"This certifies," must give place to his unlaureate neighbor. Aside from the field of mechanical invention and skill, the upheaval, as it were, of society in the line of decorative art,—we can hardly call it yet a development,-is opening many new channels of mental and manual activity. For all of these a correct training in drawing and design is the first requisite; nor is there, in fact, any department of business or professional life where its want is not felt. The use of the pencil can be as readily learned as that of the pen, and might well be as universal.

But as the child can be pleased with the little, simply-told tale ere yet it knows a word or a letter; as in reading there should be some careful study of words, united with their ready and discriminating use, their only worth, so should the elementary lines and curves be interspersed with some picture-making, some attempts at shading and design. A fairly-proportioned figure and a meritorious design may be accomplished long before the perfect straight line can be achieved. What kind of industrial training could or should be made a part of our curriculum? is the question of the day, but not the purpose of this paper. One enthusiast is partially successful in this, and another in that; but just what shall finally take its place alongside of the Reader and Arithmetic, still waits the successful wooer. But however this may be, we should seek by some means,- few of which it has been my purpose briefly to suggest,—to cultivate in our pupils a quicker and more accurate perception; a clearer and closer logic; a sounder judgment; a nicer and truer taste; a wiser forecast, and more skillful adaptation of means to ends; how better to observe, to think, to do; to show him that, whatever his advantages, the true man is always a self-made man; that the highest acquisition is the full possession of all his powers of body and mind; and in a free land the only wise ruler, he who can control all those powers, and direct them to high and noble ends.

SCHOOL EXERCISES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, INCLUDING SESSIONS, INTERMISSIONS BETWEEN SESSIONS, RECESSES, PHYSICAL EXERCISES, AND LENGTH OF RECITATIONS.

A REPORT TO THE COUNCIL OF EDUCATION.

STATISTICS COLLECTED FROM 27 CITIES.

Your committee has collated special statistics from twenty-seven prominent cities, which may be considered fairly representative in the condition. of their schools. The following is a summary of the statistics :

I. SESSIONS: The schools in all the cities provide two sessions daily for some grades, if not for all. Pupils in the high school have only one session daily in thirty-seven per cent. of the cities. The lowest grades have only one session in less than ten per cent. of the cities.

a. Advantages of the practice in schools which have two sessions daily for all grades.

The advantages which are assigned to this practice by superintendents include the following: None; gives opportunity to go out at the proper time; gives time for recreation; dinner with parents; rest; exercise; health; better opportunities for study; no interference with family arrangements for meals; rest for pupil and teacher; suits patrons; keeps children out of mischief; easier for pupils to do work; long-needed rest; school is for the child, not the child for the school.

b. Disadvantages attending the practice in the same schools.

Superintendents say: As much accomplished in one as in two sessions; time none too short to go home,-too long to play about the school-grounds; pupils subject to exposure; gives too much opportunity for absence during the latter part of the day.

a. Advantages of the practice in schools where pupils in the high school have only one session daily.

Superintendents say: Pupils have to come a long distance; works well; it suits the habits of the people; time to rest; convenience of parents and pupils.

b. There are no particular disadvantages specified.

II. LENGTH OF INTERMISSION AT NOON: The noon recess varies in length from one hour to two and one-fourth hours; the average is about one hour and three-fourths of an hour.

III. RECESSES: Nearly thirty per cent. of the schools have daily, in all grades, two recesses, -one in the forenoon and one in the afternoon. About twenty per cent. have one out-door recess daily in all grades; these schools have usually one or two in-door recesses, when pupils take physical exercise for a brief period. Nearly twenty per cent. have no out-door recess; pupils in these schools have brief rests during the sessions. The

balance of the schools have practices that vary as follows: One in the high school, two in the other grades; two in higher departments, three in primary; none except in primary; two in primary, one in higher grades; only for small children.

The statements of superintendents where no recess out-of-doors is allowed contain the following remarks: Fewer cases of discipline, fewer colds, session unbroken, thoughts not distracted, no opportunity for moral contamination; escape colds, discipline easier; less danger in rough play, earlier dismissal; unless good judgment is used, physical injury from close rooms and too long confinement; no recess is a decided improvement on the mechanics of school-keeping, but it hangs one more mill-stone about the neck of the little ones who are called to go through the trying ordeal of what is called the best modern school-education.

Where two out-door recesses prevail daily, superintendents say: Change the air in the room by raising windows; discipline of contact with each other, healthy exercise, development of American youth; exposure, evil contamination, general disturbance; parents desire the plan; healthful exercise; disturb school less than leaving room at all times.

Where one out-door recess prevails, the remarks are somewhat similar to those just cited under two recesses.

IV. PHYSICAL EXERCISES: About fifty per cent. of the cities have physical exercises in the schools. The rest have the exercises in portions of the grades, more particularly in the lower grades. The superintendents say of these exercises: Usual advantages and disadvantages; health; great advantage if well conducted, otherwise none; no disadvantages; play is a different thing from exercising by rule; want of room, proper accommodations and properly prepared teachers; dust is raised in the room by the exercise; take the place of out-door exercises, likely to become formal, therefore valueless; pupils go to work more vigorously, teachers are annoyed by so many interruptions; take the place of general exercises, air changed in the room; rest and physical culture; advantage to mind and body too numerous to dwell upon; creates good spirit among sluggish children, promotes manly bearing and personal pride; improves general carriage and appearance; change for pupils and teachers.

V. RECITATIONS: The recitations vary in length from ten minutes to one hour; a large majority of the cities give from fifteen minutes to forty-five minutes. The school-day varies from four and a half hours to five and a half hours, depending upon grades.

Superintendents say in regard to the length of recitations: Determined. by subject and age of pupil; arrangements of hours left wholly to principals; to give time for study, and to rest the attention; mainly to conform to the ability of pupils to give attention; fifteen minutes in primary, because attention cannot be held ; forty-five minutes in the high school, because subjects demand it; forty-five minutes are fifteen minutes too long; takes up the school-hours; thirty to forty minutes keep pupils as busy as they

should be kept, and give all subjects a fair chance; to give change and variety to the little ones.

DISCUSSION: These statistics are valuable for what they contain and for what they suggest. They contain reasons in profuse variety; here are wants of parents; convenience of pupils; capacity of pupils; opinions of teachers; health; discipline rendered more easy to administer; American manhood; rest to pupils; moral contamination; physical development; dust; and rest for the teacher. The statistics suggest very plainly that no welldefined educational idea controls school-exercises; they reveal an educational evolution that belongs to the empirical stage; they indicate an adventurous spirit which seeks improvement; they show a commendable activity among school-managers.

A basis for attempting to establish the character, number, and length of school-exercises can be found in the utilitarian conception of work. What shall be the divisions of the day in order that pupils shall be able to accomplish daily a maximum amount of curriculum work? The question involves the notion of productive labor, mental and physical. Productive labor means endurance, patience, persistency, health, and mental vigor. Other things being equal, that pupil will perform the greatest amount of labor who endures longest an unfaltering application with the least fatigue. To endure indicates power, and power is increased under habit. Hence school-exercises should recognize the idea of habit as it is related to work; they should incorporate the notion that the child must acquire the habit of work. Habit can be acquired only by routine; routine to develop power implies a minimum of variety in exercises rather than a maximum. The general tendency among schools is clearly to lessen the number of hours. which constitute a school-day. There is a tendency, also, to increase the number of subjects in the courses of study which pupils must master in order to pass from grade to grade. These two conditions, acting in opposite directions, introduce into school an undue pressure upon pupils and teachers; both feel hurried at all times, and hence school-work is carried on under extreme stimulus and excitement; this state throws all parties into nervousness; this condition affects the health of all, and hence retards intellectual progress. School-room work must be performed under no undue excitement, if pupils are to acquire permanent habits of power to do the tasks which are set to them in school and in the whirl of the busy world into which they will come soon.

It would seem to follow, therefore, that school-exercises should be governed by the following general principles: (1) That the tasks set to pupils should not involve daily too great a variety of exercises, and the exercises should be reasonably brief; for habits of attention and power to work are acquired most rapidly by exercises which purpose a concentration of energy. (2) That pupils should be kept calm, at ease, free from nervous excitement, in order that they may develop a maximum power of application and of endurance; for when pupils are under no waste-energy they require less

time to rest and recuperate their powers. (3) That pupils should be afforded stated opportunities to attend to the condition and necessities of the physical system, in order that they may not be under the embarrassments of obtaining special permissions, and also because regular opportunities tend to induce regular habits in the physical system.

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Further Physical exercises that are taken expressly to rest the tension of mental application must be taken spontaneously, -i. e., without taxing consciously the mental or physical energies. Physical exercises, performed under the tension of regular drill, are a change from study, but they are not a relief to conscious expenditure of volitional force. A man might as well put immediately his horse into bits to speed a skeleton wagon over the course in order to rest him from the weariness of drawing the plow, as to put pupils into vigorous physical drill under the restraints of order and attention, when they are to be rested from mental application. The bitting of the horse and the calisthenic drill of the pupils are valuable for specific purposes; but they are severe business, not play. Play is exercise that is performed upon a minimum of conscious attention. Drill in physical exercises requires from pupils and teachers an expenditure of volitional energy that is a tax upon mental and physical power. Pupils who thrive under both study and drill in physical exercises exhibit the integrity of their constitutional powers; they demonstrate their capacity to work; they can pursue successfully more than one subject daily. These facts indicate the province of physical exercises; they belong to the general conception of work with which this discussion began.

CONCLUSION. The nature of the case, as it is revealed by the preceding statistics and investigation, indicates the following general conclusions:

(1) School-exercises belong to the general province of work. They should purpose to develop the maximum power of pupils to accomplish work.

(2) Intermissions at noon, and recesses during the sessions of the schoolday, are periods to give rest to pupils. Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, and vacations belong to the same periods. Pupils rest and recuperate during these periods.

(3) Study in school and out of school, recitations, and physical exercises tax volitional energies; they are sources of expenditure of power.

(4) Habits of doing daily and of enduring permanently maximum quantities of work are induced by quiet application during an extension of time, rather than by excitement, variety, and brevity in the length of the school-day.

(5) The health of pupils is conserved by absence of undue excitement, by regularity of application to study, by regularity of opportunity to go out, and by combining judiciously periods of application and of rest.

J. H HOOSE,

Member of Com. on Physical Education.