Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/334

320 Their work is, in some cases, simply continuous all day, and part of it is irksome, uninteresting drudgery; their homes are often far from being cheerful, and their food far from being very abundant. I know as a fact that the lives of some of our female pupil-teachers are such that as melancholy a "Song of the School" could be sung of them as Hood's "Song of the Shirt."

In both these cases—the scholars in the higher class of girls' schools and the female pupil-teachers—the range of subjects to be learned at the same time is often enormous. Six, seven, eight, nine, and even ten different subjects, all being learned at once, is no uncommon thing! I am glad to say that this is being corrected in the best schools, and only four or five subjects are allowed to be taught at the same time. This is surely enough.

If I had a school to construct on ideal principles, I should have it placed on the north side of a large space of ground. I should have it one story only, and every class-room lofty, and with roof-lights to let in as much as possible of our scanty Scotch sunlight. I should have the walls of the class-room painted in light, cheerful, tasteful colors, to produce a cheering effect on the minds of the pupils. I should have big, open fireplaces to cheer and to ventilate the rooms, I should have, as an essential adjunct, a great room, where gymnastics, romping, dancing, and play should all have full scope, when the weather did not admit of the girls going out. I should not restrain romping and play, even in girls of eighteen, between classes. Girls between thirteen and twenty will romp well, if they are in health, and there is no pressure put on them that it is not the thing for them to do. I should not have more than four hours of good hard work at school, and two of preparation at home. The fact is, that our scholars lose the benefit for their health of the best part of our Scotch winter days, the forenoon, when we sometimes have both sunshine and dryness in the air. By the time school is over, the day is done.

One of the practices most energetically relied on in the higher class of girls' schools is that of the competition of one scholar with another. In some of them this competition is terrific. It extends to every subject; it becomes so keen as to put each girl who is in the foremost rank in a fever-heat of emulation before the examinations. In some cases it overmasters every other feeling for the time being. No doubt, from the schoolmaster's point of view, it is the very thing he wants. In his professional enthusiasm he aims at the highest mental result. He is not professionally interested in the health or the special nervous constitution of his girls; he does not regard them as each one a medico-psychological entity and problem. I don't say this by way of reproach. All good men try to attain the highest result in their special departments. The educator has no means of knowing the constitution and hereditary weakness of his girls—that the mother of one died of consumption, that the father of another was insane, that neuralgia is