BRAIN-FORCING IN CHILDHOOD. 729 



go for nothing but to furnish our heads with knowledge, hut give us 

 nothing of judgment or virtue. We labor only to stuff the memory, 

 but leave the conscience and the understanding empty and unfur- 

 nished." 



" Mere bookish learning," he says again, " is both troublesome and 

 ungraceful ; and, though it may serve for some kind of ornament, there 

 is yet no foundation for any superstructure to be built upon it." 



Students of mature life study the things themselves, and not the 

 descriptions of them. How much better it would be if " object-les- 

 sons" were more common in our schools ! What idea of " network," 

 for instance, could a child possibly obtain from Dr. Johnson's definition 

 of it, " a reticulated structure, with interstices between the intersec- 

 tions " ? Would he not know more about a net after having seen one 

 than he would after having learned by rote such a definition ? And 

 would not, in fact, the words used by Dr. Johnson tend to unsettle all 

 the knowledge of a net that observation had given him ? 



As one mode by which a reform in our systems of educating the 

 young can be brought about, let there be more schools for children of 

 a larger growth. I am satisfied, from observation, that the public 

 night-schools of this city do more good, according to their opportuni- 

 ties, than do those that, through the day, from nine to three o'clock 

 are crowded with young children, tiring their poor little brains over 

 subjects that do not interest them, for they do not appreciate their 

 value. A child ought to see some tangible result of his efforts to 

 acquire knowledge, and this he can only do when he is taught facts 

 that he understands and recognizes to be facts. In this kind of in- 

 struction the mental strain is reduced to a minimum, while the mental 

 development is carried on in accordance with Nature's laws. At the 

 first sign of fatigue the instruction should cease. As our schools are 

 at present conducted, all the pupils are made to conform to one uni- 

 form standard of cast-iron rigidity. Weariness counts for nothing 

 with the feeble, so long as the robust are not tired. The exhausted 

 child can not, like the exhausted adult, stop of his own volition. He 

 must go on. The jaded nervous system cries out in vain, his face may 

 look as haggard as it can, yawn follows yawn, his head may droop, his 

 eyes may close in the drowsiness of his languor ; but the goad is ap- 

 plied, and he must rouse himself, for another lesson is to be recited. 

 Is it strange that headache, and nervous prostration, and insomnia, and 

 St. Vitus's dance, and epilepsy, and utter extinction of mind should 

 frequently result from this forcing process ? Is it not much better for 

 the child that he should occasionally play truant, and go off to some 

 vacant lot and engage in a game of ball ? 



I confess to a strong sympathy with the intelligent truant, who 

 loves the fields and the shore better than he does the overcrowded, ill- 

 ventilated, and brain-prodding school-room. 



The differential education of the sexes is a subject that can not 



