xxviii Appendix. 
have gone through these high examinations without suffering from them ; 
many more will continue to do it; but the fact that so many are injured 
and made unfit for active mental work by these means surely proves that 
there is something in them which asks more from its candidates than it 
ought to ask. Even were the system good in producing mental efficiency, 
which it is not, it would still be bad, because it prevents that physical 
training needful to make learning useful in life. Those who, in eagerness 
to cultivate their pupils’ minds are forgetful of their bodies, do not remember 
that success in the world depends more upon energy than information; and 
that a system which, in cramming in information, undermines health and 
energy, is self-defeating. Strong determination, and untiring activity due 
to perfect health, when joined with that adequate education which may be 
obtained without sacrificing health, ensure an easy victory over competitors 
enfeebled by excessive study. 
Dr. Richardson says, in speaking of competitive examinations :—'* You 
have but to go to a prize distribution to see, in the worn and pale and 
languid faces of the successful, the effect of the system. And when you 
have seen them you have not seen a tithe of the evil. You have not seen 
the anxious young-old boys and girls at the time of the competition, or 
immediately after it; or between the time of the examination and the post- 
ing-up of the lists. You have not seen the injury inflicted by the news of 
success to those who have won, and by the news of failure to others who 
have lost. If you could, as through a transparent body, have seen all the 
changes going on ; if you could only have seen one set of phenomena alone— 
the violent over-action of the beating hearts and the succeeding depression— 
you would have seen enough to tell you how mad a system you have been 
following, and how much the dull and stupid scholars are to be envied by 
the side of the clever, and, for the moment, the applauded, and flattered, 
and triumphant.” 
Mr. Herbert Spencer says, in speaking of the evils attendant upon the 
system of cramming children :—** Nature is a strict accountant; and if you 
demand of her in one direction more than she is prepared to lay out, she 
balances the account by making a deduction elsewhere. If you will let her 
follow her own course, taking care to supply, in proper quantities and kinds, 
the elements of bodily and mental growth necessary at each age, she will 
eventually produce an individual more or less evenly developed. If, how- 
ever, you insist on premature or undue growth of any one part, she will, 
with more or less protest, concede the point; but, that she may do your 
extra work, she must leave some of her more important work undone.” 
A familiar proof of this statement is seen in the case of children who 
have outgrown their strength. We know that such children are wanting in 
