16 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
When will parents and teachers learn to regard 
mental precocity as a disaster to be shunned, 
instead of a glory to be coveted? “Nature,” 
says Tissot, in his “Essay on the Health of 
Men of Letters,” “is unable successfully to 
carry on two rapid processes at the same time. 
We attempt a prodigy, and the result is a fool.” 
There was a child in Languedoc who at six 
years was of the size of a large man; of course 
his mind was a vacuum. On the other hand, 
Jean Philippe Baratier was a learned man in his 
eighth year, and died of apparent old age at 
twenty. Both were monstrosities, and a healthy 
childhood would be equidistant from either. 
One invaluable merit of outdoor sports is to 
be found in this, that they afford the best 
cement for childish friendship. Their associa- 
tions outlive all others. There is many a man, 
now perchance hard and worldly, whom one 
loves to pass in the street simply because in 
meeting him one meets spring flowers and 
autumn chestnuts, skates and cricket-balls, 
cherry-birds and pickerel. There is an inde- 
scribable fascination in the gradual transference 
of these childish companionships into maturer 
relations. It is pleasant to encounter in the 
contests of manhood those whom one first met 
at football, and to follow the profound thoughts 
of those who always dived deeper, even in the 
