[Footnote 1: In the city where this is written there is, so far as I
know, not one private girls' school in a building planned for a
school-house. As a consequence, we hear endless complaints from young
ladies of overheated or chilly rooms. If the teacher be old, the room is
kept too warm; if she be young, and much afoot about her school, the
apartment is apt to be cold.]
The following remarks I owe to the experience of a friend,[1] a woman,
who kindly permits me to use them in full. They complete what
I have space to add as to the matter of education, and deserve to be
read with care by every parent and by every one concerned in our public
schools.
[Footnote 1: Miss Pendleton.]
"There can be no question that the health of growing girls is overtaxed;
but, in my opinion, this is a vice of the age, and not primarily of the
schools. I have found teachers more alive to it than parents or the
general public. Upon interrogating a class of forty girls, of ages
varying from twelve to fourteen, I found that more than half the number
were conscious of loss of sleep and nervous apprehension before
examinations; but I discovered, upon further inquiry, that nearly
one-half of this class received instruction in one or two branches
outside of the school curriculum, with the intention of qualifying to
become teachers.
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