PRODUCTION OF STUPIDITY IN SCHOOLS. 135 



nor sex. Cheap publications explained every thing in a manner to 

 be comprehended by everybody. The fathers of England were taught 

 (with diagrams) the philosophy of their daily duties ; the mothers, of 

 their household avocations. Even unhappy little children, struggling 

 through the sands of school, were caught and engulfed by the advan- 

 cing wave. The great and good promoters of the original measure 

 were overwhelmed by the cooperation of innumerable amateurs, who 

 expected to make learning universal, by addressing, to the untaught, 

 condensed statements of scientific results, and who looted forward to 

 a time when the intellectual vigor of the community would be gauged 

 by the reports of the Society for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge, 

 or by the sale of illustrated penny serials, as the material prosperity 

 is at present by the quarterly returns of the Registrar-General. The 

 idea seemed to be, that the diffusion of knowledge would act as a stim- 

 ulant upon all minds of sufficient natural power, and would call forth 

 their energies would set them thinking, comparing, judging ; and 

 that the rest of mankind, those not vitalized by the potent influence, 

 were to be regarded as unworthy of consideration in a philosophical 

 sense, however formidable in point of numbers. 



Notwithstanding the great and sudden illumination to which we 

 have referred, there is no evidence of any remarkable advancement, 

 any increase at all commensurate with the pains bestowed, in that cul- 

 tivation of mind by which alone knowledge can be applied or rendered 

 useful. The words (already quoted) of Prof. Faraday may be taken as 

 conclusive that the reasoning faculties, in all classes of the community, 

 are very imperfectly and insufficiently developed imperfectly as com- 

 pared with their natural capabilities insufficiently when considered 

 with reference to the extent and variety of information with which 

 they are called upon to deal. We are compelled to seek for the 

 causes of this deficiency in an educational system that makes no 

 adequate provision for mental training; and we think that a brief 

 review of the relations between the nervous centres and the im- 

 pressions that form the basis of knowledge will enable us to point 

 out the precise nature of the chief errors in existing practice, and 

 to define the principles by adherence to which those errors might 

 be obviated. 



The first point to which we would call attention is the existence, in 

 the young of the human species, of a distinctly duplex educability, 

 depending upon distinct functions of the brain. It may be taken as 

 conceded, we apprehend, by all physiologists, that the encephalon of 

 man differs from that of other mammalia chiefly by the super-addition 

 of parts whose office it is to control the succession of ideas, and to 

 determine the course of conduct. The powers of re-collection, compari- 

 son, reflection, and volition, are attributes essentially human, or, at 

 least, are possessed by men in common with higher intelligences alone. 

 The powers of sensation, ideation, and spontaneous remembrance, are 



