LIV ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



and discipline are precedent in the young child, but any serious attempt 

 a^. intellectual education, before five years is contraindicatcd by the 

 present knowledge of brain structiu-e and function. 



Fortunately in Canada children rarely attend school before five 

 cr seven years, and every degree of care and prudence are exercised, 

 to guard the gradual development of intellectual activity. 



Nowadays we really want our young people trained, so as to 

 become in every possible way, useful members of society. Eight 

 judgment is only developed by discipline, all of which springs from 

 riethod and study. No educational training, no turning over of the 

 pabulum of thought, the brain, will at once fit a lad for any particular 

 calling in life. The chief test of education is the outcome of his 

 life at maturity. This constitutes the practical examination of life, 

 and the practical verdict is the outcome at the period of manhood. 

 Here we have the very process of development, and the result attained. 

 This training is the actual building of a brain. It is difficult to give 

 even an outline of the extremely delicate and complicated operation of 

 the human brain, of which there are not two alike, in the entire human 

 family, and yet we frequently expect equal results of brain power, 

 contrary to the very gifts of natural capacity. The school of life is 

 the one for which our young generation has to be fitted, and as Bishop 

 Creighton, of London, has ably expressed it, the chief teacher is the 

 actual experience which one undergoes. The best built brain is that 

 which arouses some interest which will follow through life, and lead 

 i'\ results of a practical and telling character. Thus the mind becomes 

 equipped so as to enable it ta grapple successfully ^vith the emergen- 

 cies of life. This is, in fact, the very basis of technical education, 

 so much in keeping with the progress and general advancement of the 

 (age. The indispensable object of education is to build a brain, and 

 if possible, to build one strong and vigorous, guarding carefully sur- 

 rounding circumstances, so that strength of body and strength of brain, 

 may constitute the balance, so requisite for a useful and practical 

 calling. 



In brain weights and intellectual capacity, according to Esquiral, 

 no size or form of head is incident to idiocy or to superior talent. The 

 largest weight of brain known, is that of the Eussian novelist, 

 Turgenieff whose brain weighed, at the time of his death, (65 years of 

 age) 71 ounces. The following celebrated group: — Jelïery, Thackeray, 

 Cuvier, Combe, Spurzheim and Sir James Simpson, had brain weights 

 from 54 to 58-6 ounces. A second important group of men of rare 

 genius and marked ability, Hubert, Grote, Babbage, Leibey, Gull and 

 Gambetta, had an average brain weight from 40 to 49 ounces. Colder 

 climates appear to favour large brains, which may in a measure account 



