Mental Discipline in Education. 413 



When it is perceived that what we have to deal with in 

 mental acquirement is organic processes, which have a 

 definite time rate of procedure, so that, however vigor- 

 ously the currents are sustained by keeping at a thing, ac- 

 quisition is not increased in the same degree ; when we see 

 that new attainments are easiest and most rapid during 

 early life the time of most vigorous growth of the body 

 generally ; that thinking exhausts the brain as really as 

 working exhausts the muscles, and that rest and nutrition 

 are as much needed in one case as the other; when we see 

 that rapidity of attainment and tenacity of memory involve 

 the question of cerebral adhesions, and note how widely 

 constitutions differ in these capabilities, how they depend 

 upon blood, stock, and health, and vary with numberless 

 conditions, we become aware how inexorably the problem 

 of mental attainment is hedged round with limitations, and 

 the vague notion that there are no bonds to acquisition 

 except imperfect application disappears forever.* 



ever be otherwise than bad mental discipline. Intellectual education re- 

 quires that the mind should be habitually employed in the acquisition of 

 knowledge, with a certain considerable degree of clear insight and inde- 

 pendent activity." 



Mr. Bain takes the psychological view, and reaches the vital dynamics 

 of the case. He says : " The system of cramming is a scheme for making 

 temporary acquisitions, regardless of the endurance of them. Excitable 

 brains, that can command a very great concentration of force upon a sub- 

 ject, will be proportionably improved for the time being. By drawing upon 

 the strength of the future, we are able to fix temporarily a great variety 

 of impressions during the exaltation of cerebral power that the excite- 

 ment gives. The occasion past, the brain must lie idle for a correspond- 

 ing length of time, while a large portion of the excited impressions will 

 gradually perish away. This system is exceedingly unfavorable to per- 

 manent acquisitions ; for these the brain should be carefully husbanded, 

 and temporarily drawn upon. Every period of undue excitement and 

 feverish susceptibility is a time of great waste for the plastic energy of the 

 mind. 



* See page 348. 



