the brain can benefit by forming part of an unhealthy body is, surely, obvious to all. Determined invalids may produce splendid work, as Darwin did, in spite of ill-health, but not because of it, and men of great mental energy will sometimes wear themselves out prematurely by their restlessness; but starvation and maltreatment of the body will not create intellect, however morbidly it may stimulate the imagination.
Granting the tenement of a healthy body, the education of the central nervous system must proceed along four distinct lines. A child must learn useful reflex actions, such as walking; have its association centres trained, that it may reason quickly and correctly; be endued, if it is not to live upon a desert island, with a sense of moral responsibility and ethical principles; and have its head stored with useful facts, from the meaning of words and the A B C to the value of the coinage.
Few people seem to realize how much a child has to learn before it gets to the A B C. It begins life with very little beyond a capacity for learning, and even its sense organs tell it little until it has had practice in using them. If baby is so unfortunate as to get a scratch from a pin, he wriggles, and makes the whole house aware of it; but he does not seem to have a clear idea at all as to where he is hurt. He has to learn the way about his own body. He passes his hand over his face, and learns that he has features with a definite position and magnitude; he then waves his arms in the air, and learns that there is such a thing as empty space; finally, he knocks his knuckles against the edge of his cradle, and learns that there are other things in existence besides himself. Of course, his eyes help him considerably to form his ideas of things, but his eyes tell him nothing until he has learnt how far to believe them by correcting their impressions by touch. He learns the properties of matter by experiment, not intuition.
Very interesting experiments have been made upon people who have been born blind, and to whom sight has been given late in life by an operation. They generally take some time to appreciate their good fortune. Things, they say, are all pressed up against their eyes, and they
