Excerpt: ...the part of those having the direction of our public schools, in that there is so trifling attention given both the study and observance of the laws which control our existence. What is education without a sound body? what is life to the creature of broken health? and what is there which is more valuable and priceless to us? The answer is plain to all, and yet the whole advancing generation of boys and girls, beyond a mere inkling in physiology, a possible recollection of the number of bones in the human frame, ...
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Excerpt: ...the part of those having the direction of our public schools, in that there is so trifling attention given both the study and observance of the laws which control our existence. What is education without a sound body? what is life to the creature of broken health? and what is there which is more valuable and priceless to us? The answer is plain to all, and yet the whole advancing generation of boys and girls, beyond a mere inkling in physiology, a possible recollection of the number of bones in the human frame, and that common air is composed of two principal gases, they know of hygienic law practically nothing. Worthy pupils of incompetent pedagogues, who, not being required by the public to properly inform themselves with a full knowledge of these important studies, are perhaps in some measure excused for their shortcomings. Instead of the inculcation of these useful and more vital lessons of life, they are required to fritter away time and health over a French grammar, or other equally foolish study, which cannot, in a vast majority of cases, be of the least service to them. They had much better be at home making mud-pies (which, by the way, are about the only ones that ever ought to be made), or learning to bake wholesome bread, or even chasing butterflies in summer through the green fields, or braving the cold of winter by joining in some of the healthful out-of-door sports. It would, perhaps, be proper enough for such as proposed to fit themselves for teachers, or who expected to spend their lives abroad, or who, from pure love of a scholastic life, -with the means to follow their inclinations, and necessary leisure at command, -thought to devote theirs to its fullest enjoyment and bent. These form the exceptions; but for all to essay the task, regardless of natural inclination and of the true relation which life bears to their individual cases, is simply absurd, and can only be accounted for in this wise, that fashion seems to demand it, as.
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