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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



exhaustion, brought on by steady, pro- 

 longed, and severe mental application, 

 and giving rise to the morbid condition 

 of melancholia. His vigorous consti- 

 tution, however, rallied and carried 

 him through, although he had several 

 relapses afterward. His education had 

 been conducted as if his mind was a 

 chamber to be packed with knowledge, 

 rather than a force or activity depend- 

 ent upon an organ of exquisite delicacy, 

 which is liable to be strained, over- 

 worked, impaired, and broken down. 



The tragical result in the case of 

 Schwerdtfeger was due to two causes, 

 from the operation of which Mill was 

 comparatively exempt : he had slender 

 health, and he was exposed to the arti- 

 ficial, high - pressure competitive sye- 

 tem which is now so much in vogue 

 in the sphere of higher education. He 

 was a poor boy, of a highly-sensitive 

 nature, intellectually precocious, and 

 with an unhappy home, from the trou- 

 ble of which he had only been able 

 to escape through absorption in books 

 and study. At fourteen or fifteen he 

 was employed in an office to translate 

 German works, and displayed such re- 

 markable faculties that a wealthy gen- 

 tleman thought he would give him a 

 chance by sending him to college. He 

 went to Cornell, at the age of sixteen, 

 and, though not prepared to enter the 

 university, took up his residence with 

 one of the professors, and was quick- 

 ly qualified for admission. No sooner 

 had he got in than he began at once to 

 be plied with the dangerous stimulation 

 of the competitive prize system. A 

 pecuniary reward was offered for the 

 best essay on the " English verb." 

 Our slender lad went in for it and won 

 the prize and the honor, while yet a 

 freshman, with abundant plaudits for 

 his remarkable production. The distinc- 

 tion thus early achieved had of course 

 to be sustained, and an extrinsic and 

 artificial pressure was thus brought to 

 bear upon the young man, who was 

 thereafter expected to be an honor to 



the institution. He threw himself with 

 all the premature ambition of a pre- 

 cocious nature into lingual studies a 

 class of studies that stands highest in 

 the rank of collegiate scholarship, and 

 that, therefore, brings most applause. 

 It must be remembered, also, that the 

 ascendency of these studies has long 

 been defended on the ground that they 

 afford the most available standards of 

 acquisition, or the sharpest means of 

 marking the student's progress ; in oth- 

 er words, are best fitted of all subjects 

 for racing and winning honors. Lan- 

 guage after language was rapidly ac- 

 quired. Schwerdtfeger bought a Greek 

 grammar and stuck to it for ten hours a 

 day, as we are informed, getting on with 

 such proficiency that a distinguished 

 Greek professor, from another institu- 

 tion, happening to be there, was set to 

 examining him. After three or four 

 hours of it, the professor declared that 

 he was well prepared to enter the 

 classical course of any college in the 

 country, and was confounded when 

 told that Schwerdtfeger had only be- 

 gun Greek three weeks before. In lan- 

 guages he was ahead of any student who 

 had ever been in the university. He 

 gave lessons as tutor in Latin, Spanish, 

 German, Greek, French, and Portuguese. 

 Under this intense strain his health, 

 originally poor, grew worse, and he 

 ought then to have at once left the place. 

 There is a moral discipline in such in- 

 stitutions which, if violated, entails ex- 

 pulsion; and it is a serious question 

 whether there ought not to be a san- 

 itary discipline, equally stringent, for 

 the exclusion of students who damage 

 themselves by over-study. But when 

 the boy's health quite gave way under 

 the stimulation of college influence, in- 

 stead of being sent away, he was struck 

 by a baneful agency from without. The 

 Intercollegiate Literary Association of- 

 fered prizes before the whole country 

 for the best essay in Latin. The sick 

 boy of Cornell entered into the compe- 

 tition, beat aU his rivals, and won the 



