School - What It Should and Shouldn't Be- Kids Should Be Allowed To Be Themselves, Just Kids

• The School Boy

I love to rise in a summer morn,

When the birds sing on every tree;

The distant hunstman winds his horn,

And the sky-lark sings with me.

O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn

O! it drives all joy away:

Under a cruel eye outworn,

The little ones spend the day,

In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,

And spend many an anxious hour.

Nor in my book can I take delight,

Nor sit in learning's bower,

Worn thro' with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy

Sit in a cage and sing?

How can a child when fears annoy

But droop his tender wing

And forget his youthful spring?

O! father & mother, if buds are nip'd,

And blossoms blown away,

And if the tender plants are strip'd

Of their joy in springing day

By sorrow and care's dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy

Or the summer fruits appear

Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy

Or bless the mellowing year,

When the blasts of winter appear. -William Blake