It is the nervous boy or girl who generally makes the most promising pupil. A natural inclination to study leads children of this type to prefer the schoolroom to the playground. The boy who works hard to get to the top of his class, or to pass an examination, or to obtain a scholarship, is the one least given to games, and, in consequence, the weakest physically.
These are the very children whom the teacher is most tempted to encourage to do more work than is good for them. The process of their mental development is so rapid that it needs no stimulation from outside. But that is not, unfortunately, the concern of the school authorities. The anxiety to produce scholars who will distinguish themselves in public examinations, and thereby advertise the school, invariably leads the schoolmaster to cram and stuff the brains of the brightest and most forward boys.
There is special danger in over-working boys or girls of this type, because the brain is not strong enough to withstand the pressure. The result is never good, and in extreme cases it is as bad as it could possibly be. It follows, in fact, as a matter of course, that the finest and most sensitive intellects are the first to succumb to the pernicious effects of over-cramming the brain. There is a strain that can only be endured by second-rate minds, and it is not, therefore, the intellectually fittest who are encouraged to survive under the present system.
What has been stated above refers rather to the higher class of schools and colleges, which prepare boys for examinations and academic distinctions of various kinds, than to the elementary schools to which the children of the poor are commandeered. In the latter establishments a special barbarity takes place which has been so widely discussed in Parliament and in the newspapers that I will do no more here than allude to it in passing.
I refer to the forcing of instruction upon under-fed school-children.
Apart from the gross inhumanity of the proceeding, there is the indisputable fact that the compulsory teaching of children whose bodies have not been properly nourished tends to weaken the intellect. If these children were subjected to a process of cramming such as is usual in the higher schools, their minds would undoubtedly break down altogether. As it is, the comparatively mild method of the elementary school does not effect anything worse in such cases than the prevention of the development of the mind, which is one degree better than complete breakdown or insanity.
'The School Board system of cramming with smatterings,' wrote one of the greatest mental specialists in the world in reply to my inquiries, 'instead of teaching their victims to think—even if only by teaching one subject well—is perhaps responsible for some positive mental breakdown; but probably the main harm of it is that it stifles and strangles proper mental development.' 'Undeveloped mentality,' he says in conclusion, 'is perhaps the principal fault of our educational system (so-called).'
Another distinguished physician writes to me from a lunatic asylum:
'We have had a few cases who have broken down, the results of working for scholarships; also we have had one or two cases of ladies who have broken down working for higher examinations. Dr. —— and myself both feel certain that there is a good deal to be said against the increased pressure put upon young adolescents at schools. From my own experience I know that boys who were considered especially clever, and were high up in forms in the public school I was at, have most of them now dropped back, and are very mediocre. On the other hand, many who matured slowly have continued to advance. This is only an observation, and has many exceptions; but it is an observation that, as time passes, is more fully confirmed.'
It is not necessary to add anything to these valuable expressions of opinion, proceeding from eminent men of wide experience, who are far more capable judges than the layman who has no scientific knowledge and a necessarily limited range of observation.