Part 6 (1/2)

To take the case of healthy children first, it is satisfactory to learn upon high authority that they do not suffer much physical harm from the effects of overwork What happens in their case is that the vigorous and healthy brain offers a sound resistance to the stuffing process, and speedily forgets what has been forced into it From an educational point of view this is, of course, very disastrous; but as far as health considerations are concerned it affords a certain amount of consolation

This is to say, one must bear in mind, thatas they fail altogether to affect the intelligence The moment they prove themselves to be efficacious they becoer

It follows froainst the evil effects of the education systee extent the stupid children are the healthy ones by reason of their stupidity It is, however, a great mistake to suppose that a stupid child necessarily implies one that is in any sense deficient mentally The dull schoolboy often proves in after life to be the brilliant nify is that hisforced upon it Linnaeus was very stupid at Latin until an enlightened physician, are of his passion for botanical study, suggested his reading Plinius; and although he may not have imbibed very accurate information about natural history froress in the Latin language

There should be, under a rational syste as a stupid child What is, after all, stupidity or dulness in a schoolboy?

It simply means that the boy's faculties are undeveloped, and that no a them The whole mischief lies, of course, in the fact that the school is not trying to develop the boy's own faculties at all, but merely to force him to adapt himself to its own curriculuer to the brain of the healthy or stupid child is not over-development but under-development It is not they who suffer in the worst sense froifted children, as they are called, or those whose quick, nervous intellects areany kind of instruction

It is the nervous boy or girl who generallypupil A natural inclination to study leads children of this type to prefer the schoolrooet to the top of his class, or to pass an exaiven to games, and, in consequence, the weakest physically

These are the very children whoe to do ood for them The process of their mental development is so rapid that it needs no stimulation from outside But that is not, unfortunately, the concern of the school authorities The anxiety to produce scholars ill distinguish themselves in public examinations, and thereby advertise the school, invariably leads the schoolhtest and er in over-working boys or girls of this type, because the brain is not strong enough to withstand the pressure The result is never good, and in extreme cases it is as bad as it could possibly be It follows, in fact, as a matter of course, that the finest and most sensitive intellects are the first to succu the brain There is a strain that can only be endured by second-rate minds, and it is not, therefore, the intellectually fittest who are encouraged to survive under the present systeher class of schools and colleges, which prepare boys for examinations and academic distinctions of various kinds, than to the elementary schools to which the children of the poor are commandeered In the latter establishments a special barbarity takes place which has been so widely discussed in Parliament and in the newspapers that I will do no

I refer to the forcing of instruction upon under-fed school-children

Apart fro, there is the indisputable fact that the co of children whose bodies have not been properly nourished tends to weaken the intellect If these children were subjected to a process of craher schools, their ether As it is, the comparativelyworse in such cases than the prevention of the developree better than complete breakdown or insanity

'The School Board systereatest mental specialists in the world in reply totheir victi one subject well--is perhaps responsible for some positive mental breakdown; but probably the les proper mental development' 'Undeveloped mentality,' he says in conclusion, 'is perhaps the principal fault of our educational systeuished physician writes to me from a lunatic asylum:

'We have had a few cases who have broken down, the results of working for scholarshi+ps; also we have had one or two cases of ladies who have broken doorking for higher examinations Dr ---- and ood deal to be said against the increased pressure put upon young adolescents at schools From my own experience I know that boys ere considered especially clever, and were high up in forms in the public school I was at, have most of them now dropped back, and are very mediocre On the other hand, many who matured slowly have continued to advance This is only an observation, and has many exceptions; but it is an observation that, as time passes, is more fully confir to these valuable expressions of opinion, proceeding from ees than the laye and a necessarily lie of observation

Facts speak very eloquently for the across cases ofor over-education, it is quite clear that a systeether defective in principle and wanting in common sense

CHAPTER XII

EVIDENCE OF HISTORY

After an exhaustive inquiry into the multifarious evils whichto turn to history for illustrious exareatness to acade, but who actually owed it to ould nowadays be designated a neglected education

The chronicles of the past teem with instances of youths who have developed into brilliant men, in spite of the fact that they had either had no schooling at all, or had been considered the dunces of their class It would, in fact, be far reat men who have succeeded on account of their acadeive exauish themselves at school, but who nevertheless became famous afterwards as men of unusual talent

When Napoleon Bonaparte, at the age of fifteen, left the e of Brienne, where he had been a pupil for five years and a half, the inspector ofcertificate:

'M de Buonaparte (Napoleon), born August 15, 1769; height 4 feet 10 inches 10 lines; is in the fourth class; has a good constitution, excellent health, character obedient, upright, grateful, conduct very regular; has always been distinguished by his application to raphy very passably He is not well up in ornamental studies or in Latin, in which he is only in the fourth class He will be an excellent sailor He deserves to be passed on to the military school of Paris'

This was an optimistic description of the youthful Napoleon's accomplishments, for he was, as a matter of fact, so backward in Latin that his removal to Paris was opposed by the sub-principal of the college According to the testirapher, M de Bourrienne, he exhibited backwardness in every branch of education except mathematics, for which he showed a distinct natural bent

The only professor at Brienne who took any notice of Napoleon was the ht hies, literature, and the various subjects that formed the curriculum of the establish a scholar, they took no interest in hience was, however, sufficiently perceptible,'

writes M de Bourrienne, 'even through the reserve under which it was veiled If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishanization of his ed more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, etc, I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career more brilliant, it is true, but less useful to mankind

Unfortunately, the oodreceived a _careful education_ at Brienne is therefore untrue'

Napoleon's e of Brienne Heavy snow fell during one winter, and prevented hi the solitary walks that were his chief recreation He therefore fell back upon the expedient of getting his school co trenches and build snow fortifications 'This being done,' he said, 'we e, and I will undertake to direct the attacks' In this way he organized a shaht