THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 63 



mental and bodily activities, by not allowing her — on the ground 

 that it is un womanish — to give mind and muscle the full play 

 they crave, is as foolish as it is cruel. It lays the foundation 

 of miserable hysterias and dyspepsias, and tends to produce 

 a narrowness and bigotry of mind which, to a thinking being, 

 is intolerable. To suppose that a high degree 'of mental 

 education would injuriously affect the generative system is 

 fallacious. "Why should it in woman any more than in 

 man ? It may happen if a delicate girl be subjected to high 

 mental pressure ; the capacity for nursing children, namely, 

 or even fertility, may possibly be diminished. But no educa- 

 tion should be under high mental pressure. All proper mental 

 education is under no pressure at all. One single important 

 fact, learnt easily, gains a hold on the mind, and does more 

 good than 10,000 facts forcibly crammed into the brain. If 

 the special interest of the pupil be awakened, he or she will 

 remember the facts taught, even though dull to the very brink 

 of idiocy ; and if a child cannot understand a thing, how foolish 

 to attempt to make it ! What terrible piece of blindness, ay, 

 and oi : cruelty, to teach Euclid and intricate grammar at 

 so young an age as is the custom. The child is mentally 

 akin to the savage, in whom the power of abstract thought is 

 scarcely developed at all, and before this power is evolved 

 we are attempting to draw upon it — forcing the young mind 

 as we would a hothouse plant. But the human mind is some- 

 thing subtler than a vegetable, and will have none of it. No 

 doubt mental evolution is far more rapid in some than in others, 

 and the most precocious have all the advantage at school. They 

 are called sharp and clever, and are made much of, whilst a more 

 backward playfellow is accounted dull, even perhaps obstinate ; 

 and in consequence receives sundry cuffs from his master ; and 

 yet when the angry pedagogue sleeps — forgotten — this dull and 

 stupid boy is, perhaps, adding a chapter to the history of his 

 country. 



In touching upon the subject of education, I ought, per- 

 haps, to speak nearer home. What about medical educa- 

 tion ? I hold it to be equally defective. I do not mean as 

 regards quantity, but method. Think of the atrocious non- 

 sense the poor medical student has to get up for physiology — 



