ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 11 



asked, how does such light study agree with the numerous lessons 

 arranged and referred to in this and the previous section ? Our 

 answer is two-fold. A small and easy portion of these lessons is 

 given at any one time ; for the total is the work of four years; and 

 there is none of them which may not be imparted by insensible 

 degrees, without approaching to labour or going beyond amusement. 

 In most infant schools, the in-door occupations, we think, bears too 

 large a proportion to the out, or, in bad weather, to the in-door re- 

 creation. The common practice is an hour's lessons and a quarter 

 of an hour's play, alternately.* We should wish to see the chil- 

 dren, for a much larger proportion than this, in the play-ground. 

 However alternated, half the time of school ought unques- 

 tionably TO be spent in play. There is no time for moral ex- 

 ercise in the brief intercourse of ten minutes' play, cut short by the 

 hand-bell. The teacher, too, is insensibly led to devote himself to 

 the intellectual teaching as primary, and to slur over the moral and 

 physical exercise as secondary. This he has another temptation to 

 do ; the intellectual is the only exhibitable training. The teacher's 

 ambition to show off the children's attainments, which, to gratify 

 his own vanity, perils the bodies and minds of his pupils, ought to 

 be unsparingly put down by the directors of an infant-school,t and 



* Such an allotment of their time cannot fail to be more or less prejudici- 

 al to children so young and tender. A better plan would undoubtedly be 

 exactly to reverse the periods here alluded to. The excess of in-door study 

 in infant schools has called forth much just reprehension from the opposers 

 of such institutions. — Ens. 



■f This observation is equally applicable to the system adopted in semi- 

 naries for adults, where half-yearly exhibitions are " got up" at the sacrifice 

 of the pupil's health, and to the total neglect of a sound and useful education 

 adapted to his wants in after life. In a majority of schools, the pupils are 

 almost exclusively occupied, for one or two months, in committing to memory 

 Greek or Latin plays, or entire eclogues of Virgii, who would gaze with 

 vacant wonder if asked to enumerate the component parts of the air they 

 breathe — to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies — or elucidate the 

 most simple and beautiful of the organic laws. But this classical display of 

 erudition answers the purpose for which it is intended : first, it gratifies the 

 vanity and excites the astonishment of the parents, who, in most cases, have 

 long since buried their crude and imperfect knowledge of the classics in 

 oblivion ; secondly, it tends to render them blind or indifferent to the deplor- 

 able ignorance of their children in every other branch of knowledge ; and, 

 thirdly, it ministers to the ambitious views of the master, who considers his 

 fortune made if one tithe of his pupils distinguish themselves at the Univer- 

 sity. The film is now happily removed from the eyes of the intelligent por- 

 tion of the community, and this barbarous system of " our fore-fathers" 

 is about to be abandoned, in spite of the vigorous efforts that have been 

 made by bigoted and narrow-minded advocates to u])hold it. — Eps. 



