rs would prefer a different
practice." "The rule is regarded by some as an uncomfortable
restriction, which without, adequate reason (!) retards the progress of
pupils." "A majority of our teachers would consider the permission to
assign lessons for study at home to be a decided advantage and
privilege." So say the later reports of the committee.

Fortunately for Angelina and the junior members of the house of
Dolorosus, you are not now directly dependent upon Boston regulations. I
mention them only because they represent a contest which is inevitable
in every large town in the United States where the public-school system
is sufficiently perfected to be dangerous. It is simply the question,
whether children can bear more brain-work than men can. Physiology,
speaking through my humble voice, (the personification may remind you of
the days when men began poems with "Inoculation, heavenly maid!")
shrieks loudly for five hours as the utmost limit, and four hours as far
more reasonable than six. But even the comparatively moderate "friends
of education" still claim the contrary. Mr. Bishop, the worthy
Superintendent of Schools in Boston, says, (Report, 1855,) "The time
daily allotted to studies may very properly be extended to seven hours a
day for young persons over fifteen years of age"; and the Secretary of
the Massachusetts Board of Education, in his recent volume, seems to
think it a great concession to limit the period for younger pupils to
six.

And we must not forget, that, frame regulations as we may, the tendency
will always be to overrun them. In the report of the Boston
sub-committee to which I have referred, it was expressly admitted that
the restrictions recommended "would not alone remedy the evil, or do
much toward it; there would still be much, and with the ambitious too
much, studying out of school." They ascribed the real difficulty "to the
general arrangements of our schools, and to the strong pressure from
various causes urging the pupils to intense application and the masters
to encourage it," and said that this "could only be met by some general
changes introduced by general legislation." Some few of the masters had
previously admitted the same thing: "The pressure from without, the
expectations of the committee, the wishes of the parents, the ambition
of the pupils, and an exacting public sentiment, do tend to stimulate
many to excessive application, both in and out of school."

This admits the sam