enquiries, and I have found that well life purpose. Away with all stepping

1. By securing an eligible lot and ap- practically speaking so seemingly diffi propriately improving it.

2. By putting thereon suitable out- best public schools in this city to have a buildings.

3. By constructing a school room within the walls of which incompetent per-ture of 72°. sons cannot keep school. varieties in extremes.

4. By securing in the school building thorough ventilation that the brains of both teacher and pupils may be supplied with fresh blood; for growth of mind cannot be produced without it.

5. By securing the services of an intelligent, teachable, and moral teacher, one whose body and mind are self-controlled and self-cultured, and one who enters upon the work of instruction because he loves it and chooses it for his

I

sician remarks, "the terms hot, warm, and so similar are they in character. In cool, cold, as applied to the surrounding attending the public schools of this city air, are regulated by the sensations it pro- for instance, it is impossible but that one duces upon the average of persons. "If should notice, in the rapidity and multithe heat be carried off as fast as it is gen- plicity of exercises or studies, an undue erated, and no faster, no particular sensa- amount of excited attention, eager intertion is felt, and the bodily powers are est and mental tension, that must be folneither stimulated nor exhausted. This lowed by a corresponding amount, esequilibrium is maintained (supposing pecially noticeable towards the end of that no extraordinary exertions are made) the term, of physical exhaustion. when the thermometer stands at 62°, or would not be understood to say that all thereabouts. We call that point in the children suffer alike, but I must mainscale temperate. * * * I am speak- tain that the instances are common ing of the average of healthy persons; enough to make me feel it to be a duty for remarkable diversities occur among to call your attention to what is undoubtindividuals in respect to the epithets edly an evil. It is easy to reconize the which they assign, under the guidance injured, and this is best done at home, of their sensations, to the particular de- in the evening, when the day's excitegrees of the thermometric scale; their ment is over. The effects run thus: a sensations differing according to the pale face, an air of lassitude, a variable power which their constitutions respec- appetite, an irritable temper, disturbed tively possess of evolving heat. Now, sleep; and by and by comes a dulness in if this power of evolving heat be entire, the intellect — with an indisposition or and active and persistent, no peril need aversion to learning, resulting at last, in attend even violent alternations of ex- comparative inability to learn; and endternal temperature. But if it be weakened, ing, as I have seen, if the pupil is pushed as for instance - by impure air, by long to extremity, in serious and more or less confinement, by over study, by loss of prolonged injury to the mind- in one sleep, all of which causes are in operation | instance, in idiocy. These evil effects, among our school children; or, if the health is already deranged, or the nervous system in any way exhausted; or if the skin be perspiring, or has already thrown off its excess of heat; or, if children remain at rest immediately after and during the application of cold; then it becomes highly perilous and likely to produce internal mischief. If we need proof of the truth of all this we find it in the fact that "one-sixth of the deaths of young children result from cold."

To pass on - you will see by your programme, that I am expected to say something about the number of school hours. * * * Our hours of attendance are today more than children can bear without risk to health, and the number of studies more than the children can sustain without passiing or permanent injury from exhaustion. I speak of these two evils in one sentence, for the reason that it is not easy to distinguish their individual consequences-so closely are they allied

with the consequent interference in other functions of the body, will in the end break down the child's health. It is perhaps worthy of remark, that the girls suffer more frequently than do the boys, and I make this remark for the particular consideration both of teachers and parents.

Where there is so much waste as there is in the animal economy of young children, there must be ample time for renovation; and where this time is not given, but the child is required to study both at school and at home, to a degree affecting even its sleep, which becomes but a continuance of enduring thought, then the mind, sympathizing as it does with the exhausted state of the body, can not develop and is not benefited by its exertions.

Will you allow me, Mr. President, to suggest a remedy for the evil I have pointed out? I would begin, then, by curtailing the hours of study. "It has

women

Before I leave this part of my paper, let me say, that I know of no valid objection that can be made to lessening the number of studies in our public schools, and I would anticipate the objection which may be made to curtailing the hours of study. The change may be ob jected to on the ground that recesses are permitted; but there is as I believe no validity in this objection, for the reason

been computed," says Dr. Franklin, "by | practice, of studying in the evening is some political arithmetician, that, if one of the most pernicious I know of every man and woman would work for among children. No teacher should refour hours each day on something useful, quire it, no parent allow it, as it is ruinthat labor would be sufficient to procure ous to sleep and to health. all the necessaries and the comforts of life; want and misery would be banished out of the world; and the rest of the twenty-four hours might be spent in leisure and pleasure." As with grown men and women, so with little men and our children; as with physical, so with mental labor. I believe that Franklin is right in his estimate, and I believe that I am right in mine also. To speak more explicitly, I would divide | that at best, the recess is often incomthe scholars of our public schools into two classes for the hours of study: those under and those above twelve years old. The latter not to be more than four hours in school any day, and the former not more than three hours; the session to be divided in summer for the four hour class into two hours for the morning and the same in the afternoon, and the whole school to form but one class in the winter, from 9 A. M., until noon.

plete. Either bad weather, or indifference, or a variety of circumstances will prevent the relaxation meant to be af forded. Again, in inclement weather, or when the ground is wet and cold, it is a grave question whether the recess itself is not a positive injury. I have often been called to children who were said to have taken cold, or fever, or inflammation of the lungs, from exposure in going to or returning from school. This Under an arrangement of this kind I is all nonsense. Children do not take verily believe that more would be learned cold while they are walking or running, because better taught and better learned, | no matter what the weather is, as an exand that the gain both to scholar and teacher, as well as to the parents and to the public, would be infinitely greater than under the present system. I am speaking as a physician-as one who must regard health of mind and of body before education, and a life as more valuable than a lesson.

cess of animal heat generated by exercise makes this impossible. Such sickness has quite another source; it can arise only when the excess of vital heat has passed off, or when there is no excess, but rather a diminished temperature. Wet shoes and cold feet and damp clothing, the result of a recess, followed by a flood of cold air from an upper sash, are not exactly conducive to health, but very conducive to colds, to fevers and to inflammations. Nor is the sudden change from a heated school room into a cold, moist air less dangerous; as the justly celebrated Dr. Watson remarks, "It is "one of the most common and best ascertained exciting causes of inflamma

In connection with curtailed hours I would also suggest the advisability of lessening the number of exercises or studies. The undue excitement so manifest in the manner and regards of the scholars can not but be injurious. There is of course a proper interest to be felt and shown in study, but the tension of mind and mental excitement before alluded to are not compatible with health|tion in general." and therefore should be avoided.

Nor should children be allowed to evade the rules for time of studying. No child should be permitted to carry a book home. This practice, for it is a

And this brings me to another subject upon which I have been requested by your president to make some remarks play-grounds. Now, play-grounds in fine weather are all sufficient. But we should

have play-houses for our school-children | more weight to what I am about to say

in bad weather. No child should be allowed to sit in school with wet shoes on its feet. What a trifling expense and how easy a matter it would be for each child to be required to keep a pair of old shoes or slippers at school. And how much serious sickness could be prevented by the boards of education issuing directions to this effect, providing for the children thus being protected against the consequences of mere want of thought on the part of the parents. The object of a recess is, the preservation of health and of the capability to study. But the recess becomes inoperative to this end, and even dangerous, when proper means for its realization are not provided. I would like, Mr. President, to dwell longer on the necessity for these play-houses, but time does not allow me to say more than that they should be provided, and that I would with pleasure pay my part of the tax for building them.

if I were to admit that as a physician, I know them well and have marked with peculiar interest the diseases to which as a class I find the female part of them are more particularly subject. Diseases directly attributable to exhaustion; diseases of the lungs and diseases of the nervous system; from which recovery, especially in cases of injury done to the nervous system, is frequently so slow, that years will elapse even after teaching is abandoned, before the patient can be said to be well; to be adequate to the duties or even to the pleasures of life. Were I to write you a volume, gentlemen, upon this subject, I do not know that I could express more than these few, but earnest and truthful words have conveyed, and sincerely do I hope and trust that they may be of service to those in whose interest they are said.

When asked how this exhaustion comes about, my answer would be instant- from over-work. If this opinion were doubted, then would I say come with me into one of our public schools in this city, and mark the air that is

Objection may be taken to curtailing the hours of study in our public schools for a reason almost too Pickwickian to be received with anything else than a good tempered smile. As I understand, breathed-why at times it smells like children are sent to school not unfre- burnt fish; mark the perpetual motion quently with a two-fold object, to learn, which the system of teaching imposes and to be taken care of. To be kept out on the children and teacher; the rapid, of harm's way, off the street, out of dan- nay, constant change, and the number of ger, out of the house, and so on. If this the exercises and studies; mark the exbe really so, then heaven help you, gen-cited action, and quickening interest and tlemen; I do not think the Board of Ed-over earnest attention of all concerned; ucation will. If you are to be public nurses as well as public school teachers; if this is what the public expect from you, I should recommend you, now that striking is the order of the day, to strike for double wages; or better perhaps, to appeal to the better sense of this same public for a reconsideration of your duties, and to the Boards of Education for a redress of grievances.

learn that this goes on every morning, every afternoon; every day in the week, except Sunday, and every week in the month. Then, learn that the teacher's labors for the school commence at 8 A. M., and without recess for her; nay, commonly enough without time to go home for dinner; without relaxation of any kind, her labor continues and does not end until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. Then, And now, a few words concerning the ask the teacher how she feels, particularly health and life of teachers. I have prac- if this be toward the end of the term, ticed as a physcian for some twenty and the answer is "tired, tired" and putyears in this city, and have been in the ting her hand to her head, the story is habit of attending upon public school told. This is no fancy picture, it is the teachers as commonly as upon any other result of a personal observation, and apclass of society. Perhaps, it would give | plies to-day, to most of the female teach

ers in our public schools, that I am ac- still better, it serves to confirm the views quainted with. All this is unreasonable, I have already expressed.