524 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as advising the following division of a student's day : Eight 

 hours for sleep, ten for work, two for exercise, three for meals, 

 and one for incidentals. Whether this is an authentic quota- 

 tion or not, it describes with fair accuracy the practice of the 

 average college girl, excepting that she rarely takes more than 

 one hour of exercise. Her conscience is most approving when 

 she spends all the time there is, apart from other definite engage- 

 ments, with her books. Now, in the light of Prof. Kraepelin's 

 experiments, if not in that of our own observation, what happens 

 as the result of this protracted poring over books ? Either in- 

 jury is done to the brain through overexertion, or the brain pro- 

 tects itself by inattention and the student wastes precious time 

 and depletes to no purpose her all too small store of vitality. 



Prof. Kraepelin lays great stress on the importance of sleep as 

 a compensation for all effects of mental fatigue, and all will agree 

 with him in this. But he claims that " it is fundamentally false 

 to regard physical effort as in any way a suitable preparation for 

 mental labor. Protracted experiments pursued under my direc- 

 tion have given the result that a simple walk of from one to two 

 hours diminishes the mental capacity in adults at least as much 

 as about an hour's work in addition." How can we reconcile 

 this with our own experience or with the testimony of students ? 

 Only a few days ago a student told me with enthusiasm of the 

 ease and rapidity with which her evening tasks were accom- 

 plished after an afternoon during which she had walked two 

 miles to town, had there taken a bicycle lesson of an hour, and 

 then walked back to college, this being more than double her 

 usual amount of exercise. Can there be any question as to which 

 is the better preparation for a day of mental labor nine hours of 

 sleep and three hours of vigorous exercise in the open air, or 

 twelve hours of sleep and no exercise ? Of course, time should be 

 allowed after vigorous physical exercise for the relaxation and 

 rest of the muscles before using the brain, but the time required 

 for this is not long. 



It seems to me that the practice and experience of the English 

 offer convincing testimony against Prof. Kraepelin's opinion on 

 this point. An American student can not compete with the Eng- 

 lish student in respect to the amount of work done in a given 

 time ; nor, I am told, can the German student. The habits of 

 Germans and Americans conform, and differ from the English in 

 respect to long hours of work and short hours of exercise. 



The English students have apparently learned that the brain 

 does its best work when allowed long periods of leisure. They 

 make strenuous efforts to reduce their hours of study to a mini- 

 mum. They work on an average six hours a day. Students have 

 taken honors at Cambridge with a smaller average of study 



