35 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



simply almost complete loss of time, years passed in wearing out 

 the benches of the school. Of all that is paraded before their 

 minds they retain nothing but a few vague and confused notions; 

 they attend, as idlers, the excursions of their successive professors 

 through all kinds of sciences, and what is overwork for the others 

 is for them only intellectual vagabondage. If all children were 

 overworked, the race would soon be lost. The idle, says M. 

 Guyau, save it physically. On the other hand, unfortunately, 

 they contribute to keep it in intellectual and moral mediocrity, 

 and to give a false direction to public affairs. The advantages of 

 their idleness might have been preserved without suffering its in- 

 conveniences if instead of requiring from all so much knowledge, 

 most of which is useless, we had required strictly necessary knowl- 

 edge and such moderate number of the finer branches as would 

 lift up the mind while interesting it. In this way we could sup- 

 press a large number of the idlers without falling into overwork 

 and without depreciating the race under pretense of elevating it. 

 We need not concern ourselves about the number of things a child 

 knows, but about the way he knows and has learned them, and 

 about the general vigor he derives from his exercises, which alone 

 gives a net profit to the species. How does the earth recreate it- 

 self ? In the sun, the air, and the rain, by the free action of forces 

 which work upon it incessantly. Quiet on the surface, it works 

 and buds beneath. So with the mind. We should at certain times 

 let Nature act, and not interrupt the unconscious and spontaneous 

 work of organization that is going on in the depth of the brain, 

 as we let the force which is germinating grass and oaks work in 

 the depth of the soil, in solitude. Translated for The Popular 

 Science Monthly from the Eevue des Deux Mondes. 



PEOF. W. FLINDERS PETEIE is quoted as having said that the Egypt of the 

 early monuments was a mere strip a few miles wide of green, amid boundless 

 deserts, and beneath a sky of the greatest brilliancy ; a land of extreme contrasts 

 of light and shadow, of life and death. These conditions were reflected in the 

 art. On the one hand was the most massive and overwhelming construction, 

 and on the other, the most delicate and detailed reliefs; on the one hand, the 

 most sublime and solid statuary ; on the other, the course and accidents of daily 

 life freely treated ; on the one hand, masses of smooth buildings that far outdo 

 the native hills on which they stand, gaunt and bare; and on the other, the 

 vivid and rich coloring in the interiors. In consequence of the climate also Egypt 

 is a land of great simplicity of life, and simplicity is the characteristic of the oldest 

 Egyptian buildings. 



FROM the ages of persons who have died in France during the last thirty-two 

 years, M. Turquan computes that the average length of life in that country has 

 been about thirty-eight years for women, thirty-six years for men, and thirty- 

 seven years for the whole. This is now exceeded, and the average has risen to 

 more than forty years. 



