Kemp.—On the Medical Aspects of Education. XXV 
earthly paleness. If you watch the eyes, you will observe that they gleam 
with light at one time, and are heavy and dull at another, while they are 
never laughing eyes. Their brightness is that of thought and strain, a 
passing and dangerous phenomenon. If you inquire into the way in which 
these children sleep, you will hear that it is disturbed, and oftentimes broken. 
In a healthy child sleep comes on at an early hour, and when the eyes are 
closed and the body composed, it is continued till waking-time in a calm, 
peaceful manner, often without a change, even in position. You ask the 
healthy child about his sleep, he says he is simply conscious of having 
closed his eyes, and opened them again. But these unhealthy, over-taught 
children have no such joy. They sleep, perchance, to dream during half 
the night, and to be assailed with all the horrors and pressures of dreams ; 
not unfrequently they become somnambulists. The bad sleep naturally 
leads to a certain amount of languor and tiredness the next day; but, 
strangely enough, it interferes with the natural advent of sleep the next 
night, so that sleeplessness becomes a habit. Now it is that stories must 
be told to the child, and thus it falls into slumber fed with the food of 
dreams, cares, and frights." 
This picture may seem to you overdrawn; unfortunately it is not; indeed, 
more might with perfect truth be added to it, as daily observation proves. 
While on the subject of sleep, le& me say a few words. The old saying, 
that ‘Six hours sleep is enough for a man, seven for a woman, and eight 
for a fool," is to my mind a great fallacy. I believe that a healthy person 
of from 30-40 years old should take not less than eight hours sleep out of 
the twenty-four; and children from ten to twelve, according to their ages. 
A grown-up person, whose brain is active during the day, requires at least 
eight hours rest, in order to make good what has been lost, and fit it to 
undertake its work on the following day. With a child, who has not only 
. to make up the loss, but also to add to the size of its brain and whole body, 
much more is necessary; and unless sleep is taken in sufficient quantity 
the physical health as well as the mental energy must suffer. A child 
with any such unnatural aptitude for learning should be carefully watched, 
and when any signs of brain-fatigue begin to show themselves, all books 
should be at once put aside, and the child placed under the most favour- 
able circumstances for improving the physical health. 
Hitherto, I have spoken chiefly of the effects of modern school-life and 
training upon the mental and physical health of children predisposed to 
disease, owing to some taint transmitted to them by their parents. I now 
turn for a few moments to the consideration of the effect they have upon 
children who are of healthy parentage, and who are themselves in good 
health, Is it too much to say, that the present generation are on the whole 
