EMOTIONAL PRODIGALITY.

Western Star, Issue 1385, 31 August 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

EMOTIONAL PRODIGALITY.

Something has been wisely said of late about the danger of ovor-preßsu r e ia our schools. The time spent in study that ought to be spent in outdoor play or in exercise in gymnasia is worse than wasted. But the over-pres-sure of intellectual work would not be so bad were it not for the emotional prodigality of many children both at home and at school. Teachers are spurred to strain pupils to the upmost that they may meet the coming tost for promotion. The healthy spontaneous emotions that make it the delight of chilhood to learn are crushed, and factitious emotions of fear and dread are substituted. At home the emotional excitement is often greater than at school. Prizes, the expectations of parents, piano practice, company, parties, dances, petting and reproofs are the stimuli, culminating often in late hours spent in preparing a halfdozen lessons for the next day. The tasks at school, hard as they are, often are less injurious to children than the emotional dissipation at home. Again, the storm and stress of emotional activity that often occurs at adolescence is liable to cause an alarming waste of energy; and there is danger that habits may than be formed of allowing the emotions to evaporate or to expend themselves in unessential, pedantic, and morbid activities. Whoever revels in emotion and squanders nervous energy at one period of life will lack the needed support for intellectual activity at another peroid.—William H. Burnham in Scribner's Magazine.