FASHION, AND NOT A THING OF SCIENCE.

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when proficiency in Education is to consist in knowledge of Science, or of the laws and works of God, and above all, of that Science of Sciences, the SCIENCE OF MAN; and not in poor, pitiful verbal criticisms, and "ground and lofty tumbling" in Literature, the mere work of Man.

3. Said an intelligent gentleman to me-"Are you in favor of Three Hours, because your idea is that they will learn more." "Yes," was my reply, "because they will learn more, and because they will grow more. The business of children and youth, is to grow: the Almighty made arrangements for that, but did not for schools; and with His arrangements we have no right to interfere." "Then," said he, "the idea is, that school labor is not to interfere with growth."

4. The System of Six Hours School a Day, kills the body and kills the mind. By keeping the scholar confined so many hours in a day, we kill the body: by begetting an inextinguishable feeling of disgust with everything that pertains to the acquisition of learning from books, we kill the mind.

5. The change to Three Hours a Day, is not on the ground, that we now, by Six Hours a Day,

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CHILDREN SCHOOLED TO DEATH.

accomplish too much, but that we accomplish too little. It is, that we may occupy the highest range of attainment, and thus fulfil the real utilitarian demand of the age. The case now is not unlike that of the man in an attempt to take up a handful of flaxseed: the more tightly he grasps, the less flaxseed he takes up. There is a game I have heard of, wherein it is said, "The more you lay down, the less you take up." Six Hours a Day, instead of Three, is that, precisely.

6. The tendency, in this country, at this time, among those whose pecuniary means will enable them so to do, is to school their children to death. To a frightful number of children, this is literally true. Upon thousands and thousands of others, six hours per day of confinement to the School Room, and to its labors, entails a living death. Relief, to them, from a life of comparative nothingness or of suffering, or both, can be sought only at the portals of the tomb. Could the frightful catalogue of ill which results from a single year of this over-schooling, in the State of New-York alone, be presented, the picture would appal the stoutest heart. It would awaken interest in this question in the most unfeeling minds; for while it is true, that there are some beings in human form who do but little to minister to the happiness

OTHERS, DRAG OUT AN ENFEEBLED LIFE. 13

of others, it is not less true that few can be found who delight in misery. It is a fact, that, by the PRESENT SYSTEM, an untold and incalculable amount of misery is implanted every year, and which clings to its victims for life. A portion of the victims of this policy, find relief in an early grave, rending the hearts of fond and doating parents: the calamity attributed, of course, to some disease with a name to it in the Doctor's Books, but which was invited and made a welcome lodger in that child's constitution by the enfeebled and distorted body and mind produced by the conspiracy of folly, in which the parent and teacher had combined against the child. Other victims of this conspiracy-less fortunate-drag out a prolonged existence, embittered by weakened and deranged powers and functions of body and mind. The powers and faculties with which they were endowed by nature, are thus perverted; their integrity is thus forever destroyed; and a life of suffering, or of comparative mental and physical feebleness, or both, is the result.

7. This Age demands of every one who would act well and successfully his part, a higher and truer Education than has been demanded by any preceding age. To meet this demand, in our goahead country, children have been crowded into

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THE AIM, NOW, IS THE MOST EDUCATION School Rooms six hours a day, for six, eight and ten months in the year. This is kept up from the age of 4 or 5, to 15 or 21, as the case may be, by almost all who can afford the expense in time or money. In accordance with the impulsive spirit of our people, the question sought to be solved, is, the attainment of the greatest amount of what is called Education, in the smallest number of months or years. In doing this, the laws which the Creator has written on the body and the mind, have been overlooked or disregarded. In fact, in the matter of Education, hitherto, the body has been out of the question; and Education has been carried on in our Schools as though the scholar was all mind and no body: And though the fact that the scholar has a body could not be ignored by the senses, the idea of educating the body, and educating it first of all, and with the same sedulous care that we bestow on the mind, as yet remains absolutely foreign to the American System of Education. This is true, in its whole range, from the "infant" Primary to the College and highsounding University. Children have been treated, in this regard, as though they were so many machines of wood, and stone, and iron. I speak in general terms. General terms do not include exceptions. It would be like sweetest music, however, to hear of the exceptions. I do not

IN THE SMALLEST NUMBER OF YEARS.

15

know where they are; but if they can be produced in the State of New-York, let all the people have the news!

8. Nature has rebelled against this outrage on her rights. From one end of the State to the other, complaints come up of the "Irregularity of School Attendance;" and in some quarters, it has been pronounced by School Authorities, one of the "alarming" signs of the times. But it is a cheering, not an alarming symptom! It is a certificate to the integrity of Nature. It shows that by this process, the natures of children have not been transformed into stolidity. The children cannot stand it. They get rid of what they regard as imprisonment, by excuses, when they can-by truancy, when they must. They do not know why, but they know the System is too much for them that it is REPUGNANT. This is all wrong; for children delight in school! Properly managed, it is as delightful to them, as any other recreation to which they can be treated. By the very laws of their being, children and youth are inquisitive. They want TO KNOW all about it. Hence, they delight in the acquisition of facts-of things newof things unknown. They have everything to learn; some things are learned out of doors, other things in the School Room; and every new thing