188 REPORT 1860. 



in with intervals of relaxation during a very long' period. I Lave been informed 

 that Cuvier was usually engaged for seven hours daily in his scientific researches ; 

 but these were not of a nature to require continuous thought. Sir Walter Scott, 

 if my recollection be accurate, describes himself as having devoted about six hours 

 dailv to literary composition, and his mind was then in a state to enjoy some lighter 

 pursuits afterwards. After his misfortunes, however, he allowed himself no relaxa- 

 tion, and there can be little doubt that this over-exertion contributed as much as 

 the moral suffering which he endured to the production of the disease of the brain, 

 which ultimately caused his death. Sir David WilMe found that he was exhausted, 

 if employed in his peculiar line of art for more than four or five hours daily ; and 

 it is probable that it was to relieve himself from the effects of too great labour that 

 he turned to the easier occupation of portrait-painting. In fact, even among the 

 higher grades of mind there are but a few that are capable of sustained thought, 

 repeated day after day, for a much longer period than this." — P. 9-13. 



Sir Benjamin Brodie has stated to me that he subsequently ascertained that in 

 the above passage he had rather exceeded the limits of the mental labour of Sir 

 Walter Scott, who, in a conversation on the topic, in the presence of Sir Charles 

 Lyell and Mr. Lockhart, had declared that he worked for three hours with pleasure, 

 but that beyond about four hours he worked with pain. Sir Benjamin states to me 

 that he is of opinion " that for young children three or four hours' occupation in 

 school must be even more than sufficient, and that they will be found in the end to 

 have made greater progress, if their exertions are thus limited, than if they are 

 continued for a longer period." 



In large public establishments in which I have had an executive direction, I have 

 not found it practicable to sustain, on the average, for longer than six hours per 

 diem, from day to day, continuous and steady mental labour on the part of adults. 



I find ground for the belief that as more and more of mental effort and skill is 

 required in the exercise of the manual arts, the hours of work must be more and 

 more reduced for the attainment of the best economical results without waste of 

 the bodily power. 



The psychological limits to mental labour are governed by physiological limits, 

 which in the case of young children are first indicated by bodily pain experienced, 

 in continued sedentary constraint, from suppressed muscular activity, or from mus- 

 cular irritability. As respects children, the physiological case is put in the follow- 

 ing letter which I wrote to Professor Owen, and in his answer : — 



" Dear Owen, — Permit me to submit to you for your consideration and for my 

 instruction, some questions on topics of observation made from time to time offi- 

 cially on the common practice of popular education, whether, in the duration of 

 sedentary attention which its theory requires, it is not at variance with elementary 

 principles of physiology ? 



" First, let me observe upon the very young of our species, their mobility at the 

 periods of growth, particularly in infancy, — their constant changes of bodily position, 

 when free to change, — their incessant desire for muscular exertion, — their changes, 

 short at first, longer as growth advances,— these changes being excited by quickly 

 varying objects of mental attention, and forming incessantly varying alternations of 

 exertion and repose, with manifestations of pleasure when allowed free scope for 

 them, of pain when long restrained. Now to what physiological conditions do 

 these alternations of exertion and repose subserve ? 



"When obstructed and subjected to constraints for long periods, and when pain 

 and mental irritation and resistance are excited amongst classes, are not the pain and 

 resistance to be taken as a remonstrance of nature against a violation of its laws ? 



u The theory of the common practice of school instruction is of five and as much 

 as six hours' quietude, and for intervals of three hours each, perfect muscular inac- 

 tivity and stillness of very young and growing children from seven to ten years old, 

 and during this constrained muscular inactivity, continuous mental attention and 

 labour. 



" To ensure these conditions of continued bodily inactivity and prolonged mental 

 labour, the common office of the schoolmaster is everywhere a war for the repres- 

 sion of resistances and incipient rebellions. But are not these resistances excited 

 by nature itself? Are not desk cutting, whittling with knives, mischief, conditions 



