Xxxvi Appendix. 



It is a generally accepted fact, that the brain grows very fast wp to seven 

 years of age, it then attains an average weight in hoys of 40 ounces. The 

 increase is much slower between seven and fourteen, at which time it attains 

 45 ounces ; still slower from fourteen to twenty, when it has attained its full 

 size. Consequently of the more difficult intellectual exercises, some, that 

 would be impossible at five or six, are easy at eight, through the fact of 

 brain-growth alone. It often happens, and I think the experience of all 

 teachers will bear me out in this : You try a pupil with a particular subject 

 at a certain age, and you entirely fail ; wait now a year or two, and you 

 succeed, and that without seemingly having done anything expressly to lead 

 up to the point; although there will undoubtedly have been, in the mean- 

 time, some sort of experience that prepares the mind for the reception of 

 the more difficult subject. Another reason why it is aU-important for us to 

 find out and supply the proper quantity and quality of mental food to 

 growing children is, that at this period of life the brain is in its most plastic 

 form, and what it assimilates it does so thoroughly as to make it part of it- 

 self — not to be lost after a time, but to remain for ever as the good foundation 

 upon which, in after years, to build a superstructure of intellectual know- 

 ledge. If, however, instead of supplying proper food, we try and force in 

 what the brain cannot bear, we do double harm : first, by putting upon the 

 brain a demand which it is incapable of bearing without injmy ; second, by 

 depriving it of that healthy food by which it grows and becomes prepared 

 ultimately to receive more advanced knowledge. The amount of harm done 

 is greater in the former than in the latter case, for, as I tried to show in 

 my last paper, undue pressure put upon a growing and developing brain, 

 will have the effect, either of developing it abnormally in structure and at 

 the same time prematurely arresting its growth, or of so ovei-taxing its 

 powers that it will at once give way owing to some form of disease. In 

 either case, if death does not ensue, it will be unfit to carry on its work, and 

 so all those functions which are immediately under its control will be im- 

 perfectly performed, and physical ill-health will follow. If the true end 

 and aim of education were kept more clearly in view, I think less harm 

 would be done. 



The object of education ought to be to open-out the undeveloped nature 

 of a child ; to bring out his faculties, and impart skill in the use of them ; 

 to set the seeds of many powers growing ; to teach as large and varied a 

 knowledge of human nature as possible ; to give him, according to his 

 circumstances, the largest practicable acquaintance with life, what it is 

 composed of, morally, intellectually, and materially, and how to deal with 

 it. The mere acquisition of knowledge is not education ; a writer on this 

 subject says : " A man may be able to coimt accurately every yard of dis- 



