Overwork in German Schools.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2033, 18 July 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Overwork in German Schools.

After forty-two years' experience, it ia now virtually conceded in Germany that physical exercise ia not a sufficient antidote to brain presiure, but that, when the evil exists, the remedy mast be sought in the removal of the Oftuse. Official action with reference io overpressure haa been taken in Prusca, Saxony, Wurtemberg, Baden, Hesae, and AlsaceLorraine. The commission appointed by the Stadtholder of Alsace-Lorraine recommended that the n amber of study hours should be roatrioted to twenty-six a week for the lawest classes of the gymnasia, and to twenty-eight and thirty-two for the higher; that the hours oi home study should bo eight;, twelve, and eighteen a week, progressing from the lowest cla?3 to the highest ; and that six hoars a week should hu devoted to general phyeical exercise, inoludingswiinminK, open aireports, skating, and excursions. While the existing conditions will be somewhat ameliorated by thc<<o decrees, they did not seem to have brought about a final solution of the difficulty. Laos year a -petition upon the subject, signed by eminent teachers, physicians, and other citizens, was addressed to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies. After Betting forth the deplorablo effects of the excessive strain upon the nervous system of sohokrs, it appeals to the patriotism of the deputies to put an end to the abuse which, the petion asserts, " threatens little by little to reduce the cultivated classes of society to a state of moral weakness that shall ronder them incapable of great and manly resolution."