25 



lost its temper by 15 or 16, owing to over-preparation with a 

 view to scholarships. In such cases the mental elasticity gets 

 what the engineers call "a permanent set," and rarely recovers 

 itself." 



Writing of over-pressure among girls causing illness, Dr. 

 J. H. Aveling says : — u My advice is always fresh air exercise 

 and no mental strain. If this is adopted, the patient gradually 

 improves ; if it is not, she developes into a highly nervous and 

 morbidly emotional woman, giving birth, in case of marriage, 

 to a weak and deteriorated offspring." 



R. W. MacDonald, M.D., in a long letter on the evils of 

 over-pressure says : — " Many and many are the lives of innocent 

 and helpless children thus sacrificed to the folly, stupidity, and 

 ignorance of parents, school-boards, and teachers." 

 " The moment a child begins to rave about its lessons in its 

 sleep it is time to stop." 



D'arcy Thompson in his charming little book — Daydreams 

 — when speaking of girls' schools as they are, says : — " The 

 Chinaman squeezes the feet of his women into lumps of help- 

 lessness, but the more ingenious European transfers the pressure 

 to the female brain." And again, of schools as they should be : 

 " I would never forget that I was training children, not to be 

 schoolmistresses, but gentle ladies in a drawing-room, and 

 gentler mothers in a nursery." 



Rev. David Macrae in Americans at Home, describing a 

 school in Lower Canada, says : — " Too little beds stood side by 

 side upon the floor in front. I asked Sister Gaudry what these 

 were for. ' These,' she said, ' are for any of the children that 

 might fall asleep during the exercises.' " 



7. EVIL OF PAYMENT BY RESULTS. 



Against payment by results, besides an intensification of all 

 the evils heretofore mentioned under the head of the competi- 

 tive system, there is the additional indictment that the school- 

 master becomes a mere commercial speculator — a head of a 

 factory, paid on piece-work to turn out copies to a certain 

 pattern, beyond which he has neither time to go nor interest to 

 take him, 



