THE NATURE OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION.
In the cultivation and expansion of the faculties of the mind, we
act altogether upon _organized matter_--and this, too, of the most
delicate kind--which, while it serves as the mediator between _body_
and _spirit_, partakes so largely of the nature, character, and
essential attributes of the _former_, that, without its proper
physical growth and development, all the manifestations of the
_latter_ sink into comparative insignificance; so that, without a
perfect organization of the _brain_, the mental powers must be
proportionally paralyzed; without _its_ maintaining a healthy
condition, _they_ must be rendered proportionally weak and
inactive.[20]--DR. J. L. PEIRCE.
It has already been stated that there exists such an intimate connection
between physical, intellectual, and moral education, that, in order duly
to appreciate the importance of either, we must not view it separate and
alone merely, but in connection with both of the others. However much
value, then, we may attach to physical education on its own account,
considering man as a corporeal being, we shall have occasion greatly to
magnify its importance as we direct our attention to the cultivation and
development of his mental faculties. We have no means of becoming
acquainted with the laws which govern independent mind; but that mind
separate from body is, from its very nature, all-knowing and
intelligent, is an opinion that has obtained to a considerable extent.
Be this as it may, it does not immediately concern us in the present
state. This much we know, that embodied mind acquires knowledge slowly,
and with a degree of perfection depending upon the condition of the
brain and the bodily organs of sense, through the medium of which mind
communicates with the external world. We do not even know whether
education modifies the mind itself; and, if at all, how it affects it in
its disembodied state. Neither is it important that we should possess
this knowledge. There is, however, much reason for believing that the
mind of man in the future state will be permanently affected by, and
enjoy the full benefit of, the preparatory training it has received in
this life; that then, as now, it will be progressive in its attainments;
and that the rapidity with which it will then acquire knowledge, and the
nature of its pursuits, will depend upon the degree of cultivation, and
the habits and character formed in this life.
[20] From an Essay upon the Physical and Intellectual Education of
Children, written by request of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Lyceum.
From what we know of the beneficent and all-wise Creator, as manifested
in his word and works, we have abundant reason for believing that our
highest and enduring good will be best promoted by becoming acquainted
with, and yielding a cheerful obedience to, the laws of organic mind.
Whatever the effect of education upon independent mind may be, we may
rest well assured that man's everlasting well-being in the future state
will be most directly and certainly reached by a strict conformity to
those laws which regulate mind in its present mode of being. It should
be borne in mind, also, that just in proportion as man remains ignorant
of those laws, or, knowing them, disregards them, will he fail to secure
his best good in this life not only, but in that which is to come, to an
extent corresponding with the influence which education may exert upon
independent mind. In order, then, most successfully to carry forward the
great work of intellectual and moral culture, and to secure to man the
fullest benefits of education in the present life, and in that higher
mode of being which awaits him in the future, we have only to acquaint
him with the laws by which embodied mind is governed, and to induce him
to yield a ready, cheerful, and uniform obedience to those laws. We
shall therefore devote the following pages to an inquiry into the laws
which must be observed by embodied mind in order to render it the
fittest possible instrument for discovering, applying, and obeying the
laws under which God has placed the universe, which constitutes the one
great object of education, when considered in its widest and true sense.
All physiologists and philosophers regard the brain as the organ of the
mind. Although it is not befitting here to give a particular description
of this complicated organ, still it may be well further to premise that,
by nearly universal consent, it is regarded as the immediate seat of the
_intellectual_ faculties not only, but of the passions and moral
feelings of our nature, as well as of consciousness and every other
mental act. It is also well established that the brain is the principal
source of that nervous influence which is essential to vitality, and to
the action of each and all of our bodily organs. As, then, its functions
are the highest and most important in the animal economy, it becomes an
object of paramount importance in education to discover the laws by
which they are regulated, that by yielding obedience to them we may
avoid the evils consequent on their violation.
Let no one suppose these evils are few or small; for, in the language of
an eloquent writer, "the system of education which is generally pursued
in the United States is unphilosophical in its elementary principles,
ill adapted to the condition of man, practically mocks his necessities,
and is intrinsically absurd. The high excellences of the present
system, in other respects, are fully appreciated. Modern education has
indeed achieved wonders. It has substituted things for names, experiment
for hypothesis, first principles for arbitrary rules. It has simplified
processes, stripped knowledge of its abstraction and thrown it into
visibility, made practical results rather than mystery the standard by
which to measure the value of attainment, and facts rather than
conjecture its circulating medium."[21]
[21] Report on Manual Labor, by Theodore D. Weld, 1833.
_A sound original constitution_ may be regarded as the first condition
of the healthy action of the brain; for, being a part of the animal
economy, it is subject to the same general laws that govern the other
bodily organs. When a healthy brain is transmitted to children, and
their treatment from infancy is judicious and rational, its health
becomes so firmly established that, in after life, its power of
endurance will be greatly increased, and it will be enabled most
effectually to ward off the insidious attacks of disease. On the other
hand, where this organ has either inherited deficiencies and
imperfections, or where they have been subsequently induced by early
mismanagement, it becomes peculiarly susceptible, and frequently yields
to the slightest attacks. The most eminent physiologists of the age
concur in the opinion that, of all the causes which predispose to
nervous and mental disease, the transmission of hereditary tendency from
parents to children is the most powerful, producing, as it does, in the
children, an unusual liability to those maladies under which their
parents have labored.
When both parents are descended from tainted families, their progeny, as
a matter of course, will be more deeply affected than where one of them
is from a pure stock. This sufficiently accounts for the fact that
hereditary predisposition is a more common cause of nervous disease in
those circles that intermarry much with each other than where a wider
choice is exercised. Fortunately, such is the constitution of society in
this country, that there are fewer evils of this kind among us than are
manifest in many of the European states, where intermarriages are
restricted to persons of the same rank, as has already been illustrated
by reference to the grandees of Spain, who have become a race of dwarfs
intellectually as well as physically. But even in this country there are
painful illustrations of the truth of the popular belief that when
cousins intermarry their offspring are liable to be idiotic. The command
of God not to marry within certain degrees of consanguinity is, then, in
accordance with the organic laws of our being, and the wisdom of the
prohibition is abundantly confirmed by observation.
What was said of hereditary transmission in the second chapter of this
work applies here with increased force. It is of the highest possible
importance that this subject should receive the especial attention of
every parent, and of all who may hereafter sustain the parental
relation; for posterity, to the latest generations, will be affected by
the laws of hereditary transmission, whether those laws are understood
and obeyed or not. The importance of this subject, already inconceivably
vast, becomes infinitely momentous in view of the probability that the
evils under consideration are not confined to this life, but must, from
the nature of the case, continue to be felt while mind endures.
Unfortunately, it is not merely as a cause of disease that hereditary
predisposition is to be dreaded. The obstacles which it throws in the
way of permanent recovery are even more formidable, and can never be
entirely removed. Safety is to be found only in avoiding the
perpetuation of the mischief. When, therefore, two persons, each
naturally of an excitable and delicate nervous temperament, choose to
unite for life, they have themselves to blame for the concentrated
influence of similar tendencies in destroying the health of their
offspring, and subjecting them to all the miseries of nervous disease,
melancholy, or madness.
There is another consideration that should be noticed here: it is this.
Even where no hereditary defect exists, the state of the mother during
pregnancy has an influence on the mental character and health of the
offspring, of which even _few parents_ have any adequate conception. "It
is often in the maternal womb that we are to look for the true cause not
only of imbecility, but of the different kinds of mania. During the
agitated periods of the French Revolution, many ladies then pregnant,
and whose minds were kept constantly on the stretch by the anxiety and
alarm inseparable from the epoch in which they lived, and whose nervous
systems were thereby rendered irritable in the highest degree compatible
with sanity, were afterward delivered of infants whose brains and
nervous systems had been affected to such a degree by the state of their
parent, that, in future life, as children they were subject to spasms,
convulsions, and other nervous affections, and in youth to imbecility or
madness, almost without any exciting cause."[22]
[22] The testimony of M. Esquirol, whose talent, general accuracy, and
extensive experience give great weight to all his well-considered
opinions, quoted, also, and confirmed by the Physician Extraordinary to
the Queen in Scotland, and consulting Physician to the King and Queen of
the Belgians.
The same eminent author has recorded the following fact, illustrating
the extent to which the temporary state of the mother, during gestation,
may influence the _whole future life of the child_. A pregnant woman,
otherwise healthy, was greatly alarmed and terrified by the threats of
her husband when in a state of intoxication. She was afterward
delivered, at the proper time, of a very delicate child, which was so
much affected by its mother's agitation that, up to the age of eighteen,
it continued subject to panic terrors, and then became completely
maniacal.
Many illustrative instances might be quoted from medical writers in this
and other countries. The author might also refer to cases that have
fallen under his own observation.
Dr. Caldwell, too, an able and philanthropic advocate of an improved
system of physical, intellectual, and moral education in this country,
is very urgent in enforcing rational care, during the period of
gestation, on the part of every mother who values the future health and
happiness of her offspring. Among other things, he insists on mothers
taking more active exercise in the open air than they usually do. He
also cautions them against allowing a feeling of false delicacy to keep
them confined in their rooms for weeks and months together. At such
times especially the mind ought to be kept free from gloom or anxiety,
and in that state of cheerful activity which results from the proper
exercise of the intellect, and especially of the moral and social
feelings.
But if seclusion and depression be hurtful to the unborn progeny, surely
thoughtless dissipation and late hours, dancing and waltzing, together
with irritability of temper and peevishness of disposition, can not be
less injurious. Every female that is about to become a mother should
treasure up the remark of that sensible lady, the Margravine of Anspach,
who says, "when a female is likely to become a mother, she ought to be
doubly careful of her temper, and, in particular, to indulge no ideas
that are not cheerful and no sentiments that are not kind. Such is the
connection between the mind and the body, that the features of the face
are moulded commonly into an expression of the internal disposition; and
is it not natural to think that an infant, before it is born, may be
affected by the temper of its mother?" If these things are true--and
they are as well authenticated as any physiological facts are or can
be--then not only _mothers_, but all with whom they associate, and
especially _fathers_, are interested in knowing these important
physiological laws; and they should aim, from the very beginning, so to
observe them as to secure to posterity, physically and mentally, the
full benefits that are connected with cheerful obedience.
_A due supply of properly oxygenated blood_ is another condition upon
which the healthy action of the brain depends. Although it may not be
easy to perceive the effects of slight differences in the quality of the
blood, still, when these differences exist in a considerable degree, the
effects are too obvious to be overlooked. Withdraw entirely the stimulus
of arterial blood, and the brain ceases to act, and sensibility and
consciousness become extinct. When carbonic acid gas is inhaled, the
blood circulating through the lungs does not undergo that process of
oxygenation which is essential to life, as has been explained in a
preceding chapter. As the venous blood in this unchanged state is unfit
to excite or sustain the action of the brain, the mental functions
become impaired, and death speedily ensues, as in the case of a number
of persons breathing a portion of confined air, or inhaling the fumes of
charcoal. On the other hand, if oxygen gas be inhaled instead of common
air, the blood becomes too much oxygenated, and, as a consequence, the
brain is unduly stimulated, and an intensity of action bordering on
inflammation takes place, which also soon terminates in death.
These are extreme cases, I admit; but their consequences are equally
remarkable and fatal. The slighter variations in the state of the blood
produce equally sure, though less palpable effects. Whenever its
vitality is impaired by breathing an atmosphere so vitiated as not to
produce the proper degree of oxygenation, the blood can only afford an
imperfect stimulus to the brain. As a necessary consequence, languor and
inactivity of the mental and nervous functions ensue, and a tendency to
headache, fainting, or hysteria makes its appearance. This is seen every
day in the listlessness and apathy prevalent in crowded and
ill-ventilated school-rooms, and in the headaches and liability to
fainting which are so sure to attack persons of a delicate habit, in the
contaminated atmospheres of crowded theaters, churches, and assemblies
of whatever kind. The same effects, although less strikingly apparent,
are perhaps more permanently felt by the inmates of cotton manufactories
and public hospitals, who are noted for being irritable and sensitive.
The languor and nervous debility consequent on confinement in
ill-ventilated apartments, or in air vitiated by the breath of many
people, are neither more nor less than minor degrees of the process of
poisoning, which was particularly explained in the preceding chapter,
while treating upon the philosophy of respiration.
That it is not real debility which produces these effects, is apparent
from the fact, that egress to the open air almost instantly restores
activity and vigor to both mind and body, unless the exposure has been
very long. There is an interesting but fearful illustration of the truth
of this statement at the 96th page of this work, to which I beg leave to
refer. Where the exposure has been very long continued, more time is of
course required to re-establish the exhausted powers of the brain.
Indeed, we may not, in such cases, hope for complete recovery; for when
persons remain several hours a day in a vitiated atmosphere, for weeks
and months together, both mind and body become permanently diseased. It
is well known to every person who has given attention to the subject,
that hitherto this has been the condition of _public schools_,
generally, in every part of the United States, and throughout the
civilized world. This has, perhaps, tended more than all other causes
combined, to render the profession of teaching disreputable, and to
constitute the very name of schoolmaster, or pedagogue, a hissing and a
by-word. And why is this? I can account for it in but one way. The
school teacher is subject to the _same organic laws as other men_; and,
either on account of the ignorance or parsimony of his employers, he has
been shut up with _their_ children several hours a day, in narrow and
ill-ventilated apartments, where, whatever else they may have done,
their principal business has of necessity been _to poison one another to
death_. And, as if not satisfied with this, when the teacher has ruined
his health in our employment, and become a mere wreck, physically and
mentally, _we despise him_. This is a double injustice, and _is_ adding
insult to injury. And the consequences are hardly less fatal to the
children. The situation of the majority of our schools, when viewed in
connection with the physiological laws already explained, sufficiently
accounts for that irritability, listlessness, and languor which have
been so often observed in both teachers and pupils. Both irritability of
the nervous system and dullness of the intellect are unquestionably the
direct and necessary result of a want of pure air. The vital energies of
the pupils are thus prostrated, and they become not only restless and
_indisposed to study_, but absolutely _incapable of studying_. Their
minds hence wander, and they unavoidably seek relief in mischievous and
disorderly conduct. This doubly provokes the already exasperated
teacher, who can hardly look with complaisance upon good behavior, and
who, from a like cause, is in the same irritable condition of both body
and mind with themselves. He, too, must needs give vent to his irascible
feelings some how. And what way is more natural, under such
circumstances, than to resort to the use of the ferule, the rod, and the
strap! We have already referred to a case, in which formerly fever
constantly prevailed, but where disease disappeared altogether upon the
introduction of _pure air_. Let the same prudential course be adopted in
our schools, in connection with other appropriate means, and we shall
readily see the superiority of the natural stimulus of oxygen over the
artificial sedative of the rod.
_The regular and systematic exercise of the functions of the brain_ is
another condition upon which its healthy action depends. The brain is an
organized part, and is subject to precisely the same laws of exercise
that the other bodily organs are. If it is doomed to inactivity, its
health decays, and the mental operations and feelings, as a necessary
consequence, become dull, feeble, and slow. But let it be duly exercised
after regular intervals of repose, and the mind acquires activity and
strength. Too severe or too protracted exercise of the brain is as great
a violation of the organic law just stated as inactivity is, and is
sometimes productive of the most fearful consequences. By over-tasking
this organ, either in the force or duration of its activity, its
functions become impaired, and irritability and disease take the place
of health and vigor.
So important is the law under consideration, and so essential to the
health of the brain and to the welfare of man, that I deem it advisable
to explain more particularly the consequences of both inadequate and
excessive exercise.
We have seen that by disuse the muscles become emaciated and the bones
soften. The blood-vessels, in like manner, become obliterated, and the
nerves lose their characteristic structure. _The brain is no exception
to this general rule._ Its tone is impaired by permanent inactivity, and
it becomes less fit to manifest the mental powers with readiness and
energy. Nor will this surprise any reflecting person, who considers that
the brain, as a part of the same animal system, is nourished by the same
blood, and regulated by the same vital laws as the muscles, bones,
arteries, and nerves.
It is the withdrawal of the stimulus necessary to the healthy exercise
of the brain, and the consequent weakening and depressing effect
produced upon this organ, that renders solitary confinement so severe a
punishment even to the most daring minds. It is a lower degree of the
same cause that renders continuous seclusion from society so injurious
to both mental and physical health. This explains why persons who are
cut off from social converse by some bodily infirmity so frequently
become discontented and morose, in spite of every resolution to the
contrary. The feelings and faculties of the mind, which had formerly
full play in their intercourse with their fellow-creatures, have no
longer scope for sufficient exercise, and the almost inevitable result
is irritability and weakness in the corresponding parts of the brain.
This fact is strikingly illustrated by reference to the deaf and blind,
who, by the loss of one or more of the senses, are precluded from a full
participation in all the varied sources of interest which their more
favored brethren enjoy without abatement, and in whom irritability,
weakness of mind, and idiocy are known to be much more prevalent than
among other classes of people. "The deaf and dumb," says Andral,
"presents, in intelligence, character, and the development of his
passions, certain modifications, which depend on his state of isolation
in the midst of society. He remains habitually in a state of half
childishness, is very credulous, but, like the savage, remains free from
many of the prejudices acquired in society. In him the tender feelings
are not deep; he appears susceptible neither of strong attachment nor of
lively gratitude; pity moves him feebly; he has little emulation, few
enjoyments, and few desires. This is what is commonly observed in the
deaf and dumb; but the picture is far from being of universal
application; some, more happily endowed, are remarkable for the great
development of their intellectual and moral nature; but others, on the
contrary, remain immersed in complete idiocy."
Andral adds, that we must not infer from this that the deaf and dumb are
therefore constitutionally inferior in mind to other men. "_Their powers
are not developed, because they live isolated from society. Place them,
by some means or other, in relation with their fellow-men, and they will
become their equals._" This is the cause of the rapid brightening up of
both mind and features, which is so often observed in blind or deaf
children when transferred from home to public institutions, and there
taught the means of converse with their fellows.
I have myself witnessed several striking illustrations of the benefits
resulting from mental culture in persons who have lost one or more of
their senses. Among these I would especially instance the American
Asylum at Hartford for the education and instruction of the deaf and
dumb, and the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the
Blind, located at South Boston, to the accomplished principals and
teachers of both of which institutions I would acknowledge my
indebtedness for valuable reports and the information of various kinds
which they obligingly communicated to me at the time of my visits during
the past summer.
Dr. Howe, the accomplished director of the Asylum for the Blind, after
many years of experience and careful observation in this country and in
Europe, expresses the conviction that _the blind, as a class, are
inferior to other persons in mental power and ability_. The opinions put
forth in almost every report of the institutions for the blind in this
country, in almost all books on the subject, and even the doctor's
earlier writings, may be brought to disprove this statement. He is now,
nevertheless, fully convinced that it will be found true. This erroneous
conviction, every where so prevalent, may be accounted for from the fact
that none but intelligent parents of blind children could at first
comprehend the possibility of their being educated, and even _they_
would not think of trying the experiment except upon a child of more
than ordinary ability. As soon, however, as the experiment proved
successful, and institutions for the blind became generally known, the
blind, without distinction--the bright and the backward, the bold and
the timid--resorted to them, which gave an opportunity of judging of the
_whole class_. The result is, that now, while the schools for the blind
present a certain number of children who make more rapid progress in
_intellectual studies_ than the average of seeing children, they also
present a much larger number who are decidedly inferior to them in both
physical and mental vigor.
The loss of one sense makes us exercise the others so constantly and so
effectually as to acquire a power quite unknown to common persons. This
goes far to compensate the blind man who is in the pursuit of knowledge,
and enables him to learn vastly more of _some_ subjects than other men;
but there are capacities of his nature which can never be developed.
Perfect harmony in the exercise and development of his mental faculties
he can never possess, any more than he can exhibit perfect physical
beauty and proportion.
The proposition that the blind, _as a class_, are inferior in mental
power and ability to ordinary persons, has been established beyond a
doubt. Take an equal number of blind and seeing persons, of as nearly
the same age and situation in life as may be, and it has been
established by well authenticated data, that when all the blind have
died, there will still be about half of the seeing ones alive. In other
words, the chance of life among the blind is only about half what it is
among the seeing. The standard of bodily health and vigor, then, being
so much lower among the blind, the inevitable inference is that mental
power and ability will be proportionably less also; for such is the
dependence of the mind upon the body, that there can be no continuance
of mental health and vigor without bodily health and vigor.
It is also true that _the deaf and dumb, as a class, are inferior to
other persons in mental power and ability_. The general reasons for this
are the same as those already given in the case of blind persons, and
need not hence be repeated. The truth of this proposition is established
beyond a doubt by the concurrent testimony of those who have had the
greatest experience with this unfortunate class of persons both in this
country and in Europe. The report of the directors of the American
Asylum for the year 1845 shows that two pupils had died during the year.
One of these had an affection of the lungs which terminated in
consumption, and the disease of the other was dropsy on the brain. In a
third, hereditary consumption was rapidly developing itself. Others,
still, had been subject to more or less of bodily indisposition.
After speaking of the case of a young man in whom _hereditary
consumption_ had been rapidly developed, the following statement is
introduced: "This great destroyer of our race is found extensively in
Europe, as well as in our own country, to be a _common disease among the
deaf and dumb_. It is brought on by scrofula, by fevers, by violent
colds, and by various other causes; and there is often, no doubt, _a
hereditary tendency to it in families connected by blood_". If this is
the effect of the loss of one of the senses upon the _bodily health_,
keeping in view the principle already stated, we shall naturally enough
be led to inquire what the influence is upon the _health of the mind_. A
careful examination of the educational statistics of several states has
convinced me that an unusually large proportion of the deaf and
dumb--and perhaps an equally large proportion of the blind, and
especially those who have remained uneducated and unenlightened--have
been visited with mental derangement, and have _lived and died insane_.
This is easily accounted for. Uneducated persons, who are deprived of
one or more of the senses, are isolated from the world in which they
live. The book of nature is open before them, but they are unable to
peruse it. The simplest operations constantly going on around them are
locked in mystery. They are an enigma to themselves. Even those who are
endowed with inquisitive minds are perplexed with the existing state of
things. They know nothing of the physical organization of the planet we
inhabit, of its political and civil divisions, and of the whole
machinery of human society, and are profoundly ignorant of the past
history and future destiny of the race to which they belong. It is not
remarkable that mind so unnaturally and peculiarly circumstanced--with
its usual inlets of knowledge so obstructed, and deprived of external
objects to act upon--should prey upon itself, and thus superinduce
insanity in its usual forms, and more especially when unaided and
undirected by education.
Keeping the same principle in view, we shall not be surprised to find
that _want of exercise_ of the brain and nervous system, or, in other
words, that inactivity of intellect and feeling, is a very frequent
predisposing cause of every form of nervous disease, even with those who
have not been deprived of any of their senses. For demonstrative
evidence of this position, we have only to look at the numerous victims
to be found among females of the middle and higher ranks, who have no
call to exertion in gaining the means of subsistence, and no objects of
interest on which to exercise their mental faculties, and who
consequently sink into a state of mental sloth and nervous weakness,
which not only deprives them of much enjoyment, but subjects them to
suffering, both of body and mind, from the slightest causes.
In looking abroad upon society, we find innumerable examples of mental
and nervous debility from this cause. When a person of some mental
capacity is confined for a long time to an unvarying round of
employment, which affords neither scope nor stimulus for one half of his
faculties, and, from want of education or society, has no external
resources, his mental powers, for want of exercise to keep up due
vitality in their cerebral organs, become blunted, and his perceptions
slow and dull. Unusual subjects of thought become to him disagreeable
and painful. The intellect and feelings not being provided with
interests external to themselves, must either become inactive and weak,
or work upon themselves and become diseased.
But let the situation of such persons be changed; bring them, for
instance, from the listlessness of retirement to the business and bustle
of a city; give them a variety of imperative employments, and place them
in society so as to supply to their cerebral organs that extent of
exercise which gives health and vivacity of action, and in a few months
the change produced will be surprising. Health, animation, and acuteness
will take the place of former insipidity and dullness. In such
instances, it would be absurd to suppose that it is the _mind itself_
which becomes heavy and feeble, and again revives into energy by these
changes in external circumstances. The effects arise entirely from
changes in the state of the _brain_, and the mental manifestations and
the bodily health have been improved solely by the improvement of its
condition.
The evils arising from excessive or ill-timed exercise of the brain, or
any of its parts, are numerous, and equally in accordance with the
ordinary laws of physiology. When we use the eye too long or in too
bright a light, it becomes bloodshot, and the increased action of its
vessels and nerves gives rise to a sensation of fatigue and pain
requiring us to desist. If we turn away and relieve the eye, the
irritation gradually subsides, and the healthy state returns; but if we
continue to look intently, or resume our employment before the eye has
regained its natural state by repose, the irritation at last becomes
permanent, and disease, followed by weakness of sight, or even
blindness, may ensue, as often happens to glass-blowers, smiths, and
others who are obliged to work in an intense light.
Precisely analogous phenomena occur when, from intense mental
excitement, the brain is kept long in a state of excessive activity. The
only difference is, that we can always see what happens in the eye, but
rarely what takes place in the brain. Occasionally, however, cases of
fracture of the skull occur, in which, part of the bone being removed,
we _can see_ the quickened circulation in the vessels of the brain as
easily as in those of the eye. Sir Astley Cooper had a young gentleman
brought to him who had lost a portion of his skull just above the
eyebrow. "On examining the head," says Sir Astley, "I distinctly saw
that the pulsation of the brain was regular and slow; but at this time
he was agitated by some opposition to his wishes, and directly the blood
was sent with increased force to the brain, and the pulsation became
frequent and violent." Sir Astley hence concludes that, in the treatment
of injuries of the brain, if you omit to keep the mind free from
agitation, your other means will be unavailing.
A still more remarkable case is said to have occurred in the hospital of
Montpellier in 1821. The subject of it was a female who had lost a large
portion of her scalp, skull-bone, and dura mater. A corresponding
portion of her brain was consequently bare, and subject to inspection.
When she was in a dreamless sleep, her brain was motionless, and lay
within the cranium; but when her sleep was imperfect, and she was
agitated by dreams, her brain moved and protruded without the cranium.
In vivid dreams the protrusion was considerable; and when she was awake
and engaged in active thought or sprightly conversation, it was still
greater.
In alluding to this subject, Dr. Caldwell remarks, that if it were
possible, without doing an injury to other parts, to augment the
constant afflux of healthy arterial blood to the brain, the mental
operations would be invigorated by it. This position is illustrated by
reference to the fact that when a public speaker is flushed and heated
in debate, his mind works more freely and powerfully than at any other
time. And why? Because his brain is in better tune. What has thus
suddenly improved its condition? An increased current of blood into it,
produced by the excitement of its own increased action. That the blood
does, on such occasions, flow more copiously into the brain, no one can
doubt who is at all acquainted with the cerebral sensations which the
orator himself experiences at the time, or who witnesses the unusual
fullness and flush of his countenance, and the dewiness, flashing, and
protrusion of his eye.
Indeed, in many instances, the increased circulation in the brain
attendant on high mental excitement reveals itself by its effects when
least expected, and leaves traces after death which are but too legible.
Many are the instances in which public men have been suddenly arrested
in their career by the inordinate action of the brain induced by
incessant toil, and more numerous still are those whose mental power has
been forever impaired by similar excess.
It is generally known that the eye, when tasked beyond its strength,
becomes insensible to light, and ceases to convey impressions to the
mind. The brain, in like manner, when much exhausted, becomes incapable
of thought, and consciousness is well-nigh lost in a feeling of utter
confusion. At any time in life, excessive and continued mental exertion
is hurtful; but in infancy and early youth, when the structure of the
brain is still immature and delicate, permanent injury is more easily
produced by injudicious treatment than at any subsequent period. In this
respect, the analogy is complete between the brain and the other parts
of the body, as we have already seen exemplified in the injurious
effects of premature exercise of the bones and muscles. Scrofulous and
rickety children are the most usual sufferers in this way. They are
generally remarkable for large heads, great precocity of understanding,
and small, delicate bodies. But in such instances, the great size of the
brain, and the acuteness of the mind, are the results of morbid growth,
and even with the best management, the child passes the first years of
its life constantly on the brink of active disease. Instead, however, of
trying to repress its mental activity, as they should, the fond parents,
misled by the promise of genius, too often excite it still further by
unceasing cultivation and the never-failing stimulus of praise; and
finding its progress, for a time, equal to their warmest wishes, they
look forward with ecstasy to the day when its talents will break forth
and shed a luster on their name. But in exact proportion as the picture
becomes brighter to their fancy, the probability of its becoming
realized becomes less; for the brain, worn out by premature exertion,
either becomes diseased or loses its tone, leaving the mental powers
feeble and depressed for the remainder of life. The expected prodigy is
thus, in the end, easily outstripped in the social race by many whose
dull outset promised him an easy victory.
To him who takes for his guide the necessities of the constitution, it
will be obvious that the modes of treatment commonly resorted to should
in such cases be reversed; and that, instead of straining to the utmost
the already irritable powers of the precocious child, leaving his dull
competitors to ripen at leisure, a systematic attempt ought to be made,
from early infancy, to rouse to action the languid faculties of the
latter, while no pains should be spared to moderate and give tone to the
activity of the former. But instead of this, the prematurely intelligent
child is generally sent to school, and tasked with lessons at an
unusually early age, while the healthy but more backward boy, who
requires to be stimulated, is kept at home in idleness merely on account
of his backwardness. A double error is here committed, and the
consequences to the active-minded boy are not unfrequently the permanent
loss both of health and of his envied superiority of intellect.
In speaking of children of this description, Dr. Brigham, in an
excellent little work on the influence of mental excitement on health,
remarks as follows: "Dangerous forms of scrofulous disease among
children have repeatedly fallen under my observation, for which I could
not account in any other way than by supposing that the brain had been
excited at the expense of the other parts of the system, and at a time
in life when nature is endeavoring to perfect all the organs of the
body; and after the disease commenced, I have seen, with grief, the
influence of the same cause in retarding or preventing recovery. I have
seen several affecting and melancholy instances of children, five or six
years of age, lingering a while with diseases from which those less
gifted readily recover, and at last dying, notwithstanding the utmost
efforts to restore them. During their sickness they constantly
manifested a passion for books and mental excitement, and were admired
for the maturity of their minds. The chance for the recovery of such
precocious children is, in my opinion, small when attacked by disease;
and several medical men have informed me that their own observations had
led them to form the same opinion, and have remarked that, in two cases
of sickness, if one of the patients was a child of superior and
highly-cultivated mental powers, and the other one equally sick, but
whose mind had not been excited by study, they should feel less
confident of the recovery of the former than of the latter. This mental
precocity results from an unnatural development of one organ of the body
at the expense of the constitution."
There can be little doubt but that ignorance on the part of parents and
teachers is the principal cause that leads to the too early and
excessive cultivation of the minds of children, and especially of such
as are precocious and delicate. Hence the necessity of imparting
instruction on this subject to both parents and teachers, and to all
persons who are in any way charged with the care and education of the
young. This necessity becomes the more imperative from the fact that the
cupidity of authors and publishers has led to the preparation of
"children's books," many of which are announced as purposely prepared
"for children from _two_ to _three_ years old!" I might instance
advertisements of "Infant Manuals" of Botany, Geometry, and Astronomy!
In not a few isolated families, but in many neighborhoods, villages, and
cities, in various parts of the country, children _under three years of
age_ are not only required to commit to memory many verses, texts of
Scripture, and stories, but are frequently sent to school for six hours
a day. Few children are kept back later than the age of _four_, unless
they reside a great distance from school, and some not even then. At
home, too, they are induced by all sorts of excitement to learn
additional tasks, or peruse juvenile books and magazines, till the
nervous system becomes enfeebled and the health broken. "I have myself,"
says Dr. Brigham, "seen many children who are supposed to possess almost
miraculous mental powers, experiencing these effects and sinking under
them. Some of them died early, when but six or eight years of age, but
manifested to the last a maturity of understanding, which only
increased the agony of separation. Their minds, like some of the fairest
flowers, were 'no sooner blown than blasted;' others have grown up to
manhood, but with feeble bodies and disordered nervous system, which
subjected them to hypochondriasis, dyspepsy, and all the Protean forms
of nervous disease; others of the class of early prodigies exhibit in
manhood but small mental powers, and are the mere passive instruments of
those who in early life were accounted far their inferiors."
This hot-bed system of education is not confined to the United States,
but is practiced less or more in all civilized countries. Dr. Combe, of
Scotland, gives an account of one of these early prodigies whose fate he
witnessed. The circumstances were exactly such as those above described.
The prematurely developed intellect was admired, and constantly
stimulated by injudicious praise, and by daily exhibition to every
visitor who chanced to call. Entertaining books were thrown in its way,
reading by the fireside encouraged, play and exercise neglected, the
diet allowed to be full and heating, and the appetite pampered by every
delicacy. The results were the speedy deterioration of a weak
constitution, a high degree of nervous sensibility, deranged digestion,
disordered bowels, defective nutrition, and, lastly, _death_, at the
very time when the interest excited by the mental precocity was at its
height.
Such, however, is the ignorance of the majority of parents and teachers
on all physiological subjects, that when one of these infant prodigies
dies from erroneous treatment, it is not unusual to publish a memoir of
his life, that other parents and teachers may see by what means such
transcendent qualities were called forth. Dr. Brigham refers to a memoir
of this kind, in which the history of a child, aged four years and
eleven months, is narrated as approved by "several judicious persons,
ministers and others, all of whom united in the request that it might be
published, and all agreed in the opinion that a knowledge of the manner
in which the child was treated, together with the results, would be
profitable to both parents and children, and a benefit to the cause of
education." This infant philosopher was "taught hymns before he could
speak plainly;" "reasoned with" and constantly instructed until his last
illness, which, "_without any assignable cause_," put on a violent and
unexpected form, and carried him off!
As a _warning to others_ not to force education too soon or too fast,
this case may be truly profitable to both parents and children, and a
benefit to the cause of education; but _as an example to be followed_,
it assuredly can not be too strongly or too loudly condemned. While I
speak thus strongly, I am ready to admit that infant schools in which
physical health and moral training are duly attended to are excellent
institutions, and are particularly advantageous where parents, from want
of leisure or from other causes, are unable to bestow upon their
children that attention which their tender years require.
In youth, too, much mischief is done by the long daily periods of
attendance at school, and the continued application of mind which the
ordinary system of education requires. The law of exercise already more
than once repeated, that _long-sustained action exhausts the vital
powers of an organ_, applies as well to the brain as to the muscles.
Hence the necessity of varying the occupations of the young, and
allowing frequent intervals of active exercise in the open air, instead
of enforcing the continued confinement now so common. This exclusive
attention to mental culture fails, as might be expected, even in its
essential object; for all experience shows that, with a rational
distribution of employment and exercise, a child will make greater
progress in a given period than in double the time employed in
continuous mental exertion. If the human being were made up of nothing
but a brain and nervous system, we might do well to content ourselves
with sedentary pursuits, and to confine our attention entirely to the
mind. But when we learn from observation that we have numerous other
important organs of motion, sanguification, digestion, circulation, and
nutrition, all demanding exercise in the open air, as alike essential to
their own health and to that of the nervous system, it is worse than
folly to shut our eyes to the truth, and to act as if we could, by
denying it, alter the constitution of nature, and thereby escape the
consequences of our own misconduct.
Reason and experience being thus set at naught by both parents and
teachers in the education of their children, young people naturally grow
up with the notion that no such influences as the laws of organization
exist, and that they may follow any course of life which inclination
leads them to prefer without injury to health, provided they avoid what
is called dissipation. It is owing to this ignorance that young men of a
studious or literary habit enter heedlessly upon an amount of mental
exertion, unalleviated by bodily exercise or intervals of repose, which
is quite incompatible with the continued enjoyment of a sound mind in a
sound body. Such, however, is the effect of the total neglect of all
instruction in the laws of the organic frame during early education,
that it becomes almost impossible effectually to warn an ardent student
against the dangers to which he is constantly exposing himself. Nothing
but actual experience will convince him of the truth.
Numerous are the instances in which young men of the first promise have
almost totally disqualified themselves for future useful exertion in
consequence of long-protracted and severe study, who, under a more
rational system of education, might have attained that eminence, the
injudicious pursuit of which has defeated their own most cherished
hopes, and ruined their general health. Such persons might be saved to
themselves and to society by early instruction in the nature and laws of
the animal economy. They mean well, but err from ignorance more than
from headstrong zeal.
I shall conclude this chapter with a few rules relating to mental
exercise, and the development and culture of the mind and brain. It is a
law of the animal economy that two classes of functions can not be
called into vigorous action at the same time without one or the other,
or both, sooner or later sustaining injury. Hence the important rule
never to enter upon continued mental exertion or to rouse deep feeling
immediately after a full meal, otherwise the activity of the brain is
sure to interfere with that of the stomach, and disorder its functions.
Even in a perfectly healthy person, unwelcome news, sudden anxiety, or
mental excitement, occurring after eating, will put an entire stop to
digestion, and cause the stomach to loathe the sight of food. In
accordance with this rule, we learn by experience that the very worst
forms of indigestion and nervous depression are those which arise from
excessive mental application, or turmoil of feeling and distraction of
mind, conjoined with unrestrained indulgence in the pleasures of the
table. In such circumstances, the stomach and brain react upon and
disturb each other, till all the horrors of nervous disease make their
unwelcome appearance, and render life miserable. The tendency to
inactivity and sleep, which besets most animals after a full meal, shows
repose to be, in such circumstances, the evident intention of Nature.
The bad effects of violating this rule, although not in all cases
immediately apparent, will most assuredly be manifest at a period less
or more remote.
Dr. Caldwell, who has devoted much time and talent to the diffusion of
sound physiological information and the general improvement of the race,
and whose opportunities of observation have been very extensive,
expressly states, that dyspepsy and madness prevail more extensively in
the United States than among the people of any other nation. Of the
amount of our dyspeptics, he says, no estimate can be formed; but it is
immense. Whether we inquire in cities, towns, villages, or country
places; among the rich, the poor, or those in moderate circumstances, we
find dyspepsy more or less prevalent throughout the land.
The early part of the day is the best time for severe mental exertion.
Nature has allotted the darkness of night for repose, and for the
restoration by sleep of the exhausted energies of both body and mind. If
study or composition be ardently engaged in toward the close of the day,
and especially at a late hour of the evening, sound and invigorating
sleep may not be expected until the night is far spent, for the
increased action of the brain which always accompanies activity of mind
requires a long time to subside. Persons who practice night study, if
they be at all of an irritable habit of body, will be sleepless for
hours after going to bed, and be tormented perhaps by unpleasant dreams,
which will render their sleep unrefreshing. If this practice be long
continued, the want of refreshing repose will ultimately induce a state
of morbid irritability of the nervous system bordering on insanity. It
is therefore of great advantage to engage in severer studies early in
the day, and to devote the after part of the day and the evening to
less intense application. It will be well to devote a portion of the
evening, and especially the latter part of it, to light reading, music,
or cheerful and amusing conversation. The excitement induced in the
brain by previous study will be soothed by these influences, and will
more readily subside, and sound and refreshing sleep will be much more
likely to follow. This rule is of the utmost importance to those who are
obliged to perform a great amount of mental labor. It is only by
conforming to it, and devoting their mornings to study and their
evenings to relaxation, that many of our most prolific writers have been
enabled to preserve their health. By neglecting this rule, others of the
fairest promise have been cut down in the midst of their usefulness.
Regularity is of great importance in the development and culture of the
moral and intellectual powers, the tendency to resume the same mode of
action at stated times being peculiarly the characteristic of the
nervous system. It is this principle of our nature which promotes the
formation of what are called habits. By repeating any kind of mental
effort every day at the same hour, we at length find ourselves entering
upon it, without premeditation, when the time approaches. In like
manner, by arranging our studies in accordance with this law, and taking
up each regularly in the same order, a natural aptitude is soon
produced, which renders application more easy than it would be were we
to take up the subjects as accident might dictate. The tendency to
periodical and associated activity sometimes becomes so strong, that the
faculties seem to go through their operations almost without conscious
effort, while their facility of action becomes so much increased as
ultimately to give unerring certainty where at first great difficulty
was experienced. It is not so much the soul or abstract principle of
mind which is thus changed, as the organic medium through which mind is
destined to act in the present mode of being.
The necessity of judicious repetition in mental and moral education is,
in fact, too little adverted to, because the principle on which it is
effectual has not hitherto been generally understood. Practice is as
necessary to induce facility of action in the organs of the mind as in
those of motion. The idea or feeling must not only be communicated, but
it must be represented and reproduced in different forms till all the
faculties concerned in understanding it come to work efficiently
together in the conception of it, and until a sufficient impression is
made upon the organ of mind to enable the latter to retain it. Servants
and others are frequently blamed for not doing a thing at regular
intervals when they have been but once told to do so. We learn, however,
from the organic laws, that it is presumptuous to expect the formation
of a habit from a single act, and that we must reproduce the associated
activity of the requisite faculties many times before the result will
certainly follow, just as we must repeat the movement in dancing or
skating many times before we become master of it.
We may understand a new subject by a single perusal, but we can fully
master it only by dwelling upon it again and again. In order to make a
durable impression on the mind, repetition is necessary. It follows,
hence, that in learning a language or science, six successive months of
application will be more effectual in fixing it indelibly in the mind,
and making it a part of the mental furniture, than double or even treble
the time if the lessons are interrupted by long intervals. The too
common practice of beginning a study, and, after pursuing it a little
time, leaving it to be completed at a later period, is unphilosophical
and very injurious. The fatigue of study is thus doubled, and the
success greatly diminished. Studies should not, as a general thing, be
entered upon until the mind is sufficiently mature to understand them
thoroughly, and, when begun, they should not be discontinued until they
are completely mastered. By this means the mind becomes accustomed to
sound and healthy action, which alone can qualify the student for
eminent usefulness in after life. Much of the want of success in the
various departments of industry, and many of the failures that are
constantly occurring among business men, are justly attributable to the
fits of attention and the irregular modes of study they became
habituated to in their school-boy days. Hence the mischief of long
vacations, and the evil of beginning studies before the age at which
they may be understood. Parents and teachers should hence, at an early
period, impress indelibly upon the minds of their children and pupils
the ever true and practical sentiment, that _what is worth doing at all
is worth doing well_. Although, at first, their progress may _seem_ to
be retarded thereby, still, in the end, it will contribute greatly to
accelerate their real advancement, and in after life, whether employed
in literary or business pursuits, will be a means of augmenting their
happiness and increasing their prospect of success in whatever
department of labor they may be engaged.
In physical education most persons seem well aware of the advantages of
repetition. They know, for instance, that if practice in dancing,
fencing, skating, and riding is persevered in for a sufficient length of
time to give the muscles the requisite promptitude and harmony of
action, the power will be ever afterward retained, although rarely
called into use. But if we stop short of this point, we may reiterate
practice by fits and starts without any proportional advancement. The
same principle is equally applicable to the moral and intellectual
powers which operate by means of material organs.
The impossibility of successfully playing the hypocrite for any
considerable length of time, and the necessity of being in private what
we wish to appear in public, spring from the same rule. If we wish to be
ourselves polite, just, kind, and sociable, or to induce others to
become so, we must act habitually under the influence of the
corresponding sentiments, in the domestic circle, in the school-room,
and in every-day life, as well as in the company of strangers and on
great occasions. It is the private and daily practice of individuals
that gives ready activity to the sentiments and marks the real
character. If parents or teachers indulge habitually in vulgarities of
speech and behavior in the family or in the school, and put on
politeness occasionally for the reception and entertainment of
strangers, their true character will shine through the mask which is
intended to conceal it. The habitual association to which the organs and
faculties have been accustomed can not thus be controlled. Parents
hence, in addition to correct personal influence in the family, should
provide for their children teachers whose habits and character are in
all respects what they are willing their children should form. If they
neglect to do this, the utmost they can reasonably expect is that their
children will become what the teacher is.
The principle that repetition is necessary in order to make a durable
impression on the organ of the mind, and thus constitute a mental habit,
explains how natural endowments are modified by external situation. The
extent to which this modification may be carried, and is actually
carried in every community, is much greater than most persons are aware
of. Take a child, for example, of average propensities, sentiments, and
intellect, and place him among a class of people in whom the selfish
faculties are exclusively exercised--a class who regard gain as the end
of life, and look upon cunning and cheating as legitimate means, and who
never express disapprobation or moral indignation against either crime
or selfishness--and his lower faculties, being exclusively exercised,
will increase in strength, while the higher ones, remaining unemployed,
will become enfeebled. A child thus situated will, consequently, not
only act as those around him do, but insensibly grow up resembling them
in disposition and character; for, by the law of repetition, the organs
of the selfish qualities will have acquired proportionally greater
aptitude and vigor, just as do the muscles of the fencer or dancer. But
suppose the same individual placed, _from infancy_, in the society of a
superiorly endowed moral and intellectual people, the moral faculties
will then be habitually excited, and their organs invigorated by
repetition, till a greater aptitude will be induced in them, or, in
other words, till a higher moral character will be formed. The natural
endowments of individuals set limits to these modifications of
character; but where original dispositions and tendencies are not
strongly marked, the range is very wide.
In the cultivation of the brain and mental faculties, each organ should
be exercised directly upon its own appropriate objects, and not merely
roused or addressed through the medium of another organ. When we wish to
teach the graceful and rapid evolutions of fencing, we do not content
ourselves with merely giving directions, but our chief attention is
employed in making the muscles themselves go through the evolutions,
till, by frequent repetition and correction, they acquire the requisite
quickness and precision of action. So, when we wish to teach music, we
do not merely address the understanding and explain the qualities of
sounds. We train the ear to an attentive discrimination of these sounds,
and the hand or the vocal organs, as the case may be, to the
reproduction of the motions which call them into existence. We follow
this plan, because the laws of organization require the direct practice
of the organs concerned, and we feel instinctively that we can succeed
only by obeying these laws. The purely mental faculties are connected
during life with material organs, and are hence subjected to precisely
the same laws. If, therefore, we wish to improve these faculties--the
reasoning powers, for example--we must exercise them regularly in
tracing the cause and relations of things. In like manner, if our aim is
the development of the sentiments of attachment, benevolence, justice,
or respect, we must exercise each of them directly and for its own sake,
otherwise neither it nor its organ will ever acquire promptitude or
strength.
It is the brain, or organ of the mind, more than the abstract immaterial
principle itself, that requires cultivation, or can, indeed, receive it
in this life. Education hence operates invariably in subjection to the
laws of organization. In improving the _external_ senses, we admit this
principle readily enough; but when we come to the _internal_ faculties
of thought and feeling, it is either denied or neglected. That the
superior quickness of touch, sight, and hearing, consequent upon
judicious exercise, is referable to increased facility of action in
their appropriate organs, is readily admitted. But when we explain, on
the same principle, the superior development of the reasoning powers, or
the greater warmth of feeling produced by similar exercise in these and
other internal faculties, few are inclined to listen to our proposition,
or allow to it half the weight or attention its importance demands,
although every fact in philosophy and experience concurs in supporting
it. We see the mental powers of feeling and of thought unfolding
themselves in infancy and youth in exact accordance with the progress of
the organization. We see them perverted or suspended by the sudden
inroad of disease. We sometimes observe every previous acquirement
obliterated from the adult mind by fever or by accident, leaving
education to be commenced anew, as if it had never been; and yet, with
all these evidences of the organic influence, the proposition that the
established laws of physiology, as applied to the brain, should be
considered our best and surest guide in education, seems to many a
novelty. Among the numerous treatises on education, there are very few
volumes in which it is even hinted that these laws have the slightest
influence over either intellectual or moral improvement.
As God has given us bones and muscles, and blood-vessels and nerves, for
the purpose of being used, let us not despise the gift, but consent at
once to turn them to account, and to reap health and vigor as the reward
which he has associated with moderate labor. As he has given us lungs to
breathe with and blood to circulate, let us at once and forever abandon
the folly of shutting ourselves up with little intermission, whether
engaged in study or other sedentary occupations, and consent to inhale,
copiously and freely, that wholesome atmosphere which his benevolence
has spread around us in such rich profusion. As he has given us
appetites and organs of digestion, let us profit by his bounty, and earn
their enjoyment by healthful exercise in some department of productive
industry. As he has given us a moral and a social nature, which is
invigorated by activity, and impaired by solitude and restraint, let us
cultivate good feelings, and act toward each other on principles of
kindness, justice, forbearance, and mutual assistance; and as he has
given us intellect, let us exercise it in seeking a knowledge of his
works and of his laws, and in tracing out the relation in which we stand
toward him, toward our fellow-men, and toward the various objects of the
external world. In so doing, we may be well assured we shall find a
reward a thousand times more rich and pure, yea, infinitely more
delightful and enduring, than we can hope to experience in following our
own blind devices, regardless of his will and benevolent intentions
toward us.