The curse of modern child life in America is overeducation, overconfinement, overrestraint. The injury wrought to the race by keeping too young children in school is beyond the power of any one to estimate. The work of breaking down the nervous systems of the children of the United States is now well under way. Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, and tad-poles, wild strawberries, acorns, and pine cones, trees to climb and brooks to wade in, sand, snakes, huckleberries, and hornets, and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education. Not every child can have these blessings of the country, but every child can be protected from the stifling of the nature instinct of play by formal indoor "bossed" exercises, whether called games, physical training, gymnastics, or Delsarte. [Illustration: NEW YORK CITY'S SCHOOL FARM DOES NOT STIFLE NATURE INSTINCT] The answer to the protest against too early and too constant confinement in school has always been: "Where will the child be if out of school? Will its environment at home not work a worse injury to its health? Will not the street injure its morals?" Because we have not yet worked out a method of supervising the health of those children who are not in school, it does not follow that such supervision is impossible. Perhaps the time will come when there will be state supervision over the health of children from birth, parents being expected to present them once a year at school for examination by the school physician. In this way defects can be corrected and health measures devised to build up a physique that should not break down under the strain of school life. For children whose mothers work during the day, and for those whose home environment is worse than school, it might be cheaper in the long run to assign teachers to protect them from injury while they play in a park, roof garden, or out-of-door gymnasium. If parks and playgrounds come too slowly, why not adopt the plan advocated by Alida S. Williams, a New York principal, of reserving certain streets for children between the hours of three and five, and of diverting traffic to other streets less suitable for children's play? So great is the value--mentally, morally, and physically--of out-of-door play that it has even been suggested that the substitution of such play for school for all children up to the age of ten would insure better minds and sounder physiques at fifteen. It is generally admitted that the child who enters school at eight rather than at six will be the gainer at twelve. What a travesty upon education to insist upon schooling for children because they are apt to be run over on the street, or to be neglected at home, to shoot craps, or belong to a gang and develop bad morals.