the wi winter evenings will conie coma to ba b envied seas seasons omit omil of resti rests rest and for pleasant reading what is now a drudgery and a bore to so many man y the common school would become a pledis pleasure ure and of course a most certain profil profit crofit we ot observe ob servi that the boston friends of r education have taken the very ground we 41 urge ae and discourage strongly the practice of giving the public school childre children n tasks to be overcome out 0 of f school they may have gone too far but the importance of the subject warrants our careful investigation of tile the matter all such reforms he the public look to tol physicians to initiate if they sound the alarm and unite to protest against any patent evil of the sort there is no question that the authorities will soon interfere to protect the suffering of the children and save the next generation from its threatened im impotence p otence american medical monthly |