EDITOR'S TABLE. 



555 



in motion of contents of obstructed capil- 

 laries, and a general rise of all physical op- 

 erations to the normal degree. Congestion 

 is as certainly removed as water from a 

 sponge under pressure of the hand. 



Among these intermediate effects of 

 transmitted energy, the most certain and 

 striking in a therapeutic view are oxidation^ 

 and what I will venture to call functional 

 revulsion. The evidences of immediate and 

 very great increase of oxidation in the liv- 

 ing body superinduced by mechanical vibra- 

 tion are abundant and indisputable. The 

 effect is, that the toxic principles incident to 

 retained waste, in which the suffering nerves 

 are bathed, are destroyed, certainly and 

 quickly. 



Functional revulsion is no less positive, 

 and may be understood in this way. Like 



normal feeling, pain is entirely dependent 

 for its existence on nutritive support ; in 

 fact, is more dependent. Such support dur- 

 ing pain is, of course, excessive. To abol- 

 ish pain, nothing more is required than to 

 withdraw its support. 



Now, the muscular masses entering into 

 the composition of the body are, say, forty 

 times that of the nervous masses ; the latter 

 are normally the incentives of the former 

 to action, and therefore to nutrition. When 

 nutritive action is incited in the combined 

 mass, as it certainly is by mechanical vibra- 

 tion, it follows that the muscular portion 

 receives the benefit overwhelmingly, both 

 because of its immensely greater mass, and 

 because it is involuntary. The function of 

 the nerves, therefore pain, is suspended. 

 George II. Taylor, M. D. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



SELF-GOVERNMENT IN EDUCATION. 



HE who said that the key to the 

 government of mankind is given 

 in the three words "hell and bayonets," 

 made a compact formula for that sys- 

 tem of external coercion by which hu- 

 man conduct in past times has been 

 chiefly regulated. Men have been 

 ruled, through their fears and by in- 

 timidation, the state threatening the 

 penalties of this world, and the Church 

 those of the next, to enforce conform- 

 ity to the prescribed standards of right 

 conduct. 



And there must be external com- 

 pulsion, if there is no other. Men have 

 to be dealt with according to their 

 natures, and where these are low and 

 brutalized they must be coerced by 

 coarse and brutal methods. But social 

 experience slowly develops the better 

 traits of character, so that men become 

 amenable to the influence of higher 

 motives. In what we call the progress 

 of society, external constraint gradually 

 gives way and men learn more and 

 more to govern themselves. Evolution 

 here as elsewhere is by substitution. 

 The progress of human freedom consists 

 not in escape from restraint, but in the 

 exchange of lower for higher restraints 



in the replacement of state-control by 

 self-control. 



Unquestionably this is the most 

 fundamental and important change that 

 is going on in society. It is the highest 

 aspect of human progress. It is the 

 growth of the voluntary system, at the 

 expense of the involuntary or compul- 

 sory. It is the development of man- 

 kind by discipline in the self -regulation 

 of conduct. The transformation of men 

 in this way is a great reality, and gives 

 origin to whatever there is of free or 

 liberal government in the world. All 

 the humanizing influences by which 

 men are ameliorated and improved take 

 final effect in their liberation from ex- 

 ternal governing forces, so that they 

 become responsible, self-determining 

 agents, and in that sense' free and inde- 

 pendent. 



How educational systems have been 

 and are still related to this great ten- 

 dency is a very interesting question. 

 It can not be denied that they have had 

 some share in promoting it, but their 

 influence on the whole must be count- 

 ed as powerfully adverse to it. In fact, 

 school government has been generally 

 modeled on the conception of monarch- 

 ical government : the teacher has been 



