408 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



some direct accident of disease, they die, in nine 

 cases out of ten, from nervous failure. And this 

 is the peculiarity of nervous failure — that it may 

 be fatal from one point of tbe nervous organism, 

 the rest being sound. A man may therefore wear 

 himself out by one mental exercise too exclusively 

 followed, while he may live through many exer- 

 cises extended over far greater intervals of time 

 and involving more real labor if they be distrib- 

 uted over many seats of mental faculty. 



Just as a sheet of ice will bear many weights 

 if they be equally distributed upon it, but will 

 give way and break up at one point from a lesser 

 weight, so the brain will bear an equally distrib- 

 uted strain of work for many years, while pressure 

 not more severe on one point will destroy it in a 

 limited period, and with it the body it animates. 



CONCLUSION. 



Let health and education go hand-in-hand, 

 and the progress of the world, physically and 

 mentally, is sound and sure. 



Let the brain, in the first stage of life, make 

 its own inventory : distress it not with learning, 

 or sadness, or romance of passion. Let it take 

 Nature as a second mother for its teacher. 



In the second age, instill gently and learn the 

 order of mind that is being rendered a receiving 

 agency: allay rather than encourage ambition: 

 do not push on the strong, but help the feeble. 



In adolescence, let the studies, taking their 

 natural bent, be more decisive and defined as 

 toward some particular end or object, but never 

 distressing, anxious, or distractingly ambitious. 

 Let this be an age for probation into the garden 

 of knowledge, and of modest claim to admission 

 there ; not for a charge by assault and for an 

 entry with clarion and standard and claim of so 

 much conquered possession. 



And for the rest, let the course be a continued 

 learning, so that with the one and chief pursuit of 

 life other pursuits may mingle happily, and life 

 be not — 



". . . . a dissonant thing 

 Amid the universal harmony." 



My task is done. I find no fault with any 

 particular class, neither of teachers nor pastors 

 nor masters. I speak only against a prevailing 

 error, for which no one is specially at fault, but 

 for which all are somewhat at fault, however good 

 the object had in view may be. 



What we now witness in the way of mental 

 competition is but the old system of physical 

 competitive prowess in a new form; and when 

 the evils of it are seen, and when the worse than 

 uselessness of it is detected, it will pass away as 

 all such errors do when the universal mind which 

 sustains them sees and appreciates the wrong 

 that is being done. I believe sincerely that the 

 errors I have ventured to describe, and which at 

 this present separate health from education, will 

 in due time be recognized and removed. 



In a leading article last year in one of our 

 powerful and widely-read newspapers on a lect- 

 ure of mine delivered in this place, there was an 

 expression of regret that I, as a man of science, 

 should deal so earnestly with subjects so trivial 

 as these. Suppose the subjects to be trivial, and 

 then in answer I might fairly say there are mites 

 in science as well as in charity, and the ultimate 

 results of each are often alike important and 

 beneficial. But I deny the triviality. I ask, if 

 these subjects, which refer to the very life-blood 

 of the nation, be trivial, what are the solemn 

 subjects, and who are dealing with them ? 



I read in another and scientific paper, that to 

 state facts of a similar order to those I have now 

 related, to a public as distinct from a strictly pro- 

 fessional audience, is a sure means by which to 

 hurt tender susceptibilities, and of a certainty to 

 give to some a cause of offense. To that criticism 

 I reply, as I conclude, in the words of the good 

 St. Jerome: "If an offense come out of truth, 

 better is it the offense come than the truth be 

 concealed." — Gentleman's Magazine. 



STANLEY'S DISCOYEEIES AKD THE FITTUKE OF AFKICA. 



THE exploration of Africa has been conducted 

 of late on a new system. The routes of 

 the earlier travelers passed either through parts 

 of the continent whore the population is sparse, 

 as in Caffre laud or in the Sahara, or in those 



where it is organized into large kingdoms, such 

 as lie between Ashanti and Wadai, and which are 

 much too powerful to admit of any traveler forc- 

 ing his way against the will of their rulers. The 

 older explorers were therefore content to travel 



