Physical and Mental Labor Combined.
By George Ide Butler
THE following extract, entitled "Brain-work for Children," taken from the N. Y. Tribune, not only shows the drift of public opinion and what leading educators are thinking relative to this subject, but it also presents important facts showing the practical importance of combining physical and mental labor in the education of the young. It reads as follows:— "One of the most forcible statements showing the effect of disproportional brain-work and industrial occupation in the case of children, is that made by Dr. Chadwick to the British Association. It appears that in one large establishment containing some six hundred children, half girls and half boys, the means of industrial occupation were gained for the girls before any were obtained for the boys; the girls were therefore put upon half-time tuitions; that is, their time of book instruction was reduced from 36 to 18 hours a week, given on the three alternate days of their industrial occupation—the boys remaining the full school time of 36 hours per week, the teaching being the same system as well as teachers, also the same attendance in weeks and years. At the periodical examination of the school, surprise was expressed by the inspectors at finding how much more alert, mentally, and how much further advanced in book attainments the girls were than the boys. Subsequently, industrial occupation was found for the boys, and their time of book instruction reduced from 36 to 18 hours weekly; and after awhile the boys were proved, upon examination, to have regained their previous relative position, which was in advance of the girls." This is of deep interest to us at this point, when the problem is before us so prominently of connecting physical and mental labor in all the schools among our people.