NATIONAL NECESSITIES AND EDUCATION. 451 



the children are not glad, but commonly cry at having to leave the 

 institution, to part with their playmates or their workmates, and to go 

 home. As the physical and industrial exercises have been improved, 

 desertions have diminished and the outcomes bettered. From morn 

 until night bad thoughts are much excluded, and comparatively good 

 thoughts thoughts of doing better for themselves by work and wages, 

 and by all honest and esteemed position are generated and impressed. 

 The teacher can not look into the mind and see what effects, or whether 

 any, have been produced by his precepts. But the drill-master or the 

 work-master does see the valuable primary moral principles of atten- 

 tion, patience, self-restraint, prompt and exact obedience, in outward 

 and visible action. The general result is that the pupil gets interested 

 in what he does, and does it with a will." 



We are strongly of the opinion that by the introduction of phys- 

 ical training the end will be accomplished of reducing natural crime. 



Lastly, we submit that, to insure the future happiness and serenity 

 of the people of the future, the children of the present should have 

 their mental and art training varied by making the subject of recre- 

 ation a scientific branch of study among all who are engaged in 

 educational work. In such advance, we should have the means for 

 recreation made the means for imperceptible instruction in bodily and 

 mental powers, so that, having never unduly severed them from the 

 tastes of the scholar, they shall be true resting-places, useful as well as 

 pleasing diversions from mental and physical labor. 



I have now put forward our programme. It is framed on what we 

 conceive to be the basis of national necessities. A few concluding 

 paragraphs may be taken as proposed resolutions to explain the mode 

 in which we would carry out the reforms we have in view : 



1. We propose to lessen the tasks of a mental kind in all schools, 

 by the introduction of what is practically a half-time system. Believ- 

 ing that the brain of the child under fourteen years of age is suffi- 

 ciently charged, to be safely charged, when it has been subjected to 

 three hours work in book-teaching, we assume that this period per day 

 of such teaching is sufficient for all useful and safe advancement, that 

 the children would have more than they could learn, and would retain 

 more than they need retain on this plan. We propose at the same 

 time to make inspection into such book-learning less critical and less 

 severe, with an institution of insi^ection into physical capability as a 

 part of the inspection, in place of the part given up to book standards. 



In connection with this department we propose that there should 

 be at stated times a physical inquiry, by competent authority, into 

 the health of every school and every scholar, and that as much special 

 encouragement and reward should be given to scholars who present 

 the best physique as to those who present proofs of superior attain- 

 ments in the standards. 



We propose further that this great change shall be effected by 



