ful and more vital lessons of
life, they are required to fritter away time and health over a French
grammar, or other equally foolish study, which cannot, in a vast
majority of cases, be of the least service to them. They had much better
be at home making mud-pies (which, by the way, are about the only ones
that ever ought to be made), or learning to bake wholesome bread, or
even chasing butterflies in summer through the green fields, or braving
the cold of winter by joining in some of the healthful out-of-door
sports. It would, perhaps, be proper enough for such as proposed to fit
themselves for teachers, or who expected to spend their lives abroad, or
who, from pure love of a scholastic life,--with the means to follow
their inclinations, and necessary leisure at command,--thought to devote
theirs to its fullest enjoyment and bent. These form the exceptions; but
for all to essay the task, regardless of natural inclination and of the
true relation which life bears to their individual cases, is simply
absurd, and can only be accounted for in this wise, that _fashion_ seems
to demand it, as it does many other outrageous requirements, to some of
which, as they concern health, we shall have occasion to refer as we
proceed. Life is too short, at longest, and is filled with too practical
requirements, for the most of mankind to try to master or even
familiarize themselves with all the sciences of which the world has
knowledge. Even the Humboldts of the race, favored with long life, good
health, and devotedness, declare they have attained to but little more
than the alphabet of knowledge, and they--few in number--have
experienced few of those restrictions which hedge about the lives of
most people. All cannot be great linguists any more than all can be
great inventors, and it were just as valuable and reasonable an
expenditure of time to teach a child to be one as the other. Of what
benefit is a smattering of foreign language, except to make people
ridiculous? and that class is already sufficiently large; far better
that they learned to speak and spell their mother tongue with a
commendable degree of accuracy, or that they learn to train future
families in consonance with the laws of nature, and save to health the
time spent in poorly-ventilated rooms, where, under the pressure of the
modern school system, everything valuable and practical seems sacrificed
to the ephemeral and non-essential. We do not underrate the good our
sch