Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1880 — Effects of “Cramming” Pupils. [ARTICLE]

Effects of “Cramming” Pupils.

Mb. Eliot, the School Superintendent of Boston, complains in his last report of the bad effects of the “cramming” of pupils, of whioh Prof. Huxley once said that it made conceited young people and foolish old ones. A less patent but hardly leas grievous mistake which is commonly made in our Sublic schools is the thoughtless way i which young girls are directed to “speak up” during recitation, whereby it comes to pass that their vocal organs arp strained and their voices made' nigh and shrill instead of sweet and low as the wind of the Western 1 ] sea when northeasters are not on the rampage. Everybody has noticed the prevalence of a disagreeable shrillness in the voices of American women, and though the physiologists attribute the tendency to the influences of our climate, it is undoubtedly aggravated by: the unnatural tension of the vocal or-! gans of children at school. Attention has of late been called to the alarming! prevalence of shortsightedness in GerauH ny, and oculists who have reported upon l it say that it is caused by the straining* of the eyes of young children and youths in study. To remedy the defect they have proposed not only the shortening and division of study hours, but the taking of special pains to secure a proper disposition of pupils in reference to the direction from which light falls upon their books. Myopia is not the peculiar danger of American children as it is with the Germans; it is the quality of the larynx, and not of the eye, that is most imperiled, and in building our schools care should be taken that their acoustic arrangement shall be such as to require the least possible elevation of the pupil's voices. —N. Y. World. .