it were common!--ten minutes' recess is given after every hour; and in
the Blind Asylum of Philadelphia this time is taken up by light
gymnastics, which are obligatory. To these hours we must add the time
spent in study out of school. This, for some reason, nearly always
exceeds the time stated by teachers to be necessary; and most girls of
our common schools and normal schools between the ages of thirteen and
seventeen thus expend two or three hours. Does any physician believe
that it is good for a growing girl to be so occupied seven or eight
hours a day? or that it is right for her to use her brains as long a
time as the mechanic employs his muscles? But this is only a part of
the evil. The multiplicity of studies, the number of teachers,--each
eager to get the most he can out of his pupil, the severer drill of our
day, and the greater intensity of application demanded, produce effects
on the growing brain which, in a vast number of cases, can be only
disastrous.

My remarks apply of course chiefly to public school life. I am glad to
say that of late in all of our best school States more thought is now
being given to this subject, but we have much to do before an evil which
is partly a school difficulty and partly a home difficulty shall have
been fully provided against.

Careful reading of our Pennsylvania reports and of those of
Massachusetts convinces me that while in the country schools overwork is
rare, in those of the cities it is more common, and that the system of
pushing,--of competitive examinations,--of ranking, etc., is in a
measure responsible for that worry which adds a dangerous element to
work.

The following remarks as to the influence of home life in Massachusetts