EXCESSIVE EXERCISE OF THE BRAIN. 227 



Taking for our guide the necessities of the consti 

 tution, it will be obvious that the modes of treatment 

 commonly resorted to ought to be reversed, and 

 that, instead of straining to the uttermost the already 

 irritable powers of the precocious child, and leaving 

 his dull competitor to ripen at leisure, a systematic 

 attempt ought to be made, from early infancy, to 

 rouse to action the languid faculties of the latter; 

 while no pains ought to be spared to moderate and 

 give tone to the activity of the former. Instead of 

 this, however, the prematurely intelligent child is 

 generally sent to school, and tasked with lessons at 

 an unusually early age ; while the healthy but more 

 backward boy, who requires to be stimulated, is 

 kept at home in idleness, perhaps for two or three 

 years longer, merely on account of his backward- 

 ness. A double error is here committed, and the 

 consequence to the clever boy is frequently the per- 

 manent loss both of health aiid of his envied supe- 

 riority of intellect. 



In youth, too, much mischief is done by the long 

 school-hours, and continued application of mind, 

 which the present system of education requires. 

 The law of exercise, that long-sustained action ex- 

 hausts the vital powers of an organ, applies equally 

 to the brain as to the muscles; and hence the neces- 

 sity of varying the occupations of the young, and 

 allowing frequent intervals of active exercise in the 

 open air, instead of enforcing the continued confine- 

 ment now so common. This exclusive attention to 

 mental culture fails, as might be expected, even in 

 its essential object; for experience shows that, with 

 a rational distribution of employment and exercise, 

 a child will make greater progress than in double 

 the time employed in continuous mental exertion. 

 If the human being were made up of nothing but a 

 brain and nervous system, it would be very well to 

 content ourselves with sedentary pursuits, and to 

 confine education entirely to the mind. But when 



