xxxviii Appendix. 



There is an important phase of this subject into which I cannot enter, 

 but hope some one more competent will, namely : Whether the range of 

 subjects taught in our schools is not too large, whether it is better to try 

 and give children a general knowledge of a great many subjects, or a 

 thorough knowledge of a few. I think the fault here, if any, lies not with 

 teachers, but with parents ; they are anxious that their children should have, 

 as they call it, " every advantage," and so one subject after another is 

 added to their studies, until the number is so great that efficiency in any of 

 them is well nigh impossible. The effect, too, of the present school training 

 upon teachers is a subject worthy of attention. Whether they are not over- 

 worked in common with their pupils ; whether too great a demand is not 

 made upon what should be their leisure time ; whether their brains are not 

 working at high pressure, and so injuring their fitness for their work — all 

 these are points which I hope some one will take up and discuss, and show 

 whether the present system is injurious or not. 



It is certain that a fully-developed brain will stand much more work 

 without harm than a growing one will ; yet there are limits to its endurance ; 

 and I think it may with tolerable safety be stated that, so long as a brain- 

 worker is able to sleep well, to eat well, and to take a fair proportion of out- 

 door exercise, it is not necessary to impose any special limits on the actual 

 number of hours which he devotes to his labours ; but when what is known 

 as anxiety steps in to complicate matters — when cases connected with those 

 numerous personal details from which we can seldom escape, intervene ; 

 or when the daily occupation of life is in itself a fertile source of anxiety — 

 then we find one or other of these three safeguards broken down. Pro- 

 bably the anxieties of the day cannot be shaken off at night ; sleep becomes 

 fitful and disturbed ; the sympathetic nervous system, unsettled by the 

 mutual strain, brings about various defects in nutrition ; the appetite fails, 

 and the vigour of the nervous tissues is no longer able to withstand the 

 endless work piTt upon it; then we meet with sleeplessness, dyspepsia, 

 uncertainty of action, and the depression which are among the chief 

 miseries of those whom we call overworked. 



I now pass on to the consideration of the effect of school-life upon sight 

 and figure. The most common affection of the eye caused by school-life is 

 short-sightedness. In order to explain what is the condition causing it, I 

 refer you to this diagram : — Short-sightedness is developed almost always 

 during school-Hfe ; rarely afterwards, though sometimes from the same 

 causes which produce it at school. This is an acknowledged fact, proved 

 by the experience of all who have much to do with eye-diseases. A question 

 naturally arises. Are children at the time when they are old enough to go to 

 school more liable to short-sightedness than they are before or after that 



