1884.] 
( 305 ) 
NOTES. 
At a Meeting of the Liverpool Medical Institute Dr. Howie, as 
reported in the “ Medical Press and Circular,” discussed the in- 
fluence which the present system of education has upon the 
health of the community. He held that it is the duty of medical 
men to insist upon the evil effedts which are certain to follow if 
the present course is persistently pursued. Confining his remarks 
entirely to children under twelve, he said that no such child 
ought to be called upon to perform any kind of work, whether 
muscular or mental. That four hours mental exercise is enough, 
twelve hours in bed, four hours for meals, &c., and four for mus- 
cular exercise. That much as he believed in education as a 
means of national improvement, yet it would be better to have 
the masses uneducated than to train their minds at the expense 
of muscular strength and dexterity. Reading and writing, al- 
though extremely important, yet were not absolutely essential to 
the highest education ; that fadts themselves, without the ability 
to think and speak corredtly about them, are of but small advan- 
tage in mental training. Under the existing educational code 
teachers are compelled to force into the minds of their pupils 
information for which they are utterly unprepared, either by age 
or by previous training. That the blame rests on the framers of 
this code who have utterly ignored the brain capacity of children, 
and not on the schoolmaster or inspector who are simply adting 
in accordance with their directions. Throughout the whole course 
of a child’s school career most of the subjects of study are quite 
beyond his intelligent grasp, unless he is specially precocious. 
He then described at some length the influence which close con- 
finement in school-rooms had upon the health, by inducing a 
tendency to frequent bronchial catarrhs, which in children of 
phthisical history will ultimately lead to that disease, and quoted 
several cases from his own experience in support of this. He 
also spoke strongly in favour of the half-day system of schooling. 
In our elementary schools it was not so much acftual over-work 
as excessive stimulation of the growing brain which leads to its 
far too rapid growth to be healthy ; the nerve structure is through 
this rendered extremely sensitive, and lacks stability. In order 
to remedy the present system he suggested that, first of all, we 
ought to choose good teachers, and give them a considerable 
amount of freedom in dealing with the pupils, and to abolish the 
system of payment by results. He therefore proposed that a 
Committee should be appointed by the Institution to inquire into 
