BRAIN-FORCING IN CHILDHOOD. 725 



had an equal chance. Here is the opportunity for those who have 

 charge of children during the first ten or twelve years of their lives. 

 All Nature is before them : the woods, the fields, the sea, the heavens, 

 animals of all kinds, men and women, the habitations of man, factories 

 and the various objects made in them, and a thousand other things, 

 afford the means for educating the child without a single book being 

 brought into use. Even very young children can be taught to employ 

 their eyes to some purpose by having attractive pictures submitted to 

 them for observation. Such exercises would interest the mind, and at 

 the same time develop it. The picture-books made nowadays are gen- 

 erally very admirable ; but there might be pictures specially designed 

 for the purpose of teaching and not merely for amusement. 



One of the greatest mistakes made in our present system of edu- 

 cating children is, that they are given too many subjects to study at 

 once. The power of dissociation — that is, of keeping one subject en- 

 tirely clear of another subject — is not great in the minds of children. 

 They therefore have a mass of confused ideas when they have got 

 through with their daily tasks, which it is always difficult, and some- 

 times impossible, for them to separate one from the other. It is true 

 that some children are, from the beginning, able to concentrate the 

 attention first on one subject and then on another ; but these are quite 

 exceptional instances, and the brain is very likely to be strained in the 

 effort. It is as though a person should spend six hours in looking 

 alternately through a telescope and a microscope, giving a few minutes 

 to each. It would certainly be found at the end of that time that the 

 sight had been injured for the time being, at least, and if the practice 

 should be continued there can be no doubt that permanent impairment 

 of vision would be the result. 



The effort to form and maintain clear and forcible ideas of several 

 subjects at once is a difficult matter, even for adults. It has been 

 found by experience that it is advantageous to reduce the number of 

 branches of medical science which students are required to study simul- 

 taneously. Several of the better class of medical colleges in this coun- 

 try a few years ago cut down the list of from eight or ten to less than 

 half the number, and extended the period of study from two sessions 

 of four months each to three of from six to eight months. I speak 

 from personal experience when I say that I am aware of the most 

 lamentable results of the " cramming" process in medical students. I 

 have been a teacher in medical schools for nearly twenty-five years. 

 In the course of my examinations it has often happened that I have 

 put a question in one branch of medicine to a candidate for graduation 

 and have received an answer in an entirely different branch. How 

 much better it would be for the future man or woman if the boy or 

 girl, instead of being required to learn a dozen different subjects at 

 once, as was the poor little victim of St. Vitus's dance to whom I re- 

 ferred in the beginning of my remarks, should have the number reduced 



