Close Confinement at School
[
Testimonies for the Church 3:135-138
(1872).]
The system of education carried out for generations back has been
destructive to health and even life itself. Many young children have
passed five hours each day in schoolrooms not properly ventilated, nor
sufficiently large for the healthful accommodation of the scholars. The
air of such rooms soon becomes poison to the lungs that inhale it.
Little children, whose limbs and muscles are not strong, and whose
brains are undeveloped, have been kept confined indoors to their injury.
Many have but a slight hold on life to begin with. Confinement in
school from day to day makes them nervous and diseased. Their
bodies are dwarfed because of the exhausted condition of the nervous
system. And if the lamp of life goes out, the parents and teachers do
not consider that they had any direct influence in quenching the vital
spark.
When standing by the graves of their children, the afflicted parents
look upon their bereavement as a special dispensation of Providence,
when, by inexcusable ignorance, their own course has destroyed the
lives of their children. To then charge their death to Providence is
blasphemy. God wanted the little ones to live and be disciplined, that
they might have beautiful characters and glorify Him in this world and
praise Him in the better world.
Ignorance of Nature’s Requirements
Parents and teachers, in taking the responsibility of training these
children, do not feel their accountability before God to become ac-
quainted with the physical organism, that they may treat the bodies
[176]
of their children and pupils in a manner to preserve life and health.
Thousands of children die because of the ignorance of parents and
teachers. Mothers will spend hours over needless work upon their own
dresses and those of their children, to fit them for display, and will then
plead that they cannot find time to read up and obtain the information
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