more fairly; for Ella has a marvellous ingenuity in picking out easy
verses, like Jack Horner's plums, and valuing every sacred sentence,
not by its subject, but by its shortness. Still, she is bound to win.
"How is her health this summer?" I asked her mother, the other day.
"Well, her verses weigh on her," said the good woman, solemnly. And
here I pledge you my word, Dolorosus, that to every one of these
statements I might append, as Miss Edgeworth does to every
particularly tough story,--"_N.B. This is a fact._" I will only add
that our Sunday-School Superintendent, who is a physician, told me
that he had as strong objections to the whole thing as I could have;
but that it was no use talking; all the other schools did it, and ours
must; emulation was the order of the day. "Besides," he added, with
that sort of
cheerful hopelessness peculiar to his profession, "the boys are not
trying for the prize much, this year; and as for the girls, they would
probably lose their health very soon, at any rate, and may as well
devote it to a sacred cause."
Do not misunderstand me. The supposed object in this case is a good
one, just as the object in week-day schools is a good one,--to
communicate valuable knowledge and develop the
powers of the mind. The defect in policy, in both cases, appears to
be, that it totally defeats its own aim, renders
the employments hateful that should be delightful, and sacrifices the
whole powers, so far as its
influence goes, without any equivalent. All excess defeats itself.
As a grown man can work more in ten hours than in fifteen, taking
a series of days together, so a child can make more substantial mental
progress in five hours daily than in ten. Your child's mind is not an
earthen jar, to be filled by pouring into it; it is a delicate plant,
to be wisely and healthfully reared; and your wife might as well
attempt to enrich her mignon
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