"The capacity of attention is found to be greater in cold weather than in hot, in winter than in summer.

"I also collect that the capacity of voluntary attention varies with bodily strength and weakness. It is reported to me, that schoolboys, of nearly the same age and conditions, in the same school-rooms and under the same tuition, being weighed and divided into two classes, the light and the heavy, the attainments, as denoted by the number of marks obtained, was found to be the greatest with the heaviest; that is to say, those of the greatest health and bodily strength. These were chiefly of town-born children of common habits. The robust children of rural districts, or less cultivated habits of attention, are found to be slower in receiving ideas; but with cultivation, they are brought up to equal capacity of attention, and to greater retentiveness of the matter taught, than the common classes of town-born children.

"I collect that the good ventilation, lighting, and warming of a school-room will augment the capacity of attention of the pupils by at least one-fifth, as compared with that of children taught in school-rooms of the common construction.

"There are differences in the capacity of attention in different races, or in the habits of attention created previously to the school period by parents of different races. The teacher of a large school in Lancashire, who had acted as a school teacher in the southern counties, rated the capacity of attention of the native Lancashire children as five to four, as compared with those in Norfolk. In other instances the differences are wider.

"Experienced teachers have testified to me that they can and do exhaust the capacity of attention to lessons requiring mental effort of the great average of children attending the primary schools of England in less than three hours of daily book instruction; viz. two hours in the morning and one hour after the midday meal.

"Infants are kept in school, and the teacher is occupied in amusing and instructing them for five or six hours, but the duration of the mental effort in the aggregate bears only a small proportion to the whole time during which they are kept together. Even the smaller amount of mental effort in infant schools is, however,

subject to dangerous excess. I am assured by a teacher in the first infant school established in Scotland that he did not know a preeminently sharp child who had in after life been mentally distinguished.

"In common schools on the small scale, the children will frequently be not more than one half the time under actual tuition; and in schools deemed good, often one third of their time is wasted in changes of lessons, and operations which do not exercise, but rather impair the receptive faculty.

"It may be stated, generally, that the psychological limit of the capacity of attention, and of profitable mental labor, is about onehalf the common school-time of children, and that, beyond this limit, instruction is profitless."

This is a startling statement, that we are spending full half our school-time in wearing ourselves out to worse than no purpose. But Mr. Chadwick goes on to corroborate it by further evidence. "This I establish," he says, "in this way. Under the Factories Act, whilst much of the instruction is of an inferior character and effect, from the frustration of the provision of the original bill, there are now numerous voluntary schools in which the instruction is efficient. The limit of the time of instruction required by the statute in these half-time schools for factory children is three hours of daily school teaching; the common average being six in summer, and five in winter. There are, also, pauper district industrial schools, where the same hours (three daily, or eighteen in the week), or the half-time instruction are prescribed; which regulation is in some instances carried out on alternate days of schoolteaching, and alternate days of industrial occupation. Throughout the country there are now mixed schools, where the girls are employed a part of the day in needle-work, and part of the day in book instruction. Now, I have received the testimony of school. inspectors and school teachers, that the girls fully equal in book attainments the boys, who are occupied during the whole day in book instruction. The preponderant testimony is, that, in the same schools where the half-time factory pupils are instructed with the full-time day scholars, the book attainments of the half-time scholars are fully equal to those of the full-time scholars; that is,

the three hours are as productive as the six hours' mental labor daily. The like results are obtained in the district pauper schools. In one large establishment, containing about six hundred children, one-half girls, and one-half boys, the means of industrial occupation were gained for the girls before any were obtained for the boys. The girls were, therefore, put upon half-time tuition; that is to say, their time of book instruction was reduced from thirtysix hours to eighteen hours per week, given on the three alternate days of their industrial occupation; the boys remaining at full school time of thirty-six hours per week, the teaching being the same, and by the same teachers, with the same school attendance in weeks and years in both cases. On the periodical examination of the school, surprise was expressed by the inspectors at finding how much more alert, mentally, the girls were than the boys, and in advance in book attainments. Subsequently, industrial occupation was found for the boys, when their time of book instruction was reduced from thirty-six hours to eighteen; and after a whil the boys were proved, upon examination, to have regained their previous relative position, which was in advance of the girls. The chief circumstances to effect this result as respects the boys, were, the introduction of active bodily exercises, the naval and military drill, and the reduction of the duration of school-teaching to within what appear to me to be the psychological limits of the capacity of voluntary attention.

"When book instruction is given under circumstances combining bodily with mental exercises, not only are the book attainments of the half-time scholars proved to be more than equal to those of the full time scholars, but their aptitudes for applying them are superior, and they are preferred by employers for their superior alertness and efficiency.

"In the common course of book instruction, and in the average of small but well-managed long-time schools, children after leaving an infant school are occupied, on an average, six years in learning to read, write, and spell fairly, and in acquiring proficiency in arithmetic up to decimal fractions. In the large half-time schools, with a subdivision of educational labor, the same elementary branches of instruction are taught better in three years, and at

about one-half the annual expense for superior educational power. The general results stated, I have collected from the experience collected during a period of from twelve to fifteen years, of schools comprising altogether between 10,000 and 12,000 pupils. From such experience it appears that the general average school time is in excess full double of the psychological limits of the capacity of the average of children for lessons requiring mental effort."

One would think this was testimony enough; but Mr. Chadwick, not satisfied with the practical evidence thus afforded by his wide experience, was anxious that it should be corroborated by scientific testimony; and he accordingly addressed a letter to that eminent anatomist, Prof. Owen, asking his opinion on the subject. These letters we propose to give in our next number. ED.

SHALL WE HAVE A NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION?

[We lay before our readers the following communication from a gentleman, who, though giving for his signature his earliest occupation, has since filled much higher offices in the Commonwealth, and whose name, if we were at liberty to give it, would add much weight to his opinion.]

MR. EDITOR: I was present at the recent meeting of the Massachusetts Teachers' Association, when a resolution was adopted appointing a committee to memorialize the Congress of the United States, in favor of organizing a National Bureau of Education. I listened for some reason for such a measure, but as it passed ⚫ without discussion, I was left to my own reflections upon the subject in forming an opinion of its wisdom or expediency. I had indeed been favored with an earnest appeal in favor of such a scheme, which the "Loyal Publication Society" had issued. And I had there read what had been done in the establishment of national systems of education by Prussia, Holland, France, and other governments in Europe, and the argument which was drawn from their experience in favor of the plan proposed in this resolu

tion. I felt, moreover, the respect that was due to the opinions of such a body of teachers as were before me, and reflected upon the influence which a judgment, thus expressed, was likely to have upon the public mind, and I resolved to give the subject the attention which its importance deserved. And now, sir, that I am unable to coincide in the opinion which the Association has thus promulgated, will it be aside from the purposes of your journal to give place to a few suggestions, why the teachers of Massachusetts have no occasion to ask for a National Bureau of Education?

If such a Bureau is to be established, I suppose it is with a view to some action. We do not want any more sinecure berths for old politicians. What that action is to be, we are not apprised, unless it is proposed to clothe such a Bureau with political power, to dictate what shall be the system of schools in the several States, the qualification of teachers, the school books to be used, and the topics taught. Now to do this would not only require legislation on the part of Congress, and any one can judge what sort of legislation such a body, gathered from every part of the United States, would be likely to adopt, but it would require the interference by the National Government, in the domestic affairs of the several States, which, to say the least, would be of most doubtful expediency, not to add of constitutional right. Free schools are not to be sustained without a constant, ever-present and ever-active system of agencies, which reach not only communities, but every individual of whom they are composed. There is work for the assessor and the tax gatherer. Moneys are not only to be raised, but to be disbursed and accounted for, teachers are to be hired, school-houses to be provided, text books and apparatus furnished, and the condition of the schools to be watched over. Is it proposed that Congress shall provide for, or regulate these? Is any friend of popular education willing to confide its interests to such a keeping? If it is not intended to act upon schools through measures of detail, like those above suggested, what is the proposed scheme to accomplish? Is it the influence of the national government, to be exerted through a bureau, that is wanted? And are we to borrow hints in this respect from what is done in France? Are the teachers or people