bulwarks of virtuous habits and beliefs, in the children yet at home. We need the utmost stretch of home and school influence to save society and the State from the terrible domination of military ideas and military forces, always so dangerous to civil liberty and free government. 1 Your Mission. If you cannot on the ocean sail among the swiftest fleet, If you are too weak to journey up the mountain steep and high, If you cannot in the conflict prove yourself a warrior true, If, when fire and smoke are thickest, there's no work for you to do— If you cannot in the harvest garner up the richest sheaves, And it may be that the shadows hide the heaviest wheat of all. If you have not gold and silver ever ready at command, If you cannot toward the needy reach an ever open hand, Do not then stand idly waiting for some nobler work to do, EUROPEAN Savants are debating the proposition of M. Von Gumpach, who has issued several books and pamphlets arguing that the earth is not a compressed but a prolate ellipsoid, or in other words, that it has not the figure of an orange, but of a lemon. Public Schools from the Doctors' Point of View. At a regular meeting of the Middlesex East-District Medical Society, in July, 1865, the subject of the influence of our public schools on the health of the children attending them being under discussion, a committee was appointed to report in full on the subject, which was done in September; and after much discussion, the same committee was directed to prepare, in as concise form as possible, some practical advise for avoiding certain dangers now threatening the health of the children in our schools. This second report was submitted to the Society in November last, and discussed as before, when the same committee was directed to publish the suggestions with such additions in the way of explanation as might seem advisable. This they now do in the following maxims, which may be considered to embody the deliberate opinion of the members of the Society. MAXIMS: 1st. No child should be allowed to attend school before the beginning of its 6th year. Because the whole of the first five years of life are needed to give the physical nature a fair start, which would be prevented by the confinement and restraint of the school-room: because up to that time every child has enough to do in learning to use its limbs and senses, to talk, to obey: because extended experience has proved that the children who have never been to school before they are five years old make more rapid progress than those who begin their school life earlier. 2d. The duration of daily attendance (INCLUDING time given to recess and physical exercise) should not exceed 4 hours for the primary schools; 6 hours for the other schools. Because the liability to injury of both mind and body from sedentary application is in proportion to the youth of the student, and because as much can be accomplished in this time as in a longer attendance, which is only a weariness to both flesh and spirit. 3d. There should be No study required out of school, Schools; and this SHOULD NOT EXCEED ONE HOUR, unless at High Seven hours of study being as much as most adult scholars can bear, it is folly to suppose that immature minds in growing bodies can endure more. 4th. Recess time should be devoted to play OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL-ROOM unless during very stormy weather; and as this time rightly belongs to the pupils, they should not be deprived of it except for some serious offense; and those who are not deprived of it should not be ALLOWED to spend it in study; and no child should EVER be confined to the school-room during an entire session. The MINIMUM of recess-time should be 15 MINUTES IN EACH SESSION, and in Primary Schools there should be more than one recess in each session. Recess is a most important relief to the weariness of muscle and of mind which all children (and most teachers) feel after being in school 1 or 2 hours. Without it there comes on a mental listlessness and a physical restlessness, which defeat the very purposes of school. The need of such relief occurs at more frequent intervals. in proportion to the youth of the child; consequently there should be more recesses in primary than in other schools. 5th. Physical exercise should be used in school to prevent nervous and muscular fatigue and to relieve monotony, but NOT as MUSCULAR TRAINING. It should be practiced by both teachers and children for at least five minutes in every hour not broken by recess, and should be 'timed' by music. In Primary schools every half-hour should be broken by exercise, recess, or singing. This maxim rests on the same general ground as No. 4. Such exercises are highlprized in all schools where they have been fairly tried, and they tend to produce a unity of action and feeling, a homogeneity in the school, which is very valuable. 6th. Ventilation should be amply provided for by OTHER MEANS THAN OPEN WINDOWS, though these should be used in addition to the special means during recess and exercise time. Because to open windows during cold weather is to admit streams of cold air upon children, when they are most liable to 'catch cold,' as physicians have frequent occasion to observe. When the body is aglow with exercise it can endure and enjoy a temperature and even a current of air which would chill it when at rest; therefore, fresh air may be introduced with safety through the windows during recess and exercise time, except in very severe weather. Of all methods of heating, a close stove is most objectionable, because it introduces no fresh air; and whenever one is used in a school-room, it should be wholly or partially walled in with metal srceens, inside which a 'cold air box' should open, as in all furnaces. 7th. Lessons should be scrupulously apportioned to the average capacity of the pupils; and in Primary schools the SLATE should be used MORE, and books less, and instruction should be given as much as possible on the principles of Object Teaching.' เ If the first part of this maxim be not observed, the majority of the scholars (for whose benefit the school is sustained) will be overtasked. The advantages of using the slate as advised are very great: the hand and the eye are trained; writing is earlier and more pleasantly learned; little children are agreeably and profitably occupied, when they would otherwise be idle, unhappy, and troublesome. Of 'Object Teaching' we have only space to say that the princ iple which underlies it is, that the teacher should avail himself of the natural preponderance of the powers of perception and observation in childhood, should go from the known to the unknown, from the concrete to the abstract, and should neglect no opportunity to illustrate each lesson from familiar sources. J. D. MANSFIELD, Special Committee Middlesex East Dist. Med. Soc. -Massachusetts Teacher. A NOBLE SENTIMENT.-Daniel Webster penned the following: "If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds-if we imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and our fellow men, we engrave on those tables something that will brighten through all eternity." School as it was---Teacher as she Should be.* It is time; and, as the bell rings to call the children in, you congratulate yourself on the fine appearance and pleasant faces of your scholars, and think,. after all, a teacher's life is not the most undesirable. At roll-call a few are found to be absent, which is always annoy ing; but the first class being called takes up your attention, and the absent are forgotten. A good lesson! Who, but the teacher that loves his pupils and thus labors for their advancement, can realize what a world of pleasure is afforded by such an announcement? Good lessons are to the teacher, what good dinners are to the hungry; and nothing can so completely satisfy the teacher as to be able to say, at the close of the day,—I have had GOOD lessons from my pupils. On such days four o'clock comes at half-past three, the faces of your friends on the street have grown handsome since morning, and you are sure, from the lightness of your feet, you can wear smaller shoe, and your heart goes forth to meet all the dear children under your charge,-almost wishing they all belong to you, that you might see them the first thing in the morning, and tuck them 'up' snugly in bed the last thing at night. a much Another class is called. You are deeply engaged in their recitation, when, listen! The patter of little bare feet is heard in the hall, and in a moment more the owner of them, a little fellow about six years, ushers himself inside your school-room;-face unwashed, hair in a disordered state, and pants hung on by one suspender. Dirty little thing, you think, coming in at this time and disturbing my class! The boy takes his jack-knife (old thing with broken blade) instead of his book, and from his other pocket produces a piece of shingle, at which he goes with his old knife as though he meant to make a muss at least. The class takes up your attention for the next half-hour, at the expiration of which you have occasion to step over to the other side of the room, when behold! that little insignificancy has whittled all over the floor under his desk, and from under him you pro *Read by Miss L. A. Lyon, at Rome, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, June 8th, 1865. Republished from the Pennsylvania School Journal. |