MIND AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 19 



subject them. But no such fostering care does the State take of the 

 brains of the young. There are no laws to prevent the undeveloped 

 nervous system being overtasked and brought to disease or even ab- 

 solute destruction. Every physician sees cases of the kind, and won- 

 ders how parents of intelligence can be so blind to the welfare of their 

 offspring as to force or even to allow their brains to be worked to a de- 

 gree that in many cases results in idiocy or death. Only a few months 

 ago I saw for the first time a boy of five years of age, with a large 

 head, a prominent forehead, and all the other signs of mental precoci- 

 ty. He had read the first volume of Bryant's " History of the United 

 States," and was preparing to tackle the other volumes ! He read the 

 magazines of the day with as much interest as did his father, and con- 

 versed with equal facility on the politics of the period. But a few 

 weeks before I saw him he had begun to walk in his sleep, then chorea 

 had made its appearance, and on the day before he was brought to me 

 he had had a well-marked epileptic paroxysm. Already his mind is 

 weakened — perhaps permanently so. Such cases are not isolated ones. 

 They are continually occurring. 



The period of early childhood — say up to seven or eight years of 

 age — is that during which the brain and other parts of the nervous 

 system are most actively developing, in order to fit them for the great 

 work before them. It is safe to say that the only instruction given 

 during this time should be that which consists in teaching children 

 how to observe. The perceptive faculties alone should be made the 

 subjects of systematic attempts at development. The child should be 

 taught how to use its senses, and especially how to see, hear, and touch. 

 In this manner knowledge would be acquired in the way that is pre- 

 eminently the natural way, and ample food would be furnished for the 

 child's reflective powers. 



And now I must bring these remarks to a close, although there is 

 a great deal yet that, were there time, and I were not afraid of weary- 

 ing you, I should be glad to say. One point, however, must not be 

 overlooked, and that is, the occasion that enables me to come before 

 you at all. It is not likely that the world, and especially Pennsyl- 

 vania, will ever forget the wise man who laid the foundations of this 

 institution of learning. It is not yet venerable by age, but, when it 

 counts as many centuries of existence as it now counts years, the name 

 of Asa Packer will stand first among those that it will delight to honor. 

 More than forty years ago, when I was a boy in Harrisburg, and he 

 was a State Senator from Northampton County, I knew him well, and 

 his personal appearance and manner are firmly fixed in my mind as he 

 was then, a man of perhaps thirty-five to forty years of age. I recol- 

 lect that upon one occasion I met him at the corner of Market and 

 Third Streets, as he was on his way to the Capitol, and that he invited 

 me to walk with him to the building. I was then a school-boy, and 

 he questioned me very closely in regard to the profession I proposed 



