would
grow if it had but two hours a day of absolute freedom and exercise in the
open air, and that in the dark and the chill of a late afternoon! In spite
of the dark and the chill, however, your boy skates or slides on until he
is called in by you, who, if you are an American mother, care a great deal
more than he does for the bad marks which will stand on his week's report
if those three lessons are not learned before bed-time. He is tired and
cold; he does not want to study--who would? It is six o'clock before he is
fairly at it. You work harder than he does, and in half an hour one lesson
is learned; then comes tea. After tea half an hour, or perhaps an hour,
remains before bed-time; in this time, which ought to be spent in light,
cheerful talk or play, the rest of the lessons must be learned. He is
sleepy and discouraged. Words which in the freshness of the morning he
would have learned in a very few moments with ease, it is now simply out
of his power to commit to memory. You, if you are not superhuman, grow
impatient. At eight o'clock he goes to bed, his brain excited and wearied,
in no condition for healthful sleep; and his heart oppressed with the fear
of "missing" in the next day's recitations. And this is one out of the
school-year's two hundred and sixteen days--all of which will be like
this, or worse. One of the most pitiful sights we have seen for months was
a little group of four dear children, gathered round the library lamp,
trying to learn the next day's lessons in time to have a story read to
them before going to bed. They had taken the precaution to learn one
lesson immediately after dinner, before going out, cutting their out-door
play down by half an hour. The two elder were learning a long
spelling-lesson; the third was grappling with geographical definitions of
capes, promontories, and so forth; and the youngest was at work on his
primer. In spite of all their efforts, bed-time came before the lessons
were learned. The little geography student had been nodding over her book
for some minutes, and she had the philosophy to say, "I don't care; I'm so
sleepy. I had rather go to bed than hear any kind of a story." But the
elder ones were grieved and unhappy, and said, "There won't _ever_ be any
time; we shall have just as much more to learn to-morrow night." The next
morning, however, there was a sight still more pitiful: the baby of seven,
with a little bit of paper and a pencil, and three sums in add