MODERN LIFE AND INSANITY. 441 



two were students, one being " an Oxford man who bad exhausted 

 himself in getting a double first, and the other a medical student pre- 

 paring for his second college." Of the women, five were teachers, 

 one a school-girl, and two dressmakers. Three of the teachers were 

 in elementary schools, one a governess and the other a teacher of 

 music and languages. If overwork alone did not, strictly speaking, 

 cause the mental breakdown, still the concomitants must be blamed 

 for these melancholy results. 



A late medical officer to Rugby School (Dr. Farquharson), in de- 

 fending that institution from a charge of injury in the direction of 

 which we now speak, considers that instances of mental strain are 

 more common at the universities, " for not only are the young men at 

 a more sensitive period of life, but they natm-ally feel that to many 

 of them this is the great opportunity the great crisis of their exist- 

 ence and that their success or failure will now effectually make or 

 mar their career. Here the element of anxiety comes into play, sleep 

 is disturbed, exercise neglected, digestion suffers, and the inevitable 

 result follows of total collapse, from which recovery is slow and per- 

 haps never complete." (Lancet, January 1, 1876.) He thinks he has 

 seen an increase of headaches and nervous complaints among poor 

 children since compulsory attendance at board schools was adopted, 

 and records a warning against too suddenly forcing the minds of 

 wretchedly-feeble, ill-fed and ill-housed children, and against attempts 

 to make bricks too rapidly out of the straw which is placed in our 

 hands. 



The psychological mischief done by excessive cramming both in 

 some schools and at home is sufficiently serious to show that the reck- 

 less course pursued in many instances ought to be loudly protested 

 against. As we write, four cases come to our knowledge of girls se- 

 riously injured by this folly and unintentional wickedness. In one, 

 the brain is utterly unable to bear the burden put upon it, and the 

 pupil is removed from school in a highly-excitable state ; in another, 

 epileptic fits have followed the host of subjects pressed upon the 

 scholar ; in the third, the symptoms of brain-fog have become so ob- 

 vious that the amount of schooling has been greatly reduced ; and, in 

 a fourth, fits have been induced and complete prostration of brain has 

 followed. These cases are merely illustrations of a class, coming to 

 hand in one day, familiar to most physicians. The enormous number 

 of subjects which are forced into the curriculum of some schools and 

 are required by some professional examinations, confuse and distract 

 the mind, and by lowering its healthy tone often unfit it for the world. 

 While insanity may not directly result from this stuffing, and very 

 likely will not, exciting causes of mental disorder occurring in later 

 life may upset a brain which, had it been subjected to more moderate 

 pressure, would have escaped unscathed. Training in its highest 

 sense is forgotten in the multiplicity of subjects, originality is stunted 



