PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF MENTAL CULTURE. 183 



to mention, were it not so common, that a dog who bites a person ma- 

 liciously is almost invariably killed, with the sole intention of render- 

 ing the human being secure from hydrophobia. A little reflection 

 should convince those who entertain this foolish superstition, that, by 

 killing the animal, they are depriving themselves of the only means of 

 certainty as to its actual condition ; for, if in the first vague stages of 

 rabies, it must exhibit pronounced symptoms within a very few days, 

 whereas, if it remain healthy, by no possibility can the person bitten 

 suffer other consequences than those ensuing from an ordinary wound. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF MENTAL CULTURE. 1 



By NATHAN ALLEN, M.D.,LL.D. 



IN the advancing knowledge of physiology it has been discovered 

 that all mental culture should be based upon the brain that edu- 

 cation should be pursued in harmony with the laws of life and health, 

 and that, where these are violated, the advantages of the former afford 

 poor compensation. Formerly no attention, or scarcely any, was paid 

 by school boards and teachers, in the matter of education,, to the con- 

 dition of the body or the development of the brain, and even at the 

 present day very little is paid them, compared with what should be 

 given to those great physical laws which underlie all mental culture. 

 The lives of a multitude of children and youth are sacrificed every 

 year in this Commonwealth by violating the laws of physiology and 

 hygiene, through mistaken or wrong methods of mental training ; be- 

 sides, the constitution and health of a multitude of others are thus 

 impaired or broken down for life. Nowhere else in society is a radi- 

 cal reform needed more than in our educational systems. Inasmuch 

 as the laws of the body lie at the foundation of all proper culture, they 

 should receive the first consideration. But, in educating the boy or 

 girl, from the age of five to fifteen, how little attention is given to the 

 growth and physical changes which necessarily occur at this most im- 

 portant period of life ! The age of the child should be considered ; 

 the place of schooling, the hours of confinement and recreation, the 

 number and kinds of studies, together with the modes of teaching, 

 should all harmonize with physical laws especially those of the brain. 

 The system or mode of treating, in education, all children as though 

 their organizations were precisely alike, is based upon a false and un- 

 natural theory. Great injury, in a variety of ways, results from this 

 wrong treatment ; in fact, injuries are thus inflicted upon the sensitive 

 organizations and susceptible minds of young children, from which 



1 From " Medical Problems of the Day " a Discourse before the Massachusetts 

 Medical Society. 



