UNIVERSITY REFORMS 59 



is a potent factor in inducing individuals to seek medical advice in 

 regard to the care of the heart, lungs and other parts of the body; but 

 one organ, the most delicate of all, the brain, is sadly neglected, until 

 some already well developed disease has compelled the patient to seek 

 the advice of the specialist. In our schools and colleges considerable 

 attention is now being given to the prevention of those having weak 

 hearts or lungs from taking part in athletic contests, whereas at the 

 same time practically no attempt is made to discourage those with 

 functionally impaired nervous systems from undergoing the excessive 

 tests imposed upon them by the strain of a modem education. On the 

 contrary, every attempt is being made to induce all, the unfit as well as 

 the fit, to pass through the educational mill. Those who fail become 

 objects of pity, even if they keep out of the police courts and do not 

 end their careers by suicide.^ If the latter event terminates their 

 career, those concerned in the general carrying into effect of the cam- 

 paign of an education, which has given rise to such remote but unde- 

 sirable consequences, are not even indirectly blamed, whereas the indi- 

 vidual's memory is frequently anathematized by ecclesiastical authority 

 and his or her mortal remains are refused burial in consecrated ground. 

 The public's indifference to the importance of this general question of 

 the introduction of a more rational system of education is commended 

 by Mrs. Grundy. If it were not for the influence of this lady it would 

 be possible to subject each student during his college or university days 

 td an examination to determine whether his sense perceptions were be- 

 low normal, his memory defective, his power of the association of ideas 

 impaired and his volitional control diminished, with the object of giv- 

 ing intelligent advice to correct, if possible, the deficiencies, thereby 

 increasing the individual's sphere of usefulness, and in many cases 

 averting by these precautionary measures a complete breakdown. 



One of the reasons why educational psychology has not fulfilled the 

 predictions made for it by its most enthusiastic supporters, may be 

 referred to its failure to recognize the value of a principle of funda- 

 mental importance which directs our attention to the necessity of the 

 study of the brain in its relation to other organs. The idea of the 

 possibility of isolating and studying the functions of the brain analy- 

 tically quite apart from the phenomena occurring antecedent to the 

 appearance of ideas in consciousness, and conditioned by the activity of 

 heart, lungs, liver and other organs, is an unfortunate persistence of 

 that form of the dualistic conception of the relation of mind and body 

 which has so long delayed enquiry in this field. Though it is always 

 dangerous in the development of any new department to awaken public 

 interest by promising immediate results of importance, a good deal of 

 information of practical value could be disseminated which would tend 



* In the year 1908 there were some 8,332 deaths from suicide in the United 

 States. 



