Cram and iis Amenities . 
[November, 
646 
very inadequately fed, and for two years they made no pro- 
gress at all. Without any obstinacy or indisposition to learn 
they seemed unable alike to comprehend and to remember. 
At last the father obtained employment, the boys were fairly 
fed, and at once a total change came on. In the next three 
months they made far more progress than they had done 
during the foregoing two years. What, in face of such a 
faCt, can be said of the proposal to force children of a given 
age up to a fixed standard ? The under-fed are, I fear, very 
many, both in town and country ; and there are other 
physical causes which may render some children less able to 
learn than others. If ever we succeed in obtaining a 
responsible Minister for Education in place of the Committee 
of Council, I trust he may be always a physician. It is a 
fearful thing to let the brains of a nation be played with by 
men ignorant and careless of their structure, their 
development, and their functions. 
But we must beware of supposing that the evil physical 
results of our English system of education end with the 
primary schools. The striplings and young men who are 
tormented with competitive examinations have brains more 
mature than have the children of whom we have just been 
speaking, but in compensation they are more keenly alive to 
the consequences of the ordeal they are about to face, — an 
ordeal which, testing stringently verbal memory, glibness of 
speech, and cool assurance, does not and cannot test origi- 
nality of thought, suggestiveness, and fertility in resources. 
These unfortunate young men know what to them will be 
the result of failure, and they suffer accordingly. Says the 
“ Lancet ” : “ The competitive system as applied to youths 
has produced a most ruinous effect on the mental constitu- 
tion which this generation has to hand down to the next and 
particularly the next but one ensuing. The work of the 
Civil Service Commissioners is individually and racially 
destructive.” 
Is this, again, mere supposition ? I have heard of a batch 
of successful candidates for the Indian Civil Service being 
before receiving appointments submitted to medical scrutiny, 
with the result that several were found suffering from albu- 
minuria, — the result of the strain which had been put upon 
them. I hear on all hands of young men who have “gone 
up ” for examinations, breaking down in health afterwards 
whether successful or unsuccessful. And who that is 
brought in contact with our “competition wallahs” at 
Somerset House or elsewhere can fail to note the want of 
life and energy which these unfortunates exhibit in every 
