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Cram and its Amenities , 
643 
II. CRAM AND ITS AMENITIES. 
By Frank Fernseed. 
t T the risk of hurting, perhaps, the feelings of such of 
my readers as are well pleased with the peculiar 
features of the English system of education, I can- 
not help calling attention to some recent and alarming 
revelations. Brain-work, it must be conceded, is not per se 
physically injurious. On the contrary, when kept within 
reasonable bounds and right conditions, it appears distinctly 
favourable to health and long life. Wcehler has just de- 
parted from us at the age of 82 ; Dumas is a few days older. 
Chevreul, accidents excepted, promises fair to become a 
centenarian. Darwin, though shattered by the fearful sea- 
sickness which haunted him during the whole of the memo- 
rable voyage of the Beagle, yet exceeded the proverbial three 
score and ten years of human life, and was able to carry on 
his investigations to within twenty-four hours of his death. 
But what are the conditions under which brain-work is 
safe and salutary ? Firstly, the brain, like every organ, must 
be sufficiently mature before it is subject to much exertion. 
Being probably the latest of all our organs to reach its full 
vigour, it cannot be prematurely tasked — I will not say over- 
tasked — without injury to it and to the whole system. It is 
strange that we can grant the unwisdom of working the 
muscles, tendons, and bones of a horse before they are suffi- 
ciently developed, and yet not hesitate to make a premature 
demand upon the main nervous centre of our children. But 
a “ sanitary reform ” in this direction agrees ill with that 
industrial organisation of society which, according to some 
thinkers, is the ultimate goal of human progress. 
The second great condition under which study is whole- 
some is freedom from anxiety, hurry, and worry. This con- 
dition is admirably illustrated in the career of almost all 
great investigators of Nature. Wcehler, for instance, con- 
tributed no fewer than two hundred and twenty-five memoirs 
to the scientific journals or to the Transactions of learned 
societies. Almost all of these papers are of great value, and 
many of them embody the outcome of months of careful 
and delicate experimentation. But in no one case was he 
compelled to finish any of these researches at a certain date 
under appropriate pains and penalties. Precisely the same 
