APPENDIX A LUI 



How absolutely useless is the man who knows everything and can do 

 nothing perfectly , the very common sense being educated out of him. 

 This is in fact almost a diseased state of mind, not likely to result 

 in the highest achievements of either mental or physical development. 



This is a progressive age, an age of specialty, and when the 

 natural bent of the youth's mind is known, greater excellence will 

 be attained in the future life of the child, by directing education to 

 meet natural capacity. As Gorst has well and ably expressed it, '' The 

 aim of education should be to get the best out of each individual, and 

 Eot to obtain an average of mediocrity,^' " and that the enormous expen- 

 diture of public money upon the production of machine made human 

 automata, is sheer waste." Fortunately, a marked change for the 

 better is now in progress in educational matters. Norman schools, 

 manual training schools, such as introduced into Canada by Sir "Wil- 

 hnm McDonald, and technical education as advocated by AndrcAv 

 Carnegie all have their places, and exercise prudently, their power 

 and educational influence. The kindergarten system, at the ages 

 of six and seven years, as advocated by Fraebel and successors, in the 

 primary grades of our public school system, is accomplishing much 

 good, and safe educational work, intellectual and physical development, 

 keeping pace with each other. 



Dr. Newsholme, Health Officer for Brighton, England, has recently 

 pointed out, the lower age limit of children for school attendance. 

 (Public Health Eecord, 1902.) I'he chief plea is that children under 

 f.ve years of age should be excluded from public elementary schools. 

 On the roll of infant schools in England and Wales, between the ages 

 of two and three years, and four and five years, constituted in 1900, 

 about 10-9 per cent of the total scholars of all ages in elementary 

 schools, chiefly owing to the fact that many mothers engaged in other 

 daily work, seek this method of being relieved of the charge of their 

 children, for four or five hours daily. The occasional advice of school 

 teachers, that the sooner children are sent to school, the better, leads 

 to the same result. Premature school attendance is most decidedly 

 ijijurious and gradually saps brain vitality, and followed, in time, by 

 both mental and physical deterioration. Doubtless the first seven 

 years of life are for growth, rather than for elaboration of structure 

 and function, and by far the most important point is that a large pre- 

 ventable loss of life is the result, of school attendance at ages under 

 five years, the difficulty in the great proportion of the deaths com- 

 mencing by the overstrain of the brain, in the very formative process 

 oi thought. The important point is the death rate from communicable 

 diseases under five years of age, is greater and the fatality more than 

 in ages higher. Physical training and the cultivation of observation 



