Home lessons after school hours / by Sir Joseph Fayrer.

  • Joseph Fayrer
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Home lessons after school hours / by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    children should, kept them always working, working, work- ing, learning week day lessons all week days, Sunday lessons all Sundays, weekly examinations every Satur- day, and monthly examinations every month, yearly ex- aminations every year ; everything seven times over, as if once was not enough, and enough as good as a feast, till their brains grew big, and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed into turnips, with little but water inside, and still their foolish parents actually pick the leaves off them as fast as they grow, lest they should have anything green about them.” It is impossible not to admire or, to a certain extent, sympathise with the spirit which insists so passionately on the diffusion of education, and with the systematic efforts by which all classes of our infant and young population are brought within its influence. The machinery of our schools, from the highest, to the smallest dependency of the School Board, is so complete as almost to excite a feeling of envy for the great advantages denied to us, but which are now freely accessible to everybody’s children, and we are thankful for the philanthropy which declares that no child in the state shall grow up in ignorance, because education is the means by which a nation should be elevated, and the people rendered prosperous and happy. But it is possible, nay, I fear it is probable, that by over zeal we may be doing harm ; for whilst, for education, conducted on sound principles, we can only express appreciation and gratitude; of a system of competitive brain forcing any cramming, we can only say that it is worse than and neglect of schooling which may have preceded it It is not meant that education of all young persons is of this character, but that there is great tendency to it there can be little doubt; and whilst on the one hand we grate- fully recognise the high purpose which is directing national education, we must hope, on the other, that the defects may be remediable by a better appreciation' of important physiological considerations hitherto perhaps too much overlooked.
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