Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/196

 would never be capable of such weighty stupidity. Perhaps it will be just as well to glance casually at the state of things in this country respecting the education of mere infants, as arranged by certain laws drawn up by men, laws in which women, who are the mothers of the race, are not allowed to have a voice.

1. The law allows them to enter at three years old, and compels them to enter at five years old.

2. Men inspectors constantly examine children of four years old in arithmetic, and the "mental arithmetic of the baby class," is constantly mentioned in reports.

3. Needlework is taught before five years old; two to three hours form the staple instruction. Needlework injures the eyesight at such a tender age, and two or three hours are a cruelty and a waste of time for tiny children.

4. Desks, blackboards, slates and books are everywhere in excess of "Kindergarten" occupations, and the "development of the spontaneous activity in the child" is twisted into the development of uniformity. To differ from the usual is to be naughty; every one must do the same thing at the same time. Every one must build a like house, a like table, a like chair; each brick must be on the table at the same minute.

5. Despite male inspectors, the babies sleep. They fall off their seats and bump their foreheads against the desks, and their spines are twisted and crooked as they lie on their arms, heads forward, upon the hard supports. Curvature must be produced in many cases, solely from these causes.

6. To maintain order, corporal punishment