92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



people who flock to the cities, by the number of boys who seek in-door 

 employment, and by the prevalent sentiment that any person who is 

 properly educated will secure something to do where he may stay in 

 the shade and away from the weather. That the abandonment of the 

 out-door recess in our schools will strengthen this tendency to an in- 

 door life, and weaken the disposition, born with every child having a 

 normal development, to get out-of-doors, can not be doubted. That 

 this " no-recess " plan is in direct opposition to all the instincts of 

 the child's nature, ought to insure its immediate condemnation. 



Muscular action for the health of a growing child is a necessity, 

 and the amount of exercise that a child will take, when permitted to 

 roam out-of- doors with congenial company at his own sweet will, is a 

 quantity of vast magnitude. Muscular action is and should be a thing 

 for which the child has an appetite, a craving, as intense as any he 

 ever feels for food or fruit, and no school discipline should be allowed 

 to interfere with its necessary gratification. The play-ground is more 

 of a necessity to a school of young children than any of the other 

 school appliances. 



Recognizing the violence that the no-recess plan is doing to the 

 future well-being of their pupils, some superintendents have invented 

 a series of in-door games, which are played for a few minutes, at short 

 intervals, in the school-room, under the charge of the teacher, such as 

 tossing little bags of beans, marching, exercises with the arms and 

 legs, and the like. The best of such exercises fall very far short of 

 the real, soul-stirring, cheek-glowing, muscle and brain making exer- 

 cise of the play-ground ; while the poorest of them and all are poor 

 when they take the place of the open-air recess are the severest 

 trial of the day, both to the nerves and the amiability of teacher and 

 pupils. As a rule, there is no other school exercise in which there is so 

 much friction between teacher and pupils, none other where so fre- 

 quent appeals are made to higher authority, and none other from 1 *, 

 which the pupil so often tries to escape, as this gymnastics. The 

 law of physics, that all bodies move in the direction of least resistance, 

 ought to show teachers that this plan, in its present form, should be 

 abandoned. Children do not like to be marched around under the 

 direction of a teacher who needs the exercise more than they, and who 

 sits or stands still while they are marching. During a five years' mili- 

 tary service, the hardest campaign I went through was a three months' 

 drill, and I never saw a regiment but would sooner undertake a week 

 of severest marching than a week of camp-drilling. That gymnastics 

 can be, and sometimes is, made of great benefit to the pupils, is true, 

 but the teachers who have the skill, ability, and enthusiasm requisite 

 for the work are very rare. Children have a desire to manage for 

 themselves. How often do we observe their impatience at our open- 

 ing some box or package of theirs that they wish to open for them- 

 selves ! And, if the teacher were competent to enter thoroughly into 



