who is compelled through a six-hour routine;
it is his further gain that what he knows he
knows more literally "by heart," knows with a
relish: while he is sent out into the world with
a habit of close study, so assured that he hardly
knows what it is to apply his mind with half
attention to a duty.

The second half of the day, which now, being
spent in the schoolroom spoils the whole, if it
be devoted to gymnastics, drill, athletic sport,
or (in the case of those who must work with
their parents for the bread they eat) to labour
in the house and field, can and does serve
to train a sound body while helping to a
fuller ripeness of the mind. We say, not theoretically
that it would do, but practically, and from
the wide experience of many, that it does this.
Here, for example, is a heap of evidence.

Mr. William Stuckey, who is teaching eighty
children at Richmond, and has worked for more
than a quarter of a century in schools of seven
hundred, of a hundred and eighty, and of a
hundred scholars, testifies that in his experience
"two hours in the morning and one in the
afternoon is about as long as a bright voluntary
attention can be secured." Particular children
could sustain attention longer, but they would
be scarcely five per cent of the whole number
taught. With efficient teaching of an interesting
subject, he has found that no one lesson
could with advantage be pressed beyond half an
hour. "The benefits," he says, "of enforced
attention are small. With young children, of
the average age attending British schools, if you
get a quarter of an hour's attention, and having
prolonged the lesson to half an hour, then
recapitulate, you will find that the last quarter of
an hour's teaching had nearly driven out what
the first quarter of an hour put in." Mr.
Imeson, who has been for eight-and-twenty
years a teacher, and has taught children of all
classes, is of the same opinion. Study, or the
attempt at it, for seven hours a day, destroys,
he says, the willing mind. Mr. Isaac Pugh,
who has taught during thirty years of work
about three thousand boys, says that with boys
of the higher classes, attention has been kept
on the stretch for two hours in the morning,
and afterwards from the same class he might get
an hour's positive attention in the afternoon,
but even that could not be done day after day.
Mr. Cawthorne, after twelve years' experience,
agrees with Mr. Pugh; but considering his low
estimate to refer to the silent working system,
thinks that with a different system half an hour's
additional attention might be got in the morning,
and as much more in the afternoon. But it is
not all equally good. Even with varied relief
lessons, he says: "In the morning we find the
last half-hour very wearying; in the afternoon
we find the first half-hour bright, the next half-
hour less bright, and the last half-hour worse
than useless." Mr. Donaldson, of Glasgow,
who has for eight years taught in large schools,
gives a table. He says:

"My experience as to the length of time
children closely and voluntarily attend to a lesson, is:

Children of from 5 to 7 years of age, about 15 minutes.
            "             7 to 10             "                 20       "
            "           10 to 12             "                 25       "
            "           12 to 16 or 18    "                 30       "

I have repeatedly obtained a bright voluntary
attention from, each of these classes for 5, 10, or
15 minutes more, but I observed it was always
at the expense of the succeeding lesson; or, on
fine days, when the forenoon's work was
enthusiastically performed, it was at the expense of
the afternoon's work. I find the girls generally
attend better and longer than the boys, to
lessons on grammar and composition; the boys
better and longer than the girls, to geography,
history, arithmetic, and lessons on science."

Mr. Bolton, head-master of a Half-Time
Factory School at Bradford, where nearly five
hundred children are now being taught, and who
has had seven years' experience of the half-time
system, after seven years' experience of full-time
teaching, says that he finds the half-time scholars
"more advanced. They come fresh from work
to school, and they go fresh from school to work.
I believe that the alteration is in both ways
beneficial." To which Mr. Walkers, one of the
firm in whose factory the same children are
employed, adds his testimony that, "where I had
to complain one hundred times thirty years ago,
I now have scarcely to complain once." He is
asked, "Do you find your commercial interest
in the improvement?" and answers, "Most
decidedly, notwithstanding that we spend a very
large sum on the school every year." As the
half-day's work brightens attention, to the schooling,
so the half-day's schooling, in its turn,
brightens attention to the work.

Mr. Long, who is teaching in one large school
both sorts of pupils, says that in his experience
of six years, "the half-time, or factory boys, give
us a more fixed attention than the others; they
seem to be more anxious to get on, and I
believe that in general attainments they are quite
equal to the full-time scholars." Mr. Curtis,
after nineteen years of teaching in a large school
at Rochdale where some hundreds are taught,
rather more than half the number being half-timers,
says "the progress of the half-timers is greater in
proportion than that of the full-timers," and that
they are, from having begun early to work,
preferred by gentlemen who give employment.

Mr. Davenport, a machine-maker, employing
five or six hundred workpeople, gives indeed,
as an employer, very emphatic testimony on this
head. He says: "In my experience as an
employer, the short-time scholars are decidedly
preferable to the full-time scholars, or those who
have been exclusively occupied in book
instruction. I find the boys who have had the
half-time industrial training, who have been
engaged by us as clerks or otherwise, better and
more apt to business than those who have had
only the usual school teaching of persons of the
middle class, and who came to us with
premiums. In fact, we have declined to take any
more of that class, though they offer premiums.
They give too much trouble, and require too
much attention."