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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 244 



ruptcy was staring her in the face. He appears to think that this is 

 a typical case, and concludes that we are living too much under the 

 rule of th.e school-master. The other voice is spoken by Miss Mary 

 E. Yate, principal of one of the New York schools. She has never 

 heard of a child that was injured by the school system. Other 

 causes hurt young people : the dissipations of child-life kills tens of 

 thousands where study kills one. Too much candy, late parties, 

 church sociables, story-reading at night, etc., are the real causes 

 of ills attributed to over-study. Now, where does the truth lie ? 



First, if the little girls of the country are swinging to and from 

 school book-bags filled as Dr. Hammond says he found one filled, 

 teachers cannot plead social dissipation and candy as the cause of 

 their failing health. If this is a typical book-bag, then the course 

 of study is overcrowded, and too much work is demanded by the 

 schools. But this is not a typical book-bag, and we may set it 

 aside in seeking an answer to our general questions. No doubt 

 such book-bags can be found ; no doubt there is great over-press- 

 ure in some towns and cities ; perhaps the average course is too 

 full : but the little girls of the country are not carrying on at one 

 time all the studies represented in that fateful book-bag. 



Second, as a class, the physicians of the country are disposed 

 to take the ground taken by Dr. Hammond : as a class, the teach- 

 ers of the country tend to side with Miss Yate. Such are the two 

 opposite tendencies, and I do not for the moment attempt to decide 

 between them. But it is important to observe that the physician 

 and the teacher alike are each pretty sure to exclude certain impor- 

 tant elements from the problem. The physician, seeing that the 

 school is a very prominent, perhaps the most prominent, factor in 

 a child's life, is apt to charge to the school ills that spring from 

 some other cause, or that spring from the school together with 

 other causes ; while the teacher, disposed to magnify his office, and 

 to think that school-education should be the main pursuit of child- 

 hood and youth, is apt to overlook other demands, and necessary 

 demands, that are made upon the child's time and energy. The 

 result is, that neither the doctor nor the teacher deals with a whole 

 child ; the two divide the child between them : whereas the doctor 

 and the teacher should each treat the child as a whole or unit, — 

 body and mind, home and school, work and play, — and deal with 

 him accordingly. There are teachers who need to be reminded 

 that they cannot absorb, and ought not to absorb, a child's time 

 and life over and above sleeping, eating, and dressing. There are 

 many necessary child activities that fall outside the school, although 

 wise parents will see that these are kept within due limits. The 

 school-master is certainly abroad, and in a sense perhaps too much 

 abroad. 



Passing to the main question, over-pressure in the schools is a 

 fact to the same degree that over-pressure in other departments 

 of American life is a fact. Here I see no reason to throw aside or 

 modify the conclusion that I came to three or four years ago, of 

 which this is the substance. Our inherited Saxon push, our na- 

 tional environment, our boundless opportunities, and our free in- 

 stitutions, in respect to courage, audacity, enterprise, and many 

 forms of achievement, make us a people by ourselves. It would be 

 hard to name a field of Hfe in which our energy, impatience, and 

 nervousness do not show themselves. It is notorious that the 

 average American does more work, whether physical or mental, 

 than any other average man in the world : hence it is that America 

 is the gauge for measuring the most energetic communities of the 

 Old World ; as when Lancashire, England, is called ' America and 

 water.' The words in which Mr. Herbert Spencer spoke of the 

 injury done by our high-pressure life, at the dinner given him in 

 New York four or five years ago, will not soon be forgotten. His- 

 tory has charged a good deal to the American spirit, and credited 

 it with much more. Its worst effects, unfortunately, are seen in 

 the higher fields of effort, — science, literature, education, and art, — 

 where time is an all-important factor. The tension of the public 

 schools is too high in the sense that the tension of our business 

 and social life is too high : in other words, the schools partake of 

 the national genius. Dr. Stanley Hall, some years ago, said he had 

 seen a file of one hundred and fifty small German boj's just as they 

 marched out of the school-house at noon a quarter of a mile away ; 

 also that he had observed that the little girls at the Victoria school, 

 Berlin, did not run a step at recess, or do any thing that an equal 



number of ladies might not do. But such things as these, it hardly 

 need be said, cannot be found in the typical American school. 



The foregoing remarks have been made with almost sole refer- 

 ence to our public-school education considered as a whole ; but 

 they can be extended with hardly a word of qualification to our 

 higher education, professional education, and technical education 

 considered in the same way. While we have much in these de- 

 partments of which we may well be proud, we also have much that 

 we must excuse or altogether abandon without defence. The 

 causes of this state of things are the restlessness and impatience of 

 the national character : its conditions are the external facts of Amer- 

 ican life, and particularly in those communities that are less than 

 one hundred years old. Nothing but more maturity and the estab- 

 lished ways of an older and more orderly society, where constant 

 forces work with more steadiness, and chance plays a less part 

 than hitherto in success, can remedy these evils. 



My answer to the question whether over-pressure in the schools 

 is a fact, is broad and general, taking no account of a considerable 

 number of facts that are at variance with it, and that of themselves 

 would refute it. For example : I can name a city where the prin- 

 ciple of emulation is greatly overstrained ; the scholars of a par- 

 ticular class, the classes of a particular building, and all the build- 

 ings of the cit)', are engaged in an unending competition for 

 'marks;' the teachers cram the children with lessons, and the 

 newspapers cram the people with tables of percentages ; and the 

 public seem rather to enjoy it. Such facts as these are very impor- 

 tant in their way, but do not call for a modification of the judgment 

 presented above. They prove that school tension is sometimes in 

 excess of the amount found in common life. 



From the premises now presented, some important conclusions 

 follow. Speaking broadly, as before, the teachers of the public 

 schools are not responsible for such over-pressure as exists. They 

 shov^f the traits of the national character ; they magnify their 

 office ; they are open to severe censure in numerous individual 

 cases ; but their courses of study and their methods of instruction, 

 they have invented to meet the popular demand. To be sure, the 

 impression is common that teachers go counter to the wishes of 

 parents when they hurry children through school ; but the fact is, 

 the average teacher is not so anxious to hurry the child as the aver- 

 age parent is to have him hurried. This proposition cannot be 

 proved by statistics, but it will be indorsed by the sensible school 

 superintendents of the country. The rank of their children in the 

 classification, their position in the school, their promotion from 

 grade to grade, — these are with numerous school-patrons a pas- 

 sion. 



Another conclusion is, that the evils which exist cannot, for the 

 most part, be remedied by reading school-teachers sharp lectures. 

 The fundamental trouble is with the pubUc ; and it is simply the 

 educational outcropping of the national genius, push, hurry, im- 

 patience. Of course, the wrong-doing of particular teachers can 

 be corrected by criticism, or the faults of a system of city schools 

 may be remedied by discussion ; but the over-tension of the schools 

 of the country can be fully relieved only by a toning-down of the 

 national life, and this must come about mainly of itself. So far as 

 discussion is concerned, the most important thing that can be done 

 is this : to impress the public with the facts that time is an all-im- 

 portant element in education, and that knowledge, and, still more, 

 mental faculties, grow, and are not made. Pressure can never 

 take the place of time. Warmth is essential to the maturing of the 

 peach, but the fruit-grower will not promote the process by 

 building a fire on the roots of the tree. It is very desirable to 

 get some of the present self-consciousness out of the lives of young 

 children. And then, how desirable it is that boys and girls go to 

 the high school with a full year more of life and strength behind 

 them ! 



Finally, perhaps the most serious and common fault of teachers 

 is the tendency to fuss and worry. Teachers worry more children 

 to death than they work to death. Fretting, an excess of ' order,' 

 an overdoing of ' position,' do more harm than books and lessons. 

 The topic runs into moral training where we cannot follow it. But 

 sound digestion, strong nerves, a good appetite, sleep, that " knits 

 up the ravelled sleeve of care," good temper, self-command, cheer- 

 ful confidence, and a young spirit, are important elements in moral 



