The Correct School Age by Prof. John Mason Tyler

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 12, 1908

The Correct School Age

By Prof. John Mason Tyler

It depends. The natural school is the home. Growth is the first business of the child, and in the home he ought to grow best. He ought to live in an atmosphere of hopefulness, cheer, courage, kindness, courtesy, and refinement. He must absorb these until they become a part of him. Only the mother, herself, can furnish these.

The school is a human, artificial device to make good the deficiencies of home and surroundings. When every child was brought up in a large family on an old-fashioned farm, the sole responsibility of the school was text-book learning. The home furnished nature study, physical

and manual training, morals and religion. Open air and the spur of necessity did the rest.

If people lived under such conditions to-day, the child, until he was ten or eleven years old, would be better off at home. If the child lives in a city flat or in a house with a yard as big as a pocket-handkerchief, with an irritable father, a tired, nervous mother, and an army of nurses and governesses to vex and worry him, the sooner he is sent to the kindergarten the better. He can not possibly “grow and wax strong” and develop a steady, strong nervous system under such home surroundings.

If the system of training in the lower grades of our schools were so planned that they would furnish plenty of time for play in the open air, and thus promote a healthy growth and development, the average child would be better off at school than at home after he is seven years of age. But, unfortunately, the lower grades in most of our schools hinder growth rather than promote it.

Between a home whose educational efficiency has been hampered or crippled by modern civilization and culture, and the school which will make of the child a disembodied spirit and altogether neglect his physical well-being throughout the lower grades, the children of the rising generation are badly situated.

Much depends on the individual child as well as the school and home. The “only” child will be better off at school than at home, even in early childhood. He must learn in childhood to live comfortably with his mates and to form friendships, for this art will soon become impossible for him.

The nervous child will be better off at home until nine or ten years old if the home conditions favor growth and the development of steady nerves. Otherwise, he had probably better go to school. The best place for him would be a New England hill farm, with wise and cheery grandparents.

The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be that the chief business of the child is to grow. The center of education is in his muscle and not in his brain. Pulmonary and digestive capacity is far more important than mental capacity.

Whether a child should be sent to school or remain at home depends, then, upon whether his home or the school can best promote these inestimable virtues.—Prof. John Mason Tyler, in Good Housekeeping.