452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



utilizing the time thus taken from books in application to lessons of 

 play, exercise, or work that shall be useful in developing the body, 

 and in making it apt to attain proficiency in physical arts and sciences. 

 We would suggest that, in the school itself, the means for this phys-. 

 ical instruction should be provided ; but we would not by any hard 

 and fast line hold by the school as the only place. If it were found 

 in any case that a scholar had the means, in his half-time, of following 

 any proper and profitable occupation without injury to himself, we 

 should let him follow it, by which plan, as we believe, the sting of the 

 compulsory clause in the education act would be most effectually 

 blunted. 



2. We propose that, while the mind of the child shall not be sur- 

 charged with book-learning at a time when the body is in the most 

 critical stage of development either into a sound and helpful or into 

 an unsound and helpless body, there shall be made a provision in the 

 school itself, by which education shall be allowed to go on after the 

 usual prescribed time, in which it is presumed that the education is 

 completed. 



3. We propose, in the introduction of physical education into 

 schools, that it should be at once of the simplest and best kind ; not a 

 system of one particular character, but one which should combine 

 everything that is useful in various systems, and which should interest 

 the scholar, while it develops his physical life. We agree with an 

 observation made by Mr. Charles Roberts, in a letter in which he 

 says : 



I have examined with some care, from a physiological point of view, the 

 various systems of physical education, but I am not satisfied with any of them. 

 The military drill, in use in many schools, puts too great a strain on the lower 

 limbs, and too little on the arms and trunk, and, though the exercises are useful 

 for discipline, they are monotonous and wearisome to children, and may be in- 

 jurious, by inducing flat-foot and other deformities of the body. On the other 

 hand, the exercises in ordinary German gymnasiums are generally too severe for 

 children, and not sufficiently under the control of the non-medical teacher ; 

 their expense, moreover, places them beyond the reach of elementary schools. 

 The Swedish system, again, as taught in the board schools, lacks spirit and 

 energy, from the entire absence of apparatus, and therefore of motive, to at- 

 tempt or complete a definite object a defect which Miss Chreiman's system has 

 removed to considerable extent, by the limited use of simple apparatus. 



4. We propose that there should be introduced into the system 

 what may be shortly explained as systematic training of the senses, so 

 that the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and even smell, should be 

 brought up to the best standards of perfection. Such training, we 

 are of opinion, could be carried out by means of lessons and of simple 

 apparatus, and would, in the course of carrying it out, afford facility 

 for practically testing the capacity of every scholar, and his fitness or 

 unfitness for the after-duties he may be called upon to undertake. In 



