Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/233

Rh "opens up realms of poetry where to the unscientific all is a blank."

Science properly taught is most valuable to children, in that it encourages a spirit of inquiry and love of truth, and trains them in habits of accurate observance of all around them, all of which qualities must surely be of use to them. These conclusions will not, perhaps, be acceptable to those persons to whom science is represented merely by the learning by heart of a collection of arid statements: such as the distance from here to the moon—the rate at which the earth revolves on its own axis—and so on. I should certainly advise them not to teach their children science of this description.

Before ending my paper, I should like to say a few words with regard to what I think a great evil in the education of girls. At an age of rapid growth, a girl's health is sometimes ruined for life by the system of brain-forcing to which she is subjected. In many cases she has to work eight hours a day, which is the average number of working hours of a grown man. Examinations follow one after another, there is no time to attend to the development of the body, at the most one hour in the twenty-four is given up to a mild walk; and the continuous sitting in a stuffy room, stooping over books narrows the chest, and spoils the eye-sight; at the age of eighteen a pale, anæmic young lady emerges from the schoolroom, doubtless stocked with knowledge, but also with headaches and backaches enough to spoil the rest of her life.

When one considers the extraordinary rate at which a girl of fourteen will grow, and how much of her forces must be consumed in the mere act of growing, surely it seems more reasonable to lighten her work than to increase it. Such a girl should only be allowed to work in the mornings, when she is freshest, and the rest of the day should be devoted to the open air, and development of her body by healthy outdoor games. Above all, even if she has work in the afternoon—and some time must, I suppose, be allowed for preparation—no mental work of any kind should be allowed after 5 After a long day at school, many a time does the tired child return with a quantity of exercises, etc., to be prepared for the morrow, all of which must be done in the evening, and it stands to reason that it must be highly prejudicial to the brain to be taxed at a time when it is fatigued, and the physical powers of the child are at a low ebb.

In a paper entitled "Home Lessons after School Hours," sent to me by my friend Sir Joseph Fayrer, and read by him at a conference at the Health Exhibition, he points out the dangers attending the cramming system, and instances many cases of brain disease resulting from it.

In conclusion, let me say that moral development can not be