PRODUCTION OF STUPIDITY IN SCHOOLS. 141 



the effect and the evidence of operations limited to the sensorial gan- 

 glia ; and that such operations have no tendency, however they may 

 be complicated or prolonged, to excite those functions of the cerebrum 

 which are the peculiar attributes of humanity. 



Our brief remaining space must be devoted to an examination of 

 the effects of sensational learning, both as it exists in most schools for 

 the poor, and also in the form, more or less modified, which may be 

 found in other institutions. 



Physiologically speaking, the effect of purely sensational learning 

 will be to stimulate the nutrition and increase the vigor of the sen- 

 sorial tract at the expense of neighboring and related organs. As we 

 have seen, the sensorium has a natural tendency to predominance in 

 the encephalon; and this tendency will be increased in every way, 

 absolutely by direct excitation, and relatively by neglect of the intel- 

 lect and volition. The sensations by which the stimulus has been 

 given will not be long remembered, being superseded by fresh ones 

 arising out of events, as the apparatus of the gymnasium would be 

 superseded by the instruments of actual conflict. With the exception 

 of being, perhaps, able to read with labor, and to write with difficulty, 

 the pupils must not be expected, six months after leaving school, to 

 possess any traces of their " education " beyond an invigorated senso- 

 rium and a stunted intelligence. 



Now, when it is remembered that present sensations are the source 

 of the least exalted kinds of animal gratification, and that sensations, 

 either present, or remembered, or conceived, when combined with a 

 feeling of pleasure or pain, constitute the emotions which so power- 

 fully influence human conduct, it must be admitted that the sensorium 

 is at least the seat of development of those passions and propensities 

 which society, for its own good, is compelled to keep in check, and 

 which every consideration of right teaches individuals to subdue. 

 When, therefore, we reflect upon the operation of predominant emo- 

 tions in producing, among other evils, chorea, hysteria, epilepsy, and 

 insanity, or when we consider the aggregate of misery produced, 

 especially among the lower orders, by the unbridled indulgence of 

 various appetites, we cannot altogether concur in the propriety of a 

 system of education which has a direct tendency to raise the source 

 of these emotions and appetites to an undue and unnatural prominence 

 in the organism. In our own experience we have met with so many 

 examples of what may be called habitual non-reflection in young people 

 who had been six months before among the most glib and fluent pupils 

 at a sensational school, that we fancy that we can recognize a kind of 

 stupidity thus induced, and that we can readily distinguish it from 

 any thing at all similar that is purely natural. 



We should be disposed, on the whole, to seek the rationale of 

 many educational failures rather in a partial and misdirected train- 

 ing of the intelligence, than in its complete suppression. The pupils 



