Recess

“ When you come back into the schoolroom after recess, the air will seem quite fresh and pure; but unless you keep the windows open, it will not be long before your head begins to be hot, and your eyes heavy, and you feel like yawning and stretching, and begin to wonder why the lessons are so long and tiresome. Then, if your teacher will throw open all the windows and have you stand up, or, better still, march around the room singing or go through some drill or calisthenic exercises, you will soon feel quite fresh and rested again. ”

“ In a recess at the farther end of the hall, we see the chests where family records are guarded with religious care, while through the open doors, or the raised curtains of Eastern tapestry which supply their place, the eye wanders into suites of apartments, everywhere denoting a refined taste delighting in the beautiful effects of proportion and perspective. ”

“ At recess the mystery that had enveloped the school was cleared away, for the three lads in the primary department were seen as the rest of the scholars filed by the door. While all the rest enjoyed the recess, the three lads were obliged to remain in their seats, and when school was dismissed for the forenoon, the new teacher entered the primary-room, and was alone with the young offenders. He sat down by them, and like a father talked kindly and gave good advice. No parent ever used more fitting words nor more impressed his offspring with the fitness thereof than did the new teacher. ”

“ He sat down in a recess and cowered below the parapet for shelter, waiting for he knew not what. It might have been ten o'clock. He had sat quite an hour, and was nearly going to sleep with weariness, inaction, and cold, when a rustle of a woman's dress near him spurred his faculties into active watchfulness. Peering into the darkness, made visible by the feeble shimmer of the lamp on the parapet, he discovered a woman approach him, crouching down in the recess on the other side of the bridge, weeping bitterly, though almost in silence. ”

“ CHARTERIS. Probably a diagram of the liver. (Julia, with an exclamation of disgust makes for the recess. Charteris catches her sleeve.) Stop: be careful, Julia. (She frees herself by giving him a push which upsets him into the easy chair; then crosses to the recess and stands looking down at Grace and Paramore from the corner next the fireplace.) ”

“ Running and jumping and boisterous conduct in the room at recess makes the pupils familiar with such conduct until it is no longer shocking to them when repeated after recess. There should be a feeling of impressiveness but cheerfulness upon entering the school-room which is conducive to study and right conduct. ”

“ For this class of work the recesses must obviously be made in the lower die, because it would be difficult to hold the work upon the lower die in the proper position to meet a recess cut in the upper one: and, furthermore, the recesses in the die should be wider than the work, to avoid the necessity of holding the work exactly straight in the recess, and keeping it against the shoulder or vertical face of the recess. ”

“ You can use the lumber-room if the class will spend Saturday afternoon moving the boxes and other things out to the barn-loft. What ’s worth having is worth working for.”
An awed trio escaped at the earliest possible moment from the dread precincts of the office, and groups of laughing and cheering juniors were the feature of the noon recess. ”

“ As well hope that a band of drunken chimney-sweeps, hot and greasy from their work, may be shut up in a Sanctuary hung with pure white linen, and that instead of soiling and turning it by their presence into a heap of dirty shreds, they will become masters in and of the sacred recess, and finally emerge from it as immaculate as that recess. ”

“ She therefore thrust me into a recess where a statue had formerly stood, but the statue had been removed, and a velvet curtain hung before the recess. Nothing could have happened more in accord with my desire than this. For I was resolved, whatever the consequences were, to remain in my place of concealment until I had solved the mystery of the club. There was an outer and an inner door, both of them being thickly padded with felt and covered with velvet. When the woman had retired and closed these doors the silence was absolute. ”

“ If there are a couple of deep recesses, one each side of the fireplace, it would be quite possible to treat the room on the principles of the worker’s room and at no great expense. In one recess should be a folding bed, closed up in a cupboard during the day time, exactly on the same lines as the Harrow boys’ beds, and into this cupboard all the bedding can be shut. ”

“ Here a deep recess, or chamber at one side, about eight feet in height, affords good standing ground, whence you may see that the water is swallowed up at once, and disappears in the heap of pebbles on which it falls. Conversation is difficult, for the roar is overpowering. [Pg 179] After I had stood some minutes in contemplation, Mr. Metcalfe told me that it was possible to get behind the fall and look through it, taking care to run quickly across the strong blast that meets you on starting from the recess. ”

“ You know it is our week to go after water, and Miss Hilliard always sends us for a fresh pailful a little before the girls' recess. Well, we can take the pail and go to the well and leave it. Then we can go up to the vault, and if nobody is there, and the door is open, we can slip inside and wait till the people come. If the door isn't open, or if somebody is watching, we can hide among the trees till the funeral comes, and then we can see all the people and get back before the end of the boys' recess. ”

“ Here they were, however - in one recess a woman and a child of five or six years huddled up in a shapeless bundle or rags, the only sign of humanity about it being two small feet. In the next recess there was a drunken man, a drover I think, fast asleep on his back, and with his mouth open, while his hat, which had rolled off was in the safe keeping of his dog, who lay with his body curled about it. In another recess, however, there was life that was not of the still kind. ”

“ We learned later that it was his custom always to begin school with a beautiful speech of honeyed words—the calm before the storm.
"Of course we have to have order in the schoolroom," he said apologetically. "I confess that I like to have the room orderly, and that I do not like to hear whispering in study hours. When the scholars go out and come in at recess time, too, it sort of disturbs me to have crowding and noise. I never wish to be hard or unreasonable with my scholars—I never am, if I can avoid it. ”

“ Your lessons are short, and you change from one to another frequently, with perhaps drills or calisthenic exercises between, so that you need not sit still too long at a time; and the seats and desks are of different sizes so that you need not sit at a desk that does not fit you. When your teacher urges you to go out of doors and play at recess time, even if you do not want to, you must think to yourself, “It will rest me and make me grow big and straight and strong.” ”

“ Thursday. It stormed hard, so we said all our lessons early to have a little longer recess. We danced cotillons and learned how to waltz, as one of the girls was so kind as to show us, and we think she is a grand teacher. We brought our dinners and all staid at noon, when we had a fine time playing "Still Palm," "Keeping House," and acting Charades.
Friday. We were all as busy as bees, and the teacher was very happy because we were good. At recess we all picked up the yellow leaves, and pinned them on our shoulders, as a badge of our belonging to the "Sunbeam Society;" ”

“ In winter we were squeezed into the recess of the farthest corner, among little boys, who seemed to be sent to school merely to fill up the chinks between the bigger boys. Certainly we were never sent for any such absurd purpose as an education. ”

“ A bad habit can only be cured by establishing a good habit in its place.
Little children should rarely be deprived of recess periods. The vigorous exercise of play is itself one of the best possible preventives of quarrelsomeness and fighting. Absence of such rest after enforced quiet 231and the restraints of the schoolroom will be one of the very best provocatives for disturbances of all kinds. The teacher who, as a means of punishment, frequently deprives pupils of the recess period, is not only harming the child but is also inviting further trouble from other disorders. ”

“ The time for the recess is a quarter of an hour, and, as you will see, it is marked R. on the schedule. We have various modes of amusing ourselves, and finding exercise and recreation in recesses. Sometimes the girls bring their battledores to school. Sometimes they have a large number of soft balls with which they amuse themselves. A more common amusement is marching to the music of the piano. For this purpose a set of signals by the whistle has been devised, by which commands are communicated to the school. ”

“ In one rocky recess is a powerful spring of pure water. The roofs are supported on barked stems of trees, black, like the walls, wherever it was possible to see them, with the smoke of two centuries. Ancient oil lamps on posts or in recesses rendered darkness visible. ”

“ Not to cleave to any person, be it even the dearest—every person is a prison and also a recess. ”

“ She went to the door and said, “Wendell, you may go home and change your clothes; Mark, you may go in and take your seat and you may have all of your intermissions alone for a week. As soon as you come in the morning, and at noon, you may take your seat at once. I will allow you a separate time for your recess from that of pupils who know how to behave toward each other. Since you can’t act decently toward other boys, you may play by yourself.” ”

“ I am in my study early these Summer mornings, finding an hour or two then more profitable than later in the day. Let us say from eight to four, or half after, with a recess at noon for rest and refreshment. The garden and west wing are sacred to madame, but the rest of the house and grounds are open to you, and the evenings at your disposal, unless you prefer to write. When not otherwise engaged, we are usually in the drawing-room after dinner, if you care to join us. ”

“ The brevity of this recess is essential to it. If the time be indefinitely increased, if the young adventurer be allowed all the morning and all the afternoon for his wandering, then all the zest goes out of the adventure. ”

“ A big ruler always lay on his desk, and they were very much afraid of that; so that when one morning at recess, in a game of ball, Charley B—— had the misfortune to break a window in the school-house, it required no little courage in the eight-year-old boy to march straight into the room, up to the desk, and confess that he had been careless and had done the mischief. ”

“ I now shared more in common with the other students in that a three month recess from education had just begun, and the fall semester would find me, like them, returning to junior high.
Mom, too, closed the door of her Kindergarten classroom for the summer, although she still persisted in pursuing various projects which related to her employment during her free time. She was home, however, and that was the most important thing. It seemed to me that life was returning to normal and I felt less alienated from society since there was more activity surrounding my home. ”

“ Often it may be even detrimental to the school. It is in many ways the test of the teacher’s power to govern. If she has quick insight into child nature she may get some of the deepest glances at the real nature of the pupils—the best and the worst traits of character—at this period. Much of the disorder of the school-room has its origin at recess. The playground and the open-air are the places for games and sports. ”

“ Of course, where it is possible, a run home between the morning and afternoon sessions of school, and a nice luncheon at the prettily set home table, with mamma smiling at the head, are the very best things to keep children well. Many reasons combine to make this arrangement very inconvenient, however, for most schools. The necessary prompt re-assembling after the noon recess would be out of the question where pupils live, as they frequently do, several miles distant from the school building. ”

“ To keep a school in session when the population of a village is gone on its necessary occasions of hunting or trapping, and to have the annual recess when all the population is returned again, is folly, whoever orders it, in accord with what time-honoured routine soever, and this has not infrequently been done. ”

“ Suppose for instance, a study card, like the one described in a preceding chapter, is made, so as to mark the time of recess and of study. The teacher near the close of recess, is sitting with a group of his pupils around him, telling them some story. They are all interested, and they see he is interested. He looks at his watch, and shows by his manner, that he is desirous of finishing what he is saying, but that he knows that the striking of the bell will cut short his story. ”

“ A few pupils take the center of the field of play, while the large majority, most of whom are in greater need of the exercise, stand or walk slowly around the edges, talking over the teacher and the lesson. An organized recess, by which is meant a programme whereby only enough classes go to the playground at one time to give opportunity for all of the pupils to run and play at once, does away with these objections, if some little guidance or leadership be given the children for lively games. ”