10 NATURE'S REBELLION.

SCHOOL MAY BE

learned pleases them. But this delight can exist only when other things are in harmony. Circumstances can be so arranged, as to excite other feelings which shall overpower this, and render acquisition repugnant and not grateful. But, properly conducted-in harmony with the laws of the body and of the mind-the very operation of acquiring Knowledge is a real pleasure, in itself, and is its own immediate reward in the happiness it secures for the passing hour. While their surplus energies remain, how eager they are! How their eyes sparkle with delight! But press this to weariness, to lassitude, and you beget disrelish and disgust. The buoyant and impulsive nature of the child or youth-planted for the wise and high purpose of meeting the necessity for superabundant energy imposed by bodily growth-recoils from weariness and lassitude, and above all when produced by exhaustion of the nervous or electric power, accompanied by inactivity of the body. It is contrary to the highest, because first, law of their nature. The demands of the Law of Growth, for fresh and elastic energies, are imperative; and weariness, from exhaustion by inactivity of the body and activity of the mind, prevents the fulfilment of that law. The extraordinary exuberance of spirit we witness in children and youth, and their incontinent love of fun, are but

DELIGHTFUL.

THE DEMANDS OF GROWTH. 17

tokens of that superabundant energy in the general economy required to meet the necessities of bodily growth. The first and the main business of children and youth, is to grow. Whoever interposes to defeat the complete and perfect fulfilment of that destiny, with whatever motive, inflicts on the unfortunate object of his care, the heaviest and the bitterest curse. Yet with what folly-and if not folly, madness-are the requisite means of bodily growth withheld from these children and youth, who, for ten months or for five months in the year, are kept in a School Room for six hours in a day! The freest exercise, in the open and pure air, at the beck so far as may be of their own free impulses and volatile spirits, is the daily demand of every human being till the body has done growing: And that, be it remembered, is to be had at the proper hours. Not only, with them, is the current of life to be maintained-not only is the demand which daily waste of the body creates, to be met-but that other draft on the energies of the System, to wit: to add to the structure itself, must be promptly and fully met, or the penalty is to be paid during every hour of existence after maturity, in the daily use of powers of body and of mind, less in quantity, and inferior in quality, to what those powers might have been. This is a perfectly plain case. What is built up during

18 THE FIRST BUSINESS OF CHILDHOOD AND

growth, is to be enjoyed, daily, during the period after growth ceases—AND NO MORE. The foundation is laid during that season, and so it remains. "As the tree falleth, so it lies." Language cannot well magnify the importance of this question to every individual who has not yet reached maturity of bodily growth: who is yet laying the foundation and building a structure for life, either in imbecility or in power. If the testimony of the thousands who are now spending their lives, with scarcely a topic of greater interest or higher pleasure than their unavailing regrets, could be recorded and published, but little need then be added to arouse attention.

9. The present high-pressure System in School Education, everywhere in vogue, is in the teeth of the Natural Laws. Three hours per day of confinement in the School Room, is all any human being under 21 years of age can endure, and live up to the laws of his being. This of course presupposes, that while in the School Room the scholar does what he is there for-wORKS. The idea that it is wise for any one to spend an idle moment in a school-room, presupposes one of two things: either utter ignorance of the effect which the light of the sun, pure air, and exercise, have on the constitution of man, or else insanity. Igno

19

YOUTH, IS TO GROW. THE STEAM SYSTEM rance or insanity, only, could tolerate the idea, that it is wisdom to keep a child or youth in a School Room, unemployed. So my position is based on the idea, that the business of every one, during the Three Hours, is WORK. Some more time than this, during the 24 hours might be spent in study-in looking over and preparing lessons for the next day, in looking after illustrations from men and books—but under other and more inviting circumstances than the irksomeness, tedium, weariness, lassitude and uneasiness, which ever attend the Second Session of three hours, the same day. The Books could be taken up as a voluntary, cheerful and agreeable relaxation, after nourishing and invigorating and healthful labor or play, or both; but this is not to be urged: let it be voluntary work. In passing, I will remark, that useful services, when properly understood and carried on, are but another name for play; though, with children and youth, never to be substituted entirely for what is technically termed Play. For this reason, that in the play or sports of children and youth, the Voluntary principle is at work, and that is the energizing principle of the human mind; and Plays, so-called, are something they can originate, comprehend and direct, and for that reason, they go into them with a perfect unction, and the action of the mind, as

20

PREVENTS GROWTH.

PRESENT SYSTEM

well as the action of the body, sends the hot blood through every fibre.

Now, if this be true, that THREE Hours a Day of confinement in the School Room-three hours per day of Mental Labor there is all that the constitution can stand and meet the demands of growth, then it is true that our present School System may truly be denominated the "Murder of the Innocents." Such, I firmly believe it to be. That in rushing on, with steam-like energy, to the accomplishment of a desired end, disregarding and trampling on eternal and fixed laws, which forever control results-like a strong man struggling in a morass, where every effort but sinks him deeper in the mire-we are no less surely defeating the attainment of stamina of character and of intellectual power. The race is dwindling, not gaining, in mental and physical force.

10. Is it not true, that the truest object of care, is to secure, at the period when manhood or womanhood is reached, the strongest and healthiest body?— in other words, its highest development? If so, then does not he-whether parent or teacher— who, intentionally or unintentionally, prevents this, inflict a most outrageous and incalculable, as well as irreparable, injury? There will not be any debate here. All feel conscious, that a strong