TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 187 



to those of the full-time scholars, i. e. the three hours' are as productive as the six 

 hours' mental labour daily. The like results are obtained in the district pauper 

 schools. In one large establishment, containing about six hundred children, half 

 girls and half boys, the means of industrial occupation were gained for the girls 

 before any were obtained for the boys. The girls were therefore put upon half- 

 time tuition, that is to say, their time of book instruction was reduced from thirty- 

 six hours to eighteen hours per week, giren on the three alternate days of their 

 industrial occupation, the boys remaining at full school-time of thirty-six per week 

 — the teaching being the same, on the same system and by the same teachers, the 

 same school attendance in weeks and years, in both cases. On the periodical 

 examination of the school, surprise was expressed by the inspectors at finding how 

 much more alert mentally the girls were than the boys, and in advance in book attain- 

 ments. Subsequently industrial occupation was found for the boys, when their 

 time of book instruction was reduced from thirty-six hours a week to eighteen ; and 

 after a while the boys were proved upon examination to have obtained their previous 

 relative position, which was in advance of the girls. The chief circumstances to 

 effect this result, as respects the boys, were the introduction of active bodily exer- 

 cises, the naval and the military drill, and the reduction of the duration of the 

 school teaching to within what appear to me to be the psychological limits of the 

 capacity of voluntary attention. 



When book instruction is given under circumstances combining bodily with 

 mental exercises, not only are the book attainments of the half-time scholars proved 

 to be more than equal to those of the full-time scholars, but their aptitudes for 

 applying them are superior, and they are preferred by employers for their superior 

 alertness and efficiency. 



In the common course of book instruction, and in the average of small but well- 

 managed long-time schools, children after leaving an infant school are occupied on 

 the average six years in learning to read and write and spell fairly, and in acquiring 

 proficiency in arithmetic up to decimal fractions. In the larger half-time schools, 

 with a subdivision of educational labour, the same elementary branches of instruc- 

 tion are taught better in three years, and at about half the annual expense for 

 superior educational power. 



The general results stated, I have collected from the experience during a period of 

 from twelve to fifteen years of schools, comprising altogether between ten and twelve 

 thousand pupils. From such experience it appears that the general average school- 

 time is in excess full double of the psychological limits of the capacities of the 

 average of children for lessons requiring mental effort. 



I have not hitherto been enabled to cany my inquiries to any sufficient extent 

 for a statement of particular results, to the schools for children or youth of the 

 higher ages, but I believe it will be found that the school and collegiate require- 

 ments are everywhere more or less in excess of psychological limits. 1 gather that 

 the average study, continuous and mental liibour, of successfid prizemen at the uni- 

 versities is fromfive hours and a half to little more than six hours of close mental 

 labour or exertion from day to day. An able Oxford examiner informs me, that if 

 he ever hears that some one is coming up for examination who has been reading 

 twelve or thirteen hours a day, he is accustomed to exclaim, " that man will be 

 plucked!" and during his experience of thirteen years as an examiner at Oxford, 

 he has never known an instance to the contrary. In respect to the mental labour 

 of adults, it is observed by Sir Benjamin Brodie in his 'Psychological Inquiries,'— 

 "A mail in a profession may be engaged in professional matters for twelve or 

 thirteen hours daily, and suffer no very great inconvenience beyond that which may 

 be traced to bodily fatigue. The greater part of what he has to do (at least it is so 

 after a certain amount of experience) is nearby the same as that which he has done 

 many times before, and becomes almost matter of course. He uses not only his 

 previous knowledge of facts, or his simple experience, but his previous thoughts, 

 and the conclusions at which he had arrived formerly ; and it is only at intervals 

 that he is called upon to make any considerable mental exertion. But at every step 

 in the composition of his philosophical works Lord Bacon had to think, and no one 

 can be engaged in that which requires a sustained effort of thought for more than 

 a very limited portion of the twenty-four hours, &c. 



"But great things are accomplished more frequently by moderate efforts persevered 



