This may be proved by any teacher.

As to the cause for this effect, it would be out of place to argue it here.
I therefore simply state it is true.

Sympathy is a power destined to be of use in teaching, and hereafter will be better understood.
Many friends to infant education, and casual visitors, having found these erections in infant schools, have concluded that the children should always be sitting on them, which is a fatal error, and deprives the children of that part of the system which legislates for the exercise of their locomotive powers, such as the spelling and reading lessons, and the method of teaching object lessons, as described in another part of this work: the consequence has been, that the schools have become mere parrot-schools, and the children are restless and inattentive.

And this has not been the only evil that has attended a misapplication of the gallery; for the teachers, for want of knowing the system properly, have been at a loss how to occupy the time of the children, and scores of teachers have ruined their own constitutions, and also the constitutions of some of the children, by the perpetual talking and singing, which, I am sorry to say, too many consider to be the sum total of the system: and I may state here, that the children should never be more than one hour at a time, or, at most two hours, during the day, in the gallery.

All beyond this is injurious to the teacher, and doubly so to the little pupils.