222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by the gradual enlightenment of societies : 2. That in our scheme of 

 education we give the means of it to all, and full play to individual 

 gifts not promoting a dull uniformity, nor pinching back the buds of 

 mental growth ; nor, on the other hand, forgetting that as great men 

 often appear in unpromising times, so great gifts in the individual are 

 often long in showing themselves. The early dunce often ripens into 

 the later genius. I find this late unfolding of greater gifts, though by 

 no means universal or perhaps even general, yet is so common that as 

 a teacher I have schooled myself into much sympathy with dunces. An 

 observant master may detect the pushing germs beneath the immobile 

 surface of his pupil's mind, but such masters are rare, and perhaps 

 nothing is lost by leaving their quickening to kindly time. Our duty 

 is, meanwhile, not to harass or exhaust the brain prematurely by anxious 

 culture, by stimulant or by systematic forcing. Few men can look back 

 upon their early companionship without seeing, with a feeling akin to 

 surprise, how the race has not always been to the swift, nor the battle 

 to those who were strong : 



"Another race hath been, and other palms are won." 



Quality of brain, then, cannot be made nor forced ; consisting, more- 

 over, as it probably does, in added ganglionic and commissural struct- 

 ure, it, like all more complex growth, will be late in the bud and later 

 in the bloom. And in pointing this out it must be remembered that 

 we are speaking not only of the rarer forms of genius, but also of char- 

 acter of that which gives to each person his individual color and value. 

 Quality of brain may, however, be lost if it is not invigorated and im- 

 pelled by a strong breeze of nervous energy ; nay, as in the case of the 

 late Sir James Simpson, dauntless and inexhaustible nerve-quantity may 

 so elevate the spirit and so strengthen the hand as to clothe the indi- 

 vidual with a power beside that of genius itself, and urge him to work 

 which will win the undying gratitude of men. Now, happily quantity, 

 unlike quality, of brain-force is much under the power of education. 

 Quantity may be conceived as lying partly in the bulk of the nerve- 

 cells themselves, and partly in the volume of their vessels ; partly also 

 in the virtue of the blood itself. It cannot be forgotten that the health 

 of the brain and nervous system, upon which the abundance of its fruit 

 depends, is closely related to the tone and activity of the rest of the 

 corporeal frame. The volume of force issuing from the brain is largely 

 dependent, for example, upon the power of the stomach and allied vis- 

 cera, upon the power of rapidly digesting and assimilating an abun- 

 dance of food, and of breaking up and excreting spent material. A dys- 

 peptic may well have nerve-force of high quality and of high tension ; 

 but I never met with a dyspeptic whose nerve-force welled continuously 

 forth. Like Brougham and Cavour, men of great power of continu- 

 ous work have usually been large as well as sound eaters. A " hard- 

 headed" man is also a hard-bodied man, and the national history of 



