Even the stingy fifteen
minutes' recess, morning and afternoon, has been stolen from the
children. Instead is given the inspiriting physical culture, all
making silly motions together in a nice, warm room, full of
second-hand air. Is it any wonder that one in every three that
die between fifteen and twenty-five, dies of consumption?
You must have noticed that almost everybody that amounts to
anything spent his early life in the country. The city schools
have great educational advantages; they have all the up-to-date
methods, but the output of the Old Red Schoolhouse compares very
favorably with that of the city schools for all that. The
two-mile walk, morning and evening, had something to do with it,
not only because it and the long nooning were good exercise, but
because it impressed upon the mind that what cost so much effort
to get must surely be worth having. But I think I know another
reason.
If the city child goes through the arithmetic once, it is as much
as ever. In the Old Red School-house those who hadn't gone through
the arithmetic at least six times, were little thought of. In town,
the last subject in the book was "Permutation," to which you gave
the mere look its essentially frivolous nature deserved. It was:
"End of the line. All out!" But in the country a very important
department followed.
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