The subjects of fatigue and school hygiene have now grown to unexpected dimensions. Many periodicals are devoted to them, while the volume of literature bearing upon them has passed the stage where one person can be expected to command it all. In his “Bibliography of School Hygiene,” published in the “Proceedings of the National Educational Association for 1898,” Professor William H. Burnham enumerates four hundred and thirty-six standard works, articles, and journals dedicated to this cause. Many of these books, like those of Eulenberg and Bach, or Burgerstein and Netolitzky, comprise hundreds of pages, being based on extended experiment and research.
[133.] The time properly belonging to instruction must not be scattered. The deep-rooted practice of assigning two hours per week to one study and two hours to another, each lesson separated from the next by an interval of two or three days, is absurd, because incompatible with continuity of presentation. Of course, if the teacher can stand this arrangement, the pupils will have to endure it.
The subjects of instruction must be taken up in order that each may have its share of continuous time. To give a whole term to each is not always practicable; frequently shorter periods will have to suffice.
Again, one subject must not be split into several, according to the names of its branches. If, for example, we should set apart separate hours for Greek and Roman antiquities and again for mythology in addition to the time designated for the reading of ancient authors, separate hours for the systematic survey of the branches of knowledge besides those reserved for German in the highest class of the gymnasium, separate hours for analytic geometry alongside of algebra, we should tear asunder where we ought to join together, and should dissipate the time at our disposal.
Saving time depends on methods better than these,—on proficiency in presenting a subject and skill in conducting recitations.
Despite the protest here entered, German schools still adhere to the plan of presenting many subjects simultaneously, few hours per week being devoted to each. American schools are fairly free from the reproach, it being an exception to find standard subjects taught less than four or five times per week.
[134.] As boys grow older, they may derive a great deal of profit from reading and doing many things by themselves. Following their own choice, they develop in accordance with their individual traits. We question, however, the wisdom of calling for reports on such outside pursuits. Pupils of ordinary capacity should not be made ambitious to imitate what they are not fitted for; extensive reading must not impair feeling and thinking. Breadth of learning is not identical with depth, and cannot make up for lack of depth. Instead of reading, some engage in the study of a fine art. Others are compelled at an early age to give lessons in order to support themselves. These learn while teaching.
The essentials of a coherent scheme of studies must not be dependent on outside reading; they must be embraced in the plan of instruction itself.