THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

APRIL, 1887.

BRAIN-FORCING IN CHILDHOOD.*

BY WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M. D.

OT very long ago a lady of this city brought her little daughter,

NOT

Oh very years of age, to see me professionally. The child was on

her way to school, and had with her a large satchel full of books. She was pale, tall, and thin. The muscles of her face twitched convulsively, and she could not keep her hands and feet still. She was suffering from chorea, or St. Vitus's dance, and, in addition, had almost constant headache and other symptoms of nervous derangement. In the course of my examination I asked her to empty her satchel of the books it contained, and which, as she informed me, she had been studying that morning and the night before. This is the list:

1. An English grammar. 2. A scholar's companion. 3. An arithmetic. 4. A geography. 5. A history of the United States. 6. An elementary guide to astronomy. 7. A temperance physiology and hygiene (whatever that may be). 8. A method of learning French. 9. A French reading-book.

Nine in all-nine different subjects of knowledge which that poor child was required to study between the hours of three in the afternoon of one day and nine in the morning of the following day! Allowing one hour for dinner, half an hour for breakfast, an hour for undressing at night and dressing in the morning, an hour for going home and returning to school, and eight hours for sleep (and less than this will not suffice for a growing boy or girl-it had better be nine or ten), and we have six hours and a half left in which to study nine different branches of learning! Now, suppose either one of you ladies and gentlemen should retire to some quiet nook, and, with your welldeveloped and trained brains and experienced minds, should try to study nine unfamiliar subjects of knowledge in six hours and a half, * An address delivered before the Nineteenth Century Club, January 25, 1887. VOL. XXX.-46

would you think it strange if at the end of that time you should somewhat mix matters, and imagine that Hong-Kong is the name of a lunar volcano, that the Continental Congress is one of the parts of speech, and that the ductus communis choledechus is situated on Passamaquoddy Bay? She showed no such confusion of ideas. She had studied her lessons well, but she had done so at the expense of her brain-substance. In a little while, and English grammar, geographies, and temperance physiologies, would have been like the "subsequent proceedings" in Bill Nye's poem; they would have "interested her no more." I say that she had learned her lessons at the expense of her brain-substance. This is no flower of speech, but a sober fact. A very simple examination enabled me to satisfy myself that she was living on her brain-capital instead of her brain-income. Her expenditures were greater than her receipts, and brain-bankruptcy was staring her in the face.

An instance like this, in which disease is directly the result of excessive use of the brain, is only one of the many that are constantly coming under the observation of physicians. It is not at all likely that any remarks of mine, or the lessons that experience is daily giving to parents, will for a long time yet do much in the way of making such cases fewer. We are living under the reign of the schoolmaster. The impulse to have children acquire learning that can never be made available for any purpose of life is so powerful that it may almost be regarded as morbid. And this is especially the case relative to girls, who are made to spend years in getting a smattering knowledge of subjects which, if they knew them well, would not enhance their loveliness or render them any happier; but which, as it is, befog their minds with a multiplicity of ideas no one of which they clearly comprehend. Do not misunderstand me. I am not underrating the advantages of learning. If a person wishes to study the differential calculus, not with a view of benefiting his fellow-man, but for the object of conducing to his own happiness, let him do so. He will be wiser and better, and, whether he intends it or not, his fellow-man will be benefited. He has a right to judge for himself, and to seek his own happiness in the way that seems best to him. But for children to be reduced to one common level, as they are in our schools almost without exception, and to have studies crowded upon them in advance of their brain-development, are crimes against Nature, which Nature in her blind way expiates by punishing the wrong person, but which those who know the right should promptly expose.

The brain of a child is larger in proportion to its body than is that of the adult. A fact which is somewhat astonishing to those not aware of it is, that the head of a boy or girl does not grow in size after the seventh year; so that the hat that is worn at that age can be worn just as well at thirty. In the mean time the rest of the body has more than doubled in magnitude. Not only is the brain larger, but it is

more excitable and more impressionable in the child than in the adult. At the same time the structure is immature. What it possesses in size. it lacks in organization; consequently it is not at its maximum for severe and long-continued exertion, and when subjected to a strain of this kind it is certain to suffer. We have, all of us, seen children become mentally fatigued from very slight causes, even when they have been at the same time greatly interested. How much more, therefore, must their brains be tired when they have been forced to concentrate their attention upon subjects, the importance of which they do not appreciate!

The disadvantages to the child of overtasking its muscular system are well understood, and wise laws have been enacted by most civilized people protecting children from the greed of those who would, if left to their own devices, work them to excess. But there are no laws for the protection of their brains from the attacks of ignorant parents and guardians, the insidious warfare of the compilers of school-books who write treatises on physiology in rhyme for infants, and the ever-ready schoolmaster, who, with the child, a victim of a pernicious system, must carry out the behests of those set over him.

Every person who has tried both knows that an hour of intense mental exertion fatigues the whole system more than does a corresponding amount of the most severe physical work. The reason for this is very evident. The brain not only furnishes the force for thought and the other elements of the mind, but it keeps in action all the other organs of the body. If, therefore, the mind takes more than its share of this force, the heart, the stomach, the lungs, the muscles, suffer, and the feeling of weariness is experienced.

It must be borne in mind, also, that the brains of children are continually engaged in acquiring a knowledge of the objects and circumstances by which they are surrounded. An adult, for instance, goes into a room, and the things it contains scarcely attract his attention. He has already learned them. But with the child it is very different. He looks at every object with inquiring eyes; if possible he takes them into his hands so that he can get fuller ideas of them, and asks a hundred questions in regard to their qualities, uses, etc. From the very earliest period after birth the infant is in pursuit of knowledge. His open eyes stare with astonishment at the things within their range, and in a little while his other senses are brought into requisition to assist in adding to his acquirements. An infant two months old will stretch out his hands toward objects held near him, and will incline his whole body with arms extended toward those that he has already learned are too far off for him to grasp. Perhaps, as Plato says, all these manifestations are due to the wonder with which the child's mind is full, but they lead to knowledge whatever may be the exciting cause, and they result directly from the action of the brain.

Undoubtedly the first faculties of the child's mind to be brought