2d. Mechanics’ shops should receive as much attention, relative to their situation, light, warmth, &c., as school-rooms. If these are duly observed, the nervous influence transmitted from the brain to the muscles will be more stimulating, as well as more abundant; consequently, labor will be performed with less exhaustion.
838. Repetition is necessary to make a durable impression on the mind. “The necessity of judicious repetition in mental and moral education, is, in fact, too little adverted to, because the principle which renders it efficacious has not been understood. To induce facility of action in the organs of the mind, practice is as essential as it is in the organs of motion.
839. “In physical education we are aware of the advantages of repetition. We know that if practice in dancing, fencing, skating, and riding, is persevered in for a length of time sufficient to give the muscles the requisite promptitude and harmony of action, the power will be ever afterward retained, although little called into use; whereas, if the muscles have not been duly trained, we may reiterate practice at different intervals, without proportionate advancement. The same principle applies equally to the moral and intellectual powers, because these operate by means of material organs.
840. “According to this principle, it follows, that in learning a language or science, six successive months of application will be more effectual in fixing it in the mind and making it a part of its furniture, than double or treble the time, if the lessons are interrupted by long intervals. Hence it is a great error to begin and study, and then break off, to finish 376 at a later period. The fatigue is thus doubled, and the success greatly diminished.
Of mechanics’ shops? 838. Is repetition necessary to make a durable impression on the mind? Why? 839. How is it with physical education? 840. What follows, according to this principle?
841. “The best way is to begin at the proper age, and to persevere till the end is attained. This accustoms the mind to sound exertion, and not to fits of attention. Hence the evil arising from long vacations; and also the evil of beginning studies before the age at which they can be understood, as in teaching children the abstract rules of grammar, to succeed in which, implies in them a power of thinking, and an amount of general knowledge, which they do not possess.”
842. The skull is susceptible of fractures from slight blows. This occurs most frequently when the blow is given on the side of the head above and anterior to the ear. Here the bone is very thin, and often quite brittle. For these reasons, no instructor, or any person, should punish a child by striking upon any portion of the head.
Observation. A few years since, a teacher in one of the Middle States gave a pupil a slight blow upon the head. It fractured the skull and ruptured a blood-vessel of the brain, causing a loss of consciousness, and finally death.
843. Concussion of the brain may be produced by blows, or by violently shaking a person. As the brain is of pulpy consistence, the atoms of which it is composed, and the circulation of blood in its minute vessels, may be disturbed by the vibration from a blow on the exterior of the skull-bones. This disturbance of the cerebral organ is attended with unpleasant sensations, dizziness, loss of memory and consciousness. These may be followed by headache and inflammation of the brain. Concussion of the brain, and the results above mentioned, may be produced by the sudden motion attendant on the violent shaking of a scholar. Consequently, a child should 377 never be seized by the arm and shaken violently as a method of chastisement.
841. What is the best way of learning the sciences? 842. Why should not a child be struck upon any portion of the head? What observation in this connection? 843. How may concussion of the brain be produced? What is the effect of each upon the brain of the child?