PRODUCTION OF STUPIDITY IN SCHOOLS. 13? 



not only distinct, but also in some degree antagonistic, through the 

 application of the ordinary law of nutrition to their respective organs. 

 The portions of the encephalon that are most employed will receive the 

 largest supply of blood, and will be the seats of the most vigorous cell- 

 growth, precisely as the same rule will apply to the development of 

 muscle ; while, on the other hand, a certain duration of disuse, or of 

 restricted use, will occasion atrophic changes, and will be followed by 

 that functional impah-ment which is a natural result of structural 

 degeneration. It follows that men of the highest intellectual activity 

 are often somewhat inattentive to impressions made upon their senses ; 

 and also that great sensational acuteness is often purchased at the 

 cost of some torpor as regards the operations of the judgment. 



Upon testing the educational customs of the present day by even 

 the most elementary principles of psychology, it becomes apparent 

 that a very large number of children receive precisely the kind of 

 training which has been bestowed upon a learned pig. There are scarce- 

 ly any teachers who have in the least degree studied the operations 

 or the development of the mind (indeed, it is only within a very few 

 years that this study has borne any fruit of great practical utility), 

 and those who have not done so cannot realize the existence of a kind 

 of learning which is sensational alone. Indeed, it is more in accordance 

 with ordinary preconceptions to refer brute actions to a process of 

 reasoning, than to consider that any human actions are automatic. 

 The truth is, however, that the first impressions made upon the 

 consciousness of a child have a strong natural tendency to expend 

 themselves through the sensorium ; and usually do so, unless directed 

 higher by the manner in which they are produced or maintained. For 

 the purpose of such direction, time is an element of the first importance, 

 and the idea which would be grasped by the intelligence after a certain 

 period of undisturbed attention, will excite the sensational faculties 

 alone if that attention be diverted by the premature intrusion of 

 something else that solicits notice. And while in almost every child 

 the power of intelligent attention may be aroused by care, and 

 perfected by perseverance, the natural inclination is toward a rapid 

 succession of thoughts, variously associated, and remembered in their 

 order without being understood. The faculty of comprehension, like 

 all others, is a source of pleasure to the possessor, even in the first 

 feeble attempts to bring it into exercise ; and hence, as well as from 

 the impulse given to nutrition, when once a habit of endeavoring to 

 comprehend has been formed, although in very young children, it is 

 not readily relinquished, but, on the contrary, is applied to the most 

 unpromising materials. 



In schools, however, under the stern pressure of the popular de- 

 mand for knowledge, it is an extremely common practice to accumulate 

 new impressions with greater rapidity than they can be received even 

 by children who have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of early 



