290 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 280 



-shadow of the coming task always falling upon the task just fin- 

 'ished. The gentle, obedient, loving, and affectionate little ones 

 ■suffer ; while the dear bad boys won't even make an effort, and 

 thrive accordingly. The teacher can sometimes go home with his 

 -work finished for the day ; the pupil never. 



Now, if I will not permit this wrong to be perpetrated in the 

 ■school under my charge, you take your boy away and send him to 

 Mr. Examination Hunter's school ; and you take your girl out of 

 Miss Honest's department and send her down to Miss Show-off's 

 •school ; and then you point with parental pride to the great load of 

 books your little ones stagger under, as a proof of the superior effi- 

 ciency of those two principals " whom we all respect." Then, when 

 your little girl graduates, and Miss Show-off orders all the grad- 

 <uates to wear white dresses and tea-roses, and to come in carriages, 

 and to drape their desks in white, you all say, " She has no right to 

 give any such orders, and it ought to be stopped, and " — You get 

 the dresses and the tea-roses and the carriage, and you attend the 

 ireception ; and it is all so beautiful, and the members of the mutual 

 .admiration society do speak so mellifluently, — buttered honey, as 

 it were, — that you are as proud of your daughter as a drum-major 

 ■on parade. And then you go home, and your daughter has ty- 

 iphoid-fever, or spinal meningitis, or some other Latin disease, and 

 you lay the blame on Providence. Who is to blame if the supply 

 -of sham education be exactly proportioned to your demand for it ? 



If you could only once be roused from your apathy on this sub- 

 ject, do you not know that your servants — the mayor, the Board 

 •of Education, and the Legislature of this great State of New York 

 — would skip around like waiters in a dime restaurant to get you 

 •what you want ? 



The press has at last taken hold of this matter for you. How 

 many of you will read what is written in your interest, and how 

 many more will skip it all in order to read about the latest base- 

 ball match or the last prize-fight .' If you, happily, by any chance, 

 have read thus far without throwing down the paper, will you 

 ■kindly read the summing-up of the whole matter ? The public 

 ;schools of New York City will never be any better than the people 

 ^of that city demand that they shall be. 



Edward H. Boyer, 

 Principal Gratnmar School 9. 



Reflex Speech. 



Noting the paragraph in Science of May 25, quoting from the 

 "Journal of Meittal Science a statement of experiments in reflex 

 ■speech, it seemed to me that certain experiences of my own in re- 

 ••flex writing might be of interest. I compose and write with con- 

 sidei^able rapidity, and, on re-reading my manuscript, often find that 

 imy hand has written words in opposition to the orders from my 

 ■mind. Of the several words beginning with th, for instance, ' the ' 

 is often written Where ' they,' ' this,' or some other word, was in- 

 tended. In like manner 'their' becomes ' there ; ' ' whether' takes 

 the form of ' where ; ' ' while ' replaces ' which,' ' what,' etc. ; and 

 ■other vagaries of the same general character now and then appear. 

 Probably experiences of this kind are common, and are passed over 

 ■without reflection as to their cause. They have long seemed to me 



■ evidences of reflex action. In rapid composition, the writing hand 

 lags behind the conscious thought, which springs on to the words 

 An advance, and leaves its successive orders to be executed in an 

 -automatic and unconscious fashion. 



Ordinarily the wheels of the brain roll on in due order ; but 

 -occasionally the hand seems to take the task of suggestion on itself, 



taking advantage of the absence of consciousness, and moving in a 

 • more customary channel than that directed : t/i, for instance, is 



followed by ^ more commonly than by any other letters; and the 



■ hand, if left to the action of reflex suggestion, would write ' the ' in 

 ■preference to the other i/t words. It is not at all surprising, then, 

 'ithat the writing of lA sends back a reflex suggestion of e as the 

 ■concluding letter of the word, which is occasionally of sufficient 

 strength to overcome the impulse given by consciousness to the 

 brain to write some other word. 



It may be, however, that this phenomenon is due to relations of 

 the nervous system different from those ordinarily estimated, and 

 ■that the brain has nothing to do with the dereliction of duty in the 



hand. I should suggest the following theory in explanation of the 

 phenomenon. The brain does not differ in physical formation from 

 the inferior ganglia, and may not differ in its power of memory-re- 

 cording. The impulses which pass along the sensory nerves to the 

 brain traverse several ganglia on their way thither, and may leave 

 memory traces in each of these as well as in the brain. The im- 

 pulses to motion emanating from the brain similarly pass through 

 inferior ganglia, and may produce in them conditions similar to 

 those affecting the brain at that instant. But when the conscious- 

 ness has brought the brain into condition to produce certain suc- 

 cessive effects, this condition does not exist in the inferior ganglia. 

 In writing the letters tk, for instance, two influences are at work. 

 There are influences descending from the brain to produce certain 

 succeeding motions in the fingers ; and there are sensory influ- 

 ences flowing upward from the moving fingers which are full of 

 reflex suggestiveness. It seems not improbable, then, that this 

 reflex suggestion may now and then call forth a response from an 

 inferior ganglion, and thus check the action of the brain, which, 

 in its unconscious automatism, may need a reflex influence from 

 the fingers to bring it into condition to complete the word. 



If such be the case, we can readily understand why the more 

 ordinary words beginning with certain letters are occasionally 

 written, instead of those dictated by consciousness, which begin 

 with the same letters. It may perhaps be that the work in both 

 cases is done by the brain, and yet this hardly seems probable : for 

 the brain is put in train to perform a certain duty, and its tendency 

 to do this seems likely to be stronger than any reverse tendency to 

 perform a more customary action. This reverse tendency may un- 

 doubtedly occasionally gain precedence ; but, if the inferior ganglia 

 have the capabilities above suggested, it is not improbable that the 

 reversing influence comes from them, and that the precedence 

 which the brain possesses while in conscious activity may weaken 

 during unconsciousness, so that, if the reflex influence from the 

 hand arouses all the ganglia through which it passes to activity, 

 an inferior ganglion may occasionally win in the conflict with the 

 brain, and take control of the reins of action. C. MORRIS. 



Philadelphia, Penn., June 5. 



Ans^wers. 



32. Human Beings as Pack-Animals. — Prof. Joseph Le- 

 Conte of the University of California sends the following informa- 

 tion in reply to an inquiry in Science in reference to the strength 

 and endurance of the human pack-animal. I shall be extremely 

 obliged for many notes of this kind from every part of the world. 

 " In 1844 I travelled by birch-bark canoe something like a thousand 

 miles, from Lapoint over to the head watees of the Mississippi, and 

 down the latter to Fort Snelling, at mouth of Minnesota River. 

 We made several portages, the longest being nine miles. We had 

 along two trunks, and provisions and bedding for four persons for 

 one month. The load which our two voyageicrs carried was cer- 

 tainly one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds each. They 

 made seven miles in one day, going over the ground five times ; i.e., 

 thirty-five miles. Three fifths of the distance they were loaded, and 

 two fifths going back for another load. Their plan was to take the 

 heaviest load first (about two hundred pounds), and carry it about 

 a mile or a mile and a half, put it down, go back for another load 

 of one hundred and fifty pounds, carry this a mile or a mile and a 

 half beyond the first deposit, then come back, take up the first de- 

 posit and carry it the same distance beyond, etc., until all was car- 

 ried to the camp for the night ; then, last of all, they went back 

 seven miles to the last camp, took up the boat (which was the 

 lightest load of all), and carried it to camp. I will give an account 

 of one load. They used a leather strap about two inches and a 

 half wide in middle, and slenderer towards the end, and perhaps 

 ten or twelve feet long. One fellow, a famous voyagetcr, would tie 

 this about my trunk (about seventy-five pounds) in two places near 

 each end, and throw it over the head, bringing the band across the 

 forehead, the trunk resting on the back, then take a hundred pounds 

 of flour and put on the trunk, and then twenty-five pounds of crack- 

 ers on top of all, and walk off briskly, almost in a trot. The man 

 was not a large or very muscular man, but rather lean and wiry." 



O. T. Mason. 



Washington, D.C, June 5. 



