The "P.R." Letter Bag.
Volume 7, 1896, pg. 477
(The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of Correspondents.)
Dear Editor,--Will you put in a word in season in your Magazine against week-day invitations for children during term? I am trying to educate my girls at home, and sacrifice many pleasures in order that they may have the best teaching. My neighbours seem in conspiracy to prevent their taking advantage of it. I am incessantly bothered by kindly-meant invitations to birthdays, hay-parties, tennis-parties, parties which profess not to interrupt lessons, as they begin at 4.30. It is not very easy to refuse; one is looked upon as an ogre, grudging children their pleasure, but the fact is there is an impetus and swing in steady work, which is lost by interrupted efforts and too much change of thought. I know Saturday is a busy day in most households, but it ought to be the only day for children's social amusements during term, or at most Saturday and Friday evenings.
I should like to add that where children are working for outside
teachers, it seems a great want of consideration to curtail the time
for preparation. It is terribly hard on a music teacher to have to give
a lesson to a pupil who has not had time to practise properly.
Yours truly,
X. Y.
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Dear Editor,--May I say, as one who has seen a good deal of Calvinistic
and Puritanical people, that I think your contributor in the March
number makes a mistake in describing Calvinism as opposed per se to
natural gaiety (in children). No doubt the restrictions and regulations
with which good people of that school used to surround their families
often led to a spirit of depression, fretting, and irritation, which
did not conduce to cheerfulness; but the most rigid member of that
party whom I ever knew not only loved little jokes herself, but
delighted to have children round her, and to incite them to merriment.
Certainly she expected those under her charge to conform to a rule that
was strict to an extreme, hardly credible nowadays, but as long as they
did this they might be as lively as they pleased (on week days).
M. W. U.
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Dear Editor--I must take this opportunity of personally thanking you
for the immense benefit and interest I have found in reading for the
Mothers' Educational Course during these three years. Many valuable
facts and subjects have become more clear, and I can most emphatically
assert that the course of reading is f the greatest service to anyone
who will follow the guidance you give in undertaking it.
Believe me, yours very truly,
M. E. C.
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