With young children, no lesson should last for more than half an hour,
and if possible, a short interval between each lesson should be spent in
the open air. If the young scholar is notably in advance with his school
work, discourage this; or, at any rate, carefully consider whether his
health will allow such active development. If backward and seemingly
lazy, the cause of the indolence should be sought first in the physical
condition before the character is assailed.
Above all, no child under fifteen should have to do any routine night
study to keep up in his lessons. Young eyes are easily strained, and
young bodies are easily tired. Watch a tired child who has to study at
night; he will get his body in the most comfortable position he can
manage, and will take no thought of the direction from which the light
falls on his page. Nor has he the energy to hold his book so that the
plane of the lines is always parallel to that of his eyes.
His mind may accumulate a little extra book knowledge by such work, but
only at the risk of strained eyes and possible spinal defects. Lateral
curvature of the spine, in a great majority of cases, may be traced back
to habitual faulty postures used by children when at school work. A fair
rule to make about night work is to allow a child to study at home only
so long as he will comfortably sit upright and hold his book at a
correct angle.
In children, the physical state is a very good guide to the mental
condition. If the body is tired, the mind is in no fit state to absorb
knowledge. The thin, narrow-chested, delicate youth, perhaps with
strained eyes and nearly always with a good school record, is nine times
out of ten a preventable mistake.
If, when first he showed signs of more than average scholarship, his
parents had noted that this superiority was due principally to work done
when physically tired, and to neglect of outdoor games and general
“play,” a little sense of the comparative worth of health and youthful
scholarship would have given him a greater chance of developing into a
valuable citizen.