It is, of course, not often possible for a teacher to occupy herself six
hours a day with a single class in a primary school, especially if she
confines her attention to the studies enumerated. In many schools, of
various grades, gymnastic exercises have been introduced with marked
advantage. There are many such exercises which do not need apparatus,
and in which the teacher can properly lead.
These furnish a healthful variety to the studies usually pursued, and
they prepare the pupils to receive appropriate instruction in sitting,
standing, and in the modulation and use of the voice. Indeed, gymnastic
exercises are indispensable aids to proper training in reading, which,
as an art of a high order, is immediately dependent upon position,
habits of breathing, the consequent power of voice, and expressiveness
of tone. I am fully satisfied that much more may be done in the early
period of school life than is usually accomplished. In the district
mixed schools the primary pupils receive but little attention, and they
are not infrequently occupied from one to three years in obtaining an
imperfect knowledge of the alphabet. Usually much better results are
attained by the combined agency of the home and the school, but there is
an average loss of one-fourth of the time employed in teaching and
learning the elements of our language.
Mr. Philbrick, Superintendent of Public Schools in Boston, has taught
and trained a class of fifty primary-school pupils with a degree of
success which fully sustains the statement of the average waste in
schools generally.
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