I have had children come to school without their breakfast, because it has not been ready; others have come to school without shoes, because they would not be kept at home while their shoes were mending; and I have had others come to school half dressed, whose parents have been either at work or gossipping; and who, when they have returned home, have thought that their children were lost; but to their great surprise and joy, when they have applied at the school, they have found them there.
Need any thing more be advanced than these facts, to prove, that it is not school, or the acquirement of knowledge, that is disagreeable to children, but the system of injudicious instruction there pursued.
Children are anxious to acquire knowledge, and nothing can be more congenial to their taste than association with those of their own age; but we ought not to wonder that little children should dislike to go to school, when, as in most of the dames' schools, forty or fifty, or perhaps more, are assembled together in one room, scarcely large enough for one-third of that number, and are not allowed to speak to, or scarcely look at each other.

In those places, I firmly believe, many, for the want of proper exercise become cripples, or have their health much injured, by being kept sitting so many hours; but as children's health is of the greatest consequence, it becomes necessary to remedy this evil by letting them have proper exercise, combined as much as possible, with instruction; to accomplish which many measures have been tried, but I have found the following to be the most successful.
The children are desired to sit on their seats, with their feet out straight, and to shut each hand; and then ordered to count a hundred, or as many as may be thought proper, lifting up each hand every time they count one, and bringing each hand down again on their knees when they count another.

The children have given this the name of blacksmith, and when asked why they called it blacksmith, they answered, because they hammered their knees with their fists, in the same way as the blacksmith hammers his irons with a hammer.

When they have arrived at hundred (which they never fail to let you know by giving an extra shout), they may be ordered to stand up, and bring into action the joints of the knees and thighs.

They are desired to add up one hundred, two at a time, which they do by lifting up each foot alternately, all the children counting at one time, saying, two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, and so on.