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TEACHER'S MAIN BUSINESS TO CRUSH

buoyancy and elasticity to the mind as well as life-power to the body-we see the innocents pinned to the benches of the School Room! Nature rebels, and asserts her inalienable right to exercise and pure air: the teacher puts forth the “authority” with which he is vested by man, to quell the insurrection; and here we find ourselves at once in a state of war: the "invaluable time" and glorious talents of the Teacher, being necessarily, to a great extent, devoted to the "invaluable" purpose of conquering these belligerents, not to Nature, but to usurped authority. For requiring rebellion against Nature is usurpation; and it is a mild term to apply to him who knowingly will tread his heel on its decrees. And this, we are to be told, is the true steam track to a sound Education!

14. Such are the antagonistic relations in which the present System of Six Hours a day places the Children and Youth who are its victims to three of the Natural Laws of the human body. From these views, and from a general consideration of the whole subject, I am led to the conclusion that School Attendance for the day, should never go beyond 12 o'clock at noon. In that case, the School should commence at 9 o'clock, for those of 8 years of age and upwards, with two recesses of

REBELLION. NO SCHOLARS UNDER EIGHT.

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15 minutes each; and at 10 o'clock for all under that age who attend, which would give the latter 2 hours per day. Or, if people will send Children under eight, we might let them go at 9 and go home at 11; but I prefer the other, as then they can and will go straight home to dinner. But as Public Schools are now conducted, attendance under eight years of age, is an unmitigated curse. However, this attendance will hardly be enough seriously to harm them, perhaps not at all, as the restraint being of short duration will not injure the body, and will hardly be sufficient to inspire everlasting hate of the School Room, as a prison. In fact, the School Room is but a Prison, to one shut up in it, doing nothing, or with nothing to do; and that is almost absolutely the condition of those less than eight years of age now in the Public Schools, especially under the modern and "model" (!) System of "Classification." Indeed, un

der the present System of teaching Words from a book-instead of telling them Facts, Things and Ideas, and putting them to the wide-awake work of Self-Instruction-whether ostensibly busy or idle, the School Room, to those under eight, is a prison and only a prison. Would to God a child under eight might never again be seen in a Public School Room, till the work and the ideas which now prevail there are totally Revolutionized!

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HOME BLACKBOARDS.

The Creator never designed the little innocents should study books-to do that which they neither comprehend nor enjoy—as we know from the fact that He did not give them the ability or the disposition.

15. If Parents would have a blackboard and chalk in the kitchen, and one in the sitting-room, they would find some very pleasant occupation for their young children. Do the "little fellows" become interested in a cat, a dove, a hen, a hawk, a horse, a cow, in any thing under the heavens? Then print it yourself, in good big letters on the blackboard, and tell them that is the way they put the name of the thing in books. You say it over: they say it over. They now know what "dog" is, whenever they see it printed. You spell it "d-o-g": they spell it. If you can draw "dog," then draw it, and they will have fun enough in printing dog and drawing dog. And so on. You and the children will have lots of fun; the children will grow all the while; and know how to print all of the alphabet and spell out half the newspaper, without dreaming they had learned anything!

16. I wish to repeat the expression of my conviction that School Attendance for the Day, should

NO SCHOOL AFTER 12 O'CLOCK.

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close at MERIDIAN. I repeat it, because it is a point around which many considerations arise, not only in reference to the Natural Laws, but to Policy or Convenience; and I therefore wish to bring it distinctly before every mind.

17. But this is not all. The reference to the Natural Laws is not yet complete. I say "reference"; for the space allotted in this work, does not permit an examination. The intelligent reader will do that for himself, as well as cite, in further illustration, kindred laws, which are herein not even referred to. In fact, this proposition of Three Hours a Day, involves all the Laws which relate to the health and strength of body or mind; for those Laws are one Harmonious Network: they are strings in unison: when one is broken or unstrung, Harmony is destroyed, and the whole is out of tune. So that to discuss it fully would be to present all that can relate to the Science of Education.

18. But to go further. Not only by the present System of Six Hours per Day, is the Child or Youth deprived, at the proper time, of an adequate supply of exercise and pure air, but a counter draft is made on his energies in the School Room, to an extent which does not leave vigor enough

30

THE PRETENCE IS, SIX HOURS A DAY

to possibly meet, during the 24 hours, the natural demands of the body for the maintenance of its own healthiness and growth.

The pretence, on which children and youth are kept in School for Six Hours a Day, is, that they are TO STUDY. That for so much of the 24 hours, at least, they are to be engaged in Intellectual Labor. Upon any other supposition, this confinement is one of the most shameful and barbarous impositions ever practised on human beings; and those guilty, would deserve punishment for depriving their victims of health, and restraining them from gaining attainable physical developement, on "false pretences." To compel this imprisonment, in the absence of this pretence, honestly made, would be monstrous, and a crime of high grade, if only the intent were to injure. But are we told that these unoffending, though not uncomplaining or unresisting victims, do really study during those six hours?-are actually devoting that period to mental labor? Then ought the System to be abandoned instanter! For this is what no child or youth can endure, and maintain the integrity of his constitution. This it is, which compels so many parents to walk beside the graves of "bright" children,-"too good for earth," &c., &c., who do study six hours a day, in School, only to be transferred from the "head of the class"