SCHOOL LIFE, GROWTH, AND HEALTH. m 



tlie time here given is the average, and private instruction and 

 optional study hours are not included, it is easy to conceive that 

 there must be a considerable number of boys who have to take 

 more time for school- work. 



How do children thus situated find time for meals, for rest, for 

 exercise in the open air, for recreation, and, above all, for sleep ? 

 Must not their mental force be worn out and benumbed by such 

 a burden, their physical growth and health suffer, and their ca- 

 pacity to resist unwholesome influences of every kind be dimin- 

 ished ? There is no doubt about the answer. The mention of 

 sleep raises a question of great importance to the rational teach- 

 ing of children. "We all know how much greater is the need of 

 children for sleep than of grown persons, and how necessary for 

 their good it is to be able fully to satisfy this need ; but how 

 great it is generally at any particular age of the child is very hard 

 to define exactly. The amount varies under different climatic con- 

 ditions. In Sweden, we consider a sleep of eleven or twelve hours 

 necessary for the younger school children, and of at least eight or 

 nine hours for the older ones. Yet the investigations have shown 

 that this requirement lacks much of being met in all the classes, 

 through the whole school. Boys in the higher classes get but 

 little more than seven hours in bed ; and as that is the average, it 

 is easy to perceive that many of them must content themselves 

 with still less sleep. It is also evident from the investigations 

 that the sleeping time is diminished with the increase of the 

 working hours from class to class, so that pupils of the same age 

 enjoy less according as they are higher in their classes. It thus 

 appears constantly that in schools of relatively longer hours of 

 work, the sleeping time of the pupils is correspondingly shorter. 

 In short, the prolongation of the working hours takes place for 

 the most part at the cost of the time for sleep. If, then, the load 

 of work of a school youth is too much for his stage of growth, and 

 too little time is left for recuperation and sleep, the momentous 

 question arises, whether it has been statistically proved that the 

 length of the working time exercises a definite influence on the 

 health of the children. It has. The average time of work of each 

 class was computed, and the pupils were divided into two groups, 

 consisting of those who studied more and those who studied less 

 than the mean. It was found that the amount of illness of those 

 who worked longer than the average was 5*3 per cent higher than 

 that of those who worked less ; a result which must be regarded 

 as of very great importance when we consider how many other 

 unhealthy influences there are to make themselves felt. The 

 result was still more significant in the two lowest classes. The 

 liability to illness there, in connection with the longer hours of 

 work, was from 8*6 to seven per cent higher. We may also ob- 



