Part 148

Other conditions deserve attention, and amongst them may be mentioned quality of paper, character of type, excellence of impression. Now and again the fount of type of one of our daily newspapers gets worn out, and every one is aware of the unpleasant effects that are produced by impressions of letters which are partly imperfect--when, for example, _c_ cannot be distinguished from _o_ or from _e_, when _t_ and _l_ become confused, and the rounds of _a_, _b_, _d_, _g_, and _p_ become filled with ink. Such imperfections are greatly increased by roughnesses and inequalities of the paper, and it is only requisite to read a page or two of one of the cheap editions of a popular author and then a page or two of an edition de luxe to appreciate the influence of paper and printing. The introduction of pictures is of decided advantage, since they both excite the attention and relieve the eye.

Brudenell Carter advises, in the case of every child whose vision is subnormal, to ascertain the cause and nature of the defect, and to regulate not only the studies, but also, as far as possible, the future career, in accordance with it. He would urge that the vision of every new pupil should be tested, and that the tasks required should be controlled in accordance with its capabilities; that all lesson books for very young children be printed in large type, and that the children be compelled to keep such books at a distance (the type in which we often see texts of Scripture printed to be hung up in railway waiting-rooms would be a good size for the purpose); that many of the school-books now in use should be abandoned, and that new editions should be prepared, in type of at least twice the size, and twice the legibility (the latter depending much upon the shape and design of the letters) of that now in use. It would be useful, especially in cases where there is hereditary tendency to shortsightedness, to teach by means of long slips or wall texts with a picture at the head, sold by most stationers. The child should be placed with his back to the light, and at a distance of 4-6 ft. from the slip, the separate letters of which, as well as the details of the picture, may be indicated by the teacher with a light wand.

_Writing._--Writing has a powerful influence in inducing shortsightedness. Cohn has made the sensible suggestion that stenography (shorthand) should be introduced into schools a little above the lowest classes. The size of the type or symbols is, it is acknowledged, smaller than that of ordinary writing, but not smaller than the Greek. The acquirement of the art is easy, and the saving of time is very great.

The question of the advisability of using slates for instruction in writing has been considered, and developed some difference of opinion. With the same amount of light and an equal degree of sharpness of vision, letters of the same size written with ink and with slate pencil are seen, the former at a distance of 4 ft., the latter at only 3 ft., even when the unpleasant reflex from the slate is avoided. Weber thinks that many of the difficulties and troubles occasioned by writing are the same, whether slate-pencil, lead-pencil, or pen and ink be used; but still thinks it desirable that after the first half-year pen and ink should be preferred. Cohn agrees with Horner, but suggests the employment of white artificial tablets, made by Emanuel Thieben, of Pilsen, which can be written upon with lead-pencil, and which he has found to be so far superior to slate that writing which can be read at 6 yd. on the white slab can only be read at 5 yd. on slate.

Writing is done with the least strain when the copy-book is tilted towards the left; when the child is compelled to write with the book parallel to the edge of the desk, he brings the base line perpendicular to the down-strokes by turning his head towards the right and twisting his spine. This contortion brings the eyes nearer to the page, and the left eye nearer to it than the right. In a discussion on this subject at the meeting of the Ophthalmic Society, at Heidelberg, Laqueur and Manz favoured the slanting system of writing with an oblique position of the book, on the ground that it throws the work more on the flexor muscles of the forearm, which are naturally stronger than the extensors, and Berlin dwelt upon the fact that this system admits of greater rapidity of execution.

_Mental Training._--The object of the teacher is to teach to think. The pupil thinks enough, but he thinks loosely, incoherently, indefinitely, and vaguely. He expends power enough on his mental work, but it is poorly applied. The teacher points out to him these indefinite or incoherent results, and demands logical statements of him. Here is the positive advantage the teacher is to the pupil. The prevailing habit of slovenly reading is largely due to the slovenly way in which children are taught to read at school. Be very careful about this; teach scholars to read with precision and understanding, thinking of every word, getting the sense of each sentence, and grasping the full meaning of any piece that may be before them.

There can be no greater mistake than to imagine that all children develop at the same rate during the corresponding years of their existence. In a group or class of children, each of whom is 11 years old, there will be many shades of difference of development. It follows, therefore, that the drawing of a hard and fast line as to acquisitions appropriate to any special year of a child’s life is a mistake both from an educational and from a medical point of view.

To urge a child to great mental exertion while it is passing through a period of bodily growth is to put an undue strain upon its powers. A dull child will be rendered more dull and hopeless because it cannot perform its task, and the urging to exertion may produce nothing but a sullen resistance to authority. An eager, docile child will respond to the impulse, and will exert itself beyond its powers; and then an exhaustion will follow which may permanently injure both bodily and mental health. It would, however, be unwise to conclude that, because a child is unable to make great mental exertion while growing, it is not to be required to make any exertion at all.

If an adult can apply himself to the acquisition of knowledge in one direction for only 1 hour (and how much longer can an audience listen to a lecture?), the child can evidently do very much less. At the ages of 5 to 7 he can attend to one subject--a single lesson--for 15 minutes; a child from 7 to 10 years of age, about 20 minutes; from 10 to 12 years, about 25 minutes; from 12 to 18 years, about 30 minutes. (Chadwick.) Hence great care is demanded to avoid engaging the brains of pupils in work for more than very short periods, and to provide intervals during which there may be rest of the centres specially taxed. Much may be done by changing the kind of work frequently. No growing child should be kept longer than ½-¾ hour at even the same description of work. Again, the great centres of relation should not be overtaxed. Vision, hearing, the speech centre, and the centre specially concerned with written language, whether in writing or reading, should not be wearied. Brain weariness is the first indication of exhaustion. The faculty of “attention” is perhaps one of the most easily vulnerable of all the parts or properties of brain-function. It is the faculty which most readily becomes permanently enfeebled, and, when weakened, entails most trouble in adult life. In children it is difficult to catch and fix the attention. No effort should be spared to secure this fixity of thought; but in order to avoid weakening the power of “thinking” as distinguished from “thought-drifting,” the teacher should not strive, or desire, to hold the attention by any effort on his part longer than it is voluntarily given by the child--the slightest indication of exhaustion should at once be met by a change of task. If these hints, general as they are, can be reduced to practice, there is little fear of “overwork” or harm from brain activity. Desultory and insufficient work is more to be feared by far than “overwork,” because the brain, like every other part of the organism, grows as it feeds, and it can only feed as it works. (_Lancet._)

Children, especially at the age of 10-17, should not be over-taxed, and girls in particular should not be pressed to work at periods when they are naturally languid and exhausted. The work to be done should be mainly done in school; night-work and night-lessons should be short. Nor should children be made to do much work in the morning before breakfast, nor immediately after food. The books given to young children ought to be light to hold in the hand; the paper should be clean, white, and smooth. The letters should be large in proportion to the youth of the child, well formed, and well printed. The spaces between the lines and the interspaces of the words should be relatively wide. The lines should not be too long. The light should be abundant, and should enter from the left. In writing he should sit upright and square to the desk. The desk itself should be inclined, and there should be a due proportion between the height of the desk and the bench or stool on which the child is sitting. Reading small print by a dim light is to be discountenanced, and reading should not be permitted in bed. The work given to girls to learn sewing should not be too fine, and no black work should be given, especially at night.

How vastly would the world benefit if the hours wasted on Bible history, dead languages, and higher mathematics (except for special objects, of course), were given to modern languages and useful (as distinguished from pure) science. How many “educated” men know a word of French or German, or a score of the physical facts which govern our existence, or anything about the structure of their own bodies, or of the names, properties, and uses of our native plants?

The work performed by girls, especially when young, is not beneath the attention of the surgeon. There cannot be a doubt that every girl should be taught the use of the needle and thread; but it is by no means necessary that the work which is put into their hands should be of a nature to make a severe strain upon their eyes. That such strain applied to the eyes in this particular way is injurious is well known from the effects of lace-making in Belgium and France, which is admitted on all hands to seriously impair the vision of many workers annually. In moderately fine calico there are about 72 threads to the inch; and if two of these are taken up at every stitch, the work is done to 1/36 in., which is even so very small. But finer kinds of cambric run to 150 or more to the inch, and must be very trying to the eye. Weber observes:--“Who need trouble himself about a girl learning to knit a stocking requiring 35,000 or even 60,000 loops, when the whole article can be finished by machine work in an hour or two?” But, as Cohn remarks, if the girl is, instead of knitting stockings, occupied with Greek characters or conic sections, she is not much better off. On the whole, it appears that no child should be given work to do which requires to be held closer to the eye than 1 ft., and with this all due care should be taken in regard to light and other particulars.

The special culture of the senses is too much neglected in modern busy life. Probably at no previous period of human history has the nervous system generally, and more particularly, have the sense-organs been so severely taxed as they are now, but never have they been less carefully cultivated. This is, in part, if not wholly the cause of the progressive degeneracy of the faculties of special-sense which is evidenced by the increasing frequency of the recourse to spectacles, ear-trumpets, and the like apparatus, designed to aid the sense-organs. The mere use of faculties will not develop strength--it is more likely to exhaust energy. Special training is required, and this essential element of education is wholly neglected in our schools, with the result we daily witness--namely, early weakness or defect in the organs by which the consciousness is brought into relation with the outer world. It is not necessary to adduce proofs, or to argue at length or in detail. The truth of the proposition laid down is self-evident. On the one hand we see the neglect of training, and on the other the increasing defect of sense-power. The matter is well worthy of the attention of the professional educators of youth. Muscular exercise wisely regulated and apportioned to the bodily strength is felt to be a part of education. Sense-culture, by appropriate exercises in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, would, if commenced sufficiently early in life, not merely prevent weakness of sight, deafness, loss of the sense of feeling, and impairment of the sense of smell, long before old age; but by its reflected influence on the nutrition of the brain and upper portion of the spinal cord, would do much to reduce the growing tendency to paralytic diseases, which are very decidedly on the increase. (_Lancet._)

_Physical Comfort and Training._--Attention should be directed more than at present to the physical side of school life in its relations to the ordinary bodily wants and processes. Many children suffer much from a fear or dislike of asking for temporary leave of absence from their classes. They suffer pain, and often cause serious illness, by this somewhat natural aversion to “asking out.” Foolish teachers have sharply reproved pupils because they appeared to demand absence from the class-room too frequently. The teacher evidently imagined there was some attempt at malingering; whereas the pupil was really in pain, suffering from an irritable digestive system, which demanded rest. Such pupils should not be sent to school, it is true; but if they are allowed to take their place in a class, they should not be treated as if their demands were dictated by foolishness or frivolity. The wise teacher is one who, seeing a pupil evidently suffering, will investigate the cause of the discomfort, and set the child’s mind and body at rest. Education under physical suffering is, at its best, the merest farce. You need not be prudish; nor fear any rebuke from common sense, when you think that children have bodies which, as well as minds, are placed temporarily under the teacher’s care. (Wakeham.)

There is a risk at the present day that the claims of intellectual education, which are being so strongly put forward, may have the effect of postponing, or causing to be neglected, the care and cultivation of the bodily powers. In some respects we have rushed from a state in which too little care was given to mental development into one where intellectual work predominates. Children must have several hours’ play daily in the open air; this is much better than calisthenics or gymnastics for the generality of children; and girls should be allowed to play as vigorously as boys do.

One exercise which will give permanent strength, which will build up healthy bodies for girls and ultimately for women, is the swimming bath, which brings into play all the muscles of the body; another is the gymnastic class, where, in suitable dresses and under the direction of competent instructors, exercises fitted for the strength of girls are set for them to do; and a third is the playground, where such games as fives, rackets, and lawn tennis give amusement and ample exercise. The benefits arising from trained muscular activity are not confined to development of the muscles of the arms and legs, but all the functions of nutrition of the body are helped to become effective by means of exercise. Much of the weakness and suffering of women would be spared if early physical training had been allowed to them.

_Punishments._--Such brutal punishments as boxing the ears, pulling the ears, knocking heads together, rapping knuckles with rulers, &c., belong to a past ignorant age. For corporal punishment nature has provided a muscular cushion on which the cane may be applied without fear of serious consequences. “Impositions” mean ruin to the handwriting, and being closeted in the foul air of the class-rooms during hours that ought to be spent in getting fresh air. Double tasks are a still worse form of the same evil. The plan of “keeping in” boys for breaches of school discipline is objectionable, and it is infinitely better to require some loss of recreation time in more healthy ways. In large public schools, where the drill-sergeant is an institution, there will probably be found no more efficacious mode of dealing with forgetfulness and petty turbulences than by calling in the aid of this functionary, who exercises a wholesome influence over the boys, and inflicts punishments without impairing their physical condition in any way, while at the same time lending “tone” to their bodily exercises.

_Foreign Schools._--The only good to be gained by sending children to foreign schools is acquiring facility in speaking foreign languages, with more chance of good accent than can be usually gained at home. Against this there are many things to set off; and even this advantage itself is often rendered nugatory by one or two circumstances. In a school where there are many English children there is very often as much English spoken as French or German--there are schools in which an idle child might speak English all day long, and in which the well-paying “Anglais” is not brought too sharply to task for faults of omission. Again, the acquisition of good accent is a matter of ear, and no amount of hearing others speak well will make a child who has no imitative power reproduce an accent with purity. Scotch or Irish children in English schools do not always lose their distinctive accent, nor do Lancashire and Yorkshire tongues always lose their special characteristics. The advantages of foreign schools are thus shown to be less than they at first seem to be.

But there are also positive disadvantages; and one of the most evident and most disastrous in its results, as far as the health is concerned, is that, in matters of food and of arrangements conducive to health, the ways of foreigners are not our ways. English children, brought up to the age of 15 or 16 upon English meat and bread, with plenty of both, cannot accommodate themselves to the diet which suffices for Frenchmen or Germans; and English children in foreign schools not unfrequently know what it is to be hungry from sheer inability to obtain a sufficiently nutritive meal. Many instances have occurred in which long and troublesome illnesses have been distinctly traceable to living in schools abroad, and others in which a life has been cut short through the same agency.

A few words must be said as to the comparative uncertainty regarding the kind of agencies which may be brought to bear in the moral training of a girl, and the little power which a parent has of ascertaining the real nature of these in a foreign, especially a French school. Nor again, is it to be forgotten that, for those parents who are desirous that their children should receive religious training, and should not lose their hold of home habits in that important matter, there are innumerable anxieties in store in sending children abroad.

For those who desire to give their children the advantages of foreign education, there are only two really good courses open. One of these is to establish the home abroad for a certain time. In that case the children are under home influence as to training, are under home care as to food, cleanliness, and personal habits, and do not form a set of associations distinct from those of other members of the family. If the family life is considered important, and if it is desired that the children should early acquire a knowledge of foreign languages, this is the most advisable plan. In case this is not possible, it would be advisable to postpone the foreign residence until girls have reached maturer years--till they have sense to look after themselves, and until their characters are somewhat formed. There would be then the additional advantage that home ties would be strong enough to resist the weakening influence of living apart from the rest of the family, the foundations of a good English education (too often entirely neglected in the cases of those reared in foreign schools) might have been securely laid; and, what is perhaps not the least recommendation, the children themselves would have their minds more advanced, and would be more intelligent and ready recipients of the instruction given to them. (_Queen._)

SUPPLEMENTARY LITERATURE.

John H. Howard: ‘Gymnasts and Gymnastics.’ London, 1873.

C. Löfving: ‘Home Gymnastics, for the preservation and restoration of health in children and young and old people of both sexes, with a short method of acquiring the art of Swimming.’ London, 1883. 1_s._

Archibald Maclaren: ‘A System of Physical Education, theoretical and practical.’ Oxford, 1869. 7_s._ 6_d._

_THE PLAYGROUND._