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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
the natures of children, and it is impossible to see that any reason can be offered for not invoking their services to this important end. Yet, strange to say, our school authorities are the first to resist this reasonable policy. They resent the idea that their system is not already working in perfection, and they virtually maintain that the ignorance of teachers and school officials is just as good for practical guidance as the knowledge and experience of men especially cultivated to deal with cases which are constantly arising, where pupils become the victims of an undiscriminating high-pressure system of school-work.
An illustration of the subject has recently arisen in London, which is attracting public attention in the shape of a controversy between an eminent medical man and a prominent Government official. Dr. Crichton Browne, a distinguished authority on nervous diseases and the treatment of the insane, pointed out some of the evils attending prevalent school practices, and advocated school inspection by competent physicians. Mr. Mundella, a manufacturer, a philanthropist, and Vice-President of the Government Council, who has large direction of the school, took issue with Dr. Browne, and there came a public contention upon the subject. The London "Lancet" reviewed this controversy, and gave reasons for maintaining that Dr. Crichton Browne had the right of it. The subject is so important that we reprint the "Lancet's" remarks in full:
Leaving the personal issues involved in the regrettable dispute which has been raised by Mr. Mundella's equivocal mode of traversing Dr. Crichton Browne's report on the subject of "over-pressure of work in public elementary schools," we turn to the main question: Is it, or is it not, the fact that over-pressure exists, and that it is doing mischief? The case seems to us to lie in a nutshell, and it would be difficult to cast the underlying hypothesis in a more terse form than that embodied in one of Dr. Crichton Browne's concluding sentences. No one alleges, or for a moment supposes, that the Vice-President of the Council, or any influential member or official of the Educational Department, is either willful or careless in the matter. It is simply a question of policy; and the most that need or can be justly said is said in these words: "It is quite possible that a scholar, whose body is twelve years old, but whose brain stopped growing at eight, might by his pleasing exterior and superficial sharpness impress the inspector with the idea that he is rather clever, while all the time he is childish, not to say babyish, in intellect, and ineducable beyond the first standard." If this be conceded, as we think it must be, then it follows that the inspector is not in a position to determine whether a particular pupil is or is not physically able to do the work required of him or her, and fit safely to be pressed through the educational curriculum. This seems to us to cover every contingency. It is not necessary to argue closely or warmly as to the question of experiences. It is conceivable that not a single case of injury may actually have occurred, and yet the system which makes a non-medical inspector—however humane and competent for his, proper task—the judge of physico-mental fitness, whether of pupil or pupil teacher, must be indefensible. What are we doing? Simply this: applying a uniform pressure to a vast multitude of brains, some of which must, in the nature of things, be too weak or too ill-developed to bear the strain thrust upon them. It is a monstrous and inexplicable blunder this insistence on a level code of education for all. Why, even as regards the muscular and general organism of the soldier and the sailor a medical examination precedes the commencement of drill, and medical inspection from time to time keeps the question of health in view. Muscular weakness is not half so serious a bar to physical training as mind weakness is to intellectual exercise. How comes it to pass, then, that without any medical examination or supervision whatsoever the brains of a multitude of children, the majority of whom are under-bred and ill-fed, should be subjected to the same discipline and required to do the same task? It is not considered enough to know the age of a recruit for the army or navy; means are taken to ascertain whether his heart, lungs, and organs generally are healthy, and medical officers are specially appointed to examine him from time to time with a view to determine whether he is bearing the strain healthily; but no provision whatever is made for testing or watching the immature cerebral orgasn
