Kemp.—On the Medical Aspects of Education. XXXV 
nitions, if attempted too soon, will be fraught with evil, and the child will 
languish under the accumulation of facts with which its mind is weighted.” 
Most of you are probably aware that a child begins to cut its second 
teeth at seven or eight years of age, and finishes at about fourteen, (except 
the cutting of wisdom teeth), and as at this time there is often a re-appearance 
of any nervous symptoms that may have shown themselves when the first 
teeth were being cut, I fully concur with the statement I have just read, 
and think this period of second dentition one during which mental training 
should be proceeded with with the utmost caution, because at this time the 
physical growth is very active, and the animal functions are proceeding with 
extraordinary vigour, and a large amount of rest and sleep are necessary for 
the building up of the tissues. There is also, at this period of from seven 
to fourteen years of age, an extreme sensitiveness of the nervous system, 
and special liability to sympathetic disturbance, as well as a special tendency 
to the development of transmitted taints, which may be outgrown as years 
pass by. Itis generally during this period that slight causes will produce 
St. Vitus’ dance and epilepsy ; indeed, sometimes they can be traced to no 
other cause than the cutting of a tooth. During this period also the organs 
of assimilation and digestion are very active, and derangements which are 
brought about by impaired nutrition are especially common. Any immode- 
rate intellectual training at a time when these organs are enfeebled, and the 
appetite poor, may so impoverish the quality of the blood as to increase the 
sensitiveness of the brain and nervous centres and bring on actual disease. 
It has been proposed by Mr. Saunders in a paper called ** The Teeth as a 
Test of Age,” to adopt the successive stages in the cutting of the second 
teeth as standards for estimating the physical capabilities of children, 
especially in regard to those two periods which the factory laws consider 
it of the greatest importance to determine, namely, the ages of nine and 
thirteen years. Under nine a child is not allowed to work at all, and up to 
thirteen it may be only employed during nine hours a day; it has been 
found necessary, owing to the untrustworthy statements of parents, to seek 
for some test by which the capability of a child can be determined without 
knowing its age. A standard of height was first adopted, but this on phy- 
siological grounds is erroneous, as it is a well-known fact that the tallest 
children are by no means always the strongest; indeed, frequently the con- 
trary is actually the case. According to Mr. Saunders, the degree of 
advance of the second dentition may be considered as a much more correct 
standard of general development of the organic frame and its physical 
powers, and it appears from his inquiries that it may be relied on as a guide 
to the true age and strength of children in a large proportion of cases. 
54 
