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 CHAPTER IX

THE HYGIENE OF INSTRUCTION

HAT there is a hygiene of instruction we have learned mainly through having given instruction that made children ill.

In some cases the children were ill already. Then the instruction was not stopped. On the contrary, it went on all the same, and ended usually in a breakdown.

The school grant did not always fail in these cases. It was found at last that 52 per cent of all the children in one city had swollen tonsils; but they all sang after a fashion and read aloud.

There is a hygiene of instruction for drawing as well as singing, for drawing, like other subjects, is a matter depending on nerves, muscles, and a brain. But this fact became clear only when children began to have great difficulty in doing very simple work, and even got ill as the result of such work.

That there is a hygiene of instruction in mathematics we know, because children have been injured 138