THE EDUCATION OF THE N 7 ERVOUS SYSTEM. 355 



stimulus has given assurance of its importance. From 

 such facts the general relations of formal education to 

 the growing process are fairly evident. The function of 

 it is to round out the original framework of the central 

 system, in accordance with the natural provisions there 

 present. Without question there is something very 

 fatalistic in this. No amount of education will cause 

 enlargement or organisation where the rough materials, 

 the cells, are wanting ; and on the other hand, where 

 these materials are present, they will, in some degree, 

 become evident, whether purposely educated or not. 

 Anatomically, the process of training leads to organisa- 

 tion, extending from the centre first developed, so that 

 regions isolated in infancy become later more closely 

 associated. So, too, it is found that on the motor side, 

 the control of a limb by the brain is first established 

 over the limb as a whole, since the cells controlling the 

 joints nearest the trunk mature earliest. 



Since the cortical centres for the more proximal joints 

 tend to be most speedily organised, they become, by 

 virtue of this organisation, in some degree a thoroughfare 

 for the impulses to the other cortical centres controlling 

 the more distal groups of muscles. Thus the impulses 

 tend to pass both through the cortex and down the limb 

 in regular series. 1 Seguin thus found it most advisable 

 to begin the training of an idiot hand with movements 

 at the shoulder, and the later brain physiology as 

 well as the history of growth confirms his method. The 

 suggestion from this is that the exercise of those struc- 

 tures best formed will most readily arouse to activity 

 those next to be developed, and that direct exercise 

 should follow close upon the natural extension of the 

 growth processes. 



In any special case it is hardly possible to predict 

 1 Seguin, Archives of Medicine, 1879. 



