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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



In legal pursuits the same kind of exclusive- 

 ness obtains, and I think in some instances in a 

 more marked degree than in medicine. 



It is fortunate for the Church that, with all 

 her backslidings and troubles, she has not yet 

 tumbled down to so low a position as her sisters 

 have. It is of happy omen for the clergy that 

 they must keep up their learning as general schol- 

 ars. It is more than happy that in their case 

 division of labor is not recognized as profitable ; 

 for if they were to begin to specialize, if one 

 clergyman were to take one sin for special study, 

 and keep to it all his life, and another a different 

 sin ; if one took up the cure of swearing, for in- 

 stance, and another of theft, and another of ly- 

 ing, the confusion of the modern learned world 

 would be complete indeed. 



This introduction to present modes of learn- 

 ing and application of learning would well befit 

 an essay on the subject of learning, as a practical 

 development of civilization not altogether in ac- 

 cord, as it is now carried on, with the welfare of 

 our race. I trust soon some scholar, whose 

 heart is on education as mine is on health, will 

 be bold enough to declare the unity of knowl- 

 edge, the connection of it with wisdom, and the 

 utter vacuity that must soon be witnessed if the 

 current fashion be allowed to follow its fragmen- 

 tary, self-repulsive, and self-destructive course. 



To me it falls to oppose the system of modern 

 education as destructive of vital activity, and 

 thereby cf strength of mental growth. It is my 

 business to declare that at this time health and 

 education are not going hand-in-hand ; that the 

 whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. 



I cannot sit day by day to see failure of 

 young brain, and of brain approaching its matu- 

 rity, and of brain that is matured, and tamely 

 accept the phenomenon as necessary and there- 

 fore to be endured. To see the errors that pre- 

 vail and not to speak of them were to be silent 

 on errors which would lead a nation into trained 

 feebleness, which shall lead to new generations 

 springing out of that feebleness, and to the prop- 

 agation of a community that should no more 

 be illuminated by those greatnesses of the past 

 who, in less learned but freer times, gave forth 

 the noblest of noble poetry, the most wonderful 

 of wonderful art, and a science, philosophy, and 

 literature, that have been hardly mortal. Such a 

 poetry as Shakespeare has poured forth ; such an 

 art as Gainsborough, and Reynolds, and Turner, 

 and Herschel, and Siddons, and Kemble, and 

 Kean, have presented ; such a science as Newton, 

 and Fricstley, and Davy, and Young, and Faraday, 



have immortalized ; such a philosophy as Bacon 

 and Locke have contributed ; and such a liter- 

 ature as Johnson, and Scott, and Dickens have, 

 in the freedom of their intellectual growths, be- 

 queathed forever. To me, observing as a phy- 

 sician, the appearance and development of these 

 men, under the circumstances in which they ap- 

 peared, is natural, the mere course of nature un- 

 trammeled, regular, and divinely permitted ; not 

 forced but permitted, Nature being left to her- 

 self. To me, observing as a physician, the ap- 

 pearance of such men in similar greatness of 

 form is at this time an all but impossible phe- 

 nomenon. The men truly may appear, for Na- 

 ture is always reproducing them, and the divine 

 permission for their development is equally good 

 now as of yore ; but the development is checked 

 by human interference, and thereby hangs the 

 reason of the impossible. Nature produces acorns 

 for future oaks, and is as free as of yore that 

 oaks should make forests; but if the young oaks 

 be forced in their growth, and when they are 

 approaching to maturity be barbarously com- 

 pressed, head and trunk, into narrow, unyielding 

 tubes, there will be no forests, nor so much as 

 spare representatives of the forest, amid the 

 brushwood of commonplace meadow or bare 

 ploughed field of mental life. 



If it be true that education does not go hand- 

 in-hand with health, it is vain to expect that edu- 

 cation shall bring forth the first fruits of knowl- 

 edge, and, what is more important, of wisdom. 

 My argument is, that the present modes of edu- 

 cation for the younger population, and for the 

 older, are not compatible with healthy life ; and 

 that education, therefore, is not producing the 

 mental product that is required for the steady 

 and powerful progress of the nation. 



There are many faults in the processes of edu- 

 cation of the young which tell upon health in a 

 direct mode. There are faults in the construc- 

 tion of school-rooms still : there are faults in re- 

 spect to discipline in schools : there are faults in 

 respect to punishments in school-life. I do not 

 at this moment dwell on these, and for the 

 simple reason that they are departing errors. 

 No one who has watched the improvements 

 which have been made in schools during the past 

 twenty years can fail to see how markedly they 

 have advanced ; what care is taken to secure 

 good ventilation ; how clean and warm the mod- 

 ern school-room has become, compared with the 

 school-room of the past day. 



No one, again, can doubt that the discipline 

 of the modern school is much more correct than 



