“To repair the children without closing the schools, if I may modify Dr. Goler’s epigram,” suggested Mr. Clyde.
“Exactly. Eventually we shall have to build as well as repair. A very curious thing is happening to Young America in the Eastern States. The growing generation is shrinking in weight and height.”
“Which is almost contradictory enough for a paradox,” remarked Mr. Clyde.
“It’s a melancholy and literal fact. You know, there’s a height and weight basis for age upon which our school grading system rests. The authorities have been obliged to reconstruct it because the children are continuously growing smaller for their years. There’s work for the inspection force!”
“You’d put the children on pulleys and stretch ‘em out, I suppose!” gibed Grandma Sharpless.
“That might work, too,” replied the doctor, unruffled. “The Procrustean system isn’t so bad, if old Procrustes had only sent his victims to the gymnasium instead of putting them to bed. Yes, a quarter of an hour with the weight-pulleys every day would help undersized kiddies a good deal. But principally I should want the school-inspectors to keep the youngsters playing.”
“You don’t have to teach a child to play,” sniffed Grandma Sharpless, with womanly scorn of mere man’s views concerning children.
“Pardon me, Mrs. Sharpless, you taught your children to play.”
“I! Whatever makes you think that?”
“The simple fact that they didn’t die in babyhood.”