Kemp.—On the Medical Aspects of Education. xxiii 
if the nervous system should suddenly or prematurely give way under the 
excessive strain put upon it. What wonder, then, that the nervous habits 
and excitable manner of the parents appear so frequently in the children, 
thus making them more liable to disease and premature death than others 
born under more favourable circumstances. Parents are greatly to blame 
in enforcing a course of study, or system of training, which is likely to 
induce disorders from which they suffer themselves. The likeness which a 
child bears to a parent, in outward form and feature, ought to teach us how 
iransmissible is every taint and peculiarity, which it should be our constant 
desire to avoid and prevent. That such taints can be stamped out is a 
matter of daily experience, but it can only be done by placing the child 
under the most favourable circumstances, and watching over him with the 
most assiduous care, until the health is so thoroughly established that the 
taint or constitutional tendency to disease may be looked upon as being in 
complete abeyance. 
As a natural outcome of these remarks, will arise the consideration of 
the question, Whether all children should be set the same tasks ; or whether 
natural differences and temperaments should not be more carefully studied 
than they are at present? It is clearly the duty of parents to consider well 
these points, for they alone have the opportunity of studying the habits and 
dispositions of their children ; and surely the cautious parent ought to con- 
sider the cheerful or mournful nature of his child—his mental as well as his 
physical strength—and be guided in his management accordingly. To take 
a boy who has an inherited tendency to consumption, or heart disease, or 
insanity, and to expect him to do as much hard work as another boy who 
has none of these tendencies, but is of perfectly healthy parentage, is 
obviously as opposed to common sense as it is to daily experience, and will 
probably tend to bring into aetivity the latent poison, to the premature 
destruction of mind and body. And when it is considered that, in all pro- 
bability, the mental powers of the healthier boy are being taxed to the 
utmost, perhaps over-taxed, it is not difficult to see that the same amount 
of work imposed on those who are not absolutely healthy, makes it well-nigh 
impossible for physical and mental training to progress and flourish together. . 
The quantity of work and the hours of labour ought to be carefully con- 
sidered, according to the capacity of each child. What greater error could 
possibly be conceived than to enforce close attention to work when the brain 
feels a sense of weariness and the bodily strength is weak ? The application 
is imperfect ; the attention cannot be given for any length of time, because 
the vigour of the brain is failing and the intellectual functions are being 
spoiled. We must not, however, fall into a possible error by supposing 
that every child who learns easily and without labour is therefore healthy. 
