442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and individual thirst for knowledge overlaid by a crowd of novel the- 

 ories based upon yet unproved statements. Mr. Brudenell Carter, in 

 his "Influence of Education and training in preventing Diseases of the 

 Nervous System," speaks of a large public school in London, from 

 which boys of ten to twelve years of age carry home tasks which 

 would occupy them till near midnight, and of which the rules and 

 laws of study are so arranged as to preclude the possibility of suffi- 

 cient recreation. The teacher in a high-school says that the host of 

 subjects on which parents insist upon instruction being given to their 

 children is simply preposterous, and disastrous alike to health and 

 to real steady progress in necessary branches of knowledge. The 

 other day we met an examiner in the street with a roll of papers con- 

 sisting of answers to questions. He deplored the fashion of the day ; 

 the number of subjects crammed within a few years of growing life ; 

 the character of the questions which were frequently asked ; and the 

 requiring a student to master, at the peril of being rejected, scientific 

 theories, and crude speculations, which they would have to unlearn in 

 a year or two. He sincerely pitied the unfortunate students. During 

 the last year or two the public have been startled by the suicides 

 which have occurred on the part of young men preparing for exam- 

 ination at the University of London ; and the press has spoken out 

 strongly on the subject. Notwithstanding this, the authorities appear 

 to be disposed to increase instead of diminish the stringency of some 

 of the examinations. The Lancet has recently protested against this 

 course in regard to the preliminary scientific M. B. of the London 

 University, and points out that the average of candidates who fail at 

 this examination is already about forty per cent., and that these in- 

 clude many of the best students. This further raising of the standard 

 will, it is maintained, make a serious addition to the labors of the in- 

 dustrious student who desires the M. D. degree. Whether this par- 

 ticular instance is or is not a fair example, we must say, judging from 

 others, that it seems to be thought that the cubic capacity of the Brit- 

 ish skull undergoes an extraordinary increase every few years, and 

 that therefore for our young students more subjects must be added to 

 fill up the additional space. 



The master of a private school informs us that he has proof of the 

 ill effects of overwork in the fact of boys being withdrawn from the 

 keen competition of a public-school career, which was proving inju- 

 rious to their health, and sent to him, that they might in the less am- 

 bitious atmosphere of a private school pick up health and strength 

 again. He refers to instances of boys who had been crammed and 

 much pressed in order that they might enter a certain form or gain a 

 desired exhibition, having reached the goal successfully, and then 

 stagnated. He says that the too extensive curriculum now de- 

 manded ends in the impossibility of doing the work thoroughly 

 and well. You must either force unduly or not advance as you 



