Home lessons after school hours / by Sir Joseph Fayrer.

  • Joseph Fayrer
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Home lessons after school hours / by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    concerned in teaching young children to read. I quote one brief but forcible passage from it. He says : “ The physiologist finds the subject come within his province, the physician has it before him in cases of illness brought about by over-taxation of the system from educational efforts. At the time that the tiny child is con- quering the difficulties of the alphabet, its tissues are grow- ing rapidly ; and its nutritive powers have to meet the demands of its tissues, bones, and muscles, as well as those of the brain. It has to grow as well as to furnish nutritive material to the expanding brain, and there is also the increase in bulk of the brain to be met, as well as the wear and tear of functional activity. When the brain is in- sufficiently supplied with blood its power is cut down and limited. The brain requires nutritive material as well as any other organ for its active functional manifestations. It is as dependent on the body commissariat as the muscles of the legs ; consequently, an essential point in all education of the young is to see that the nutrition is kept up by food suitable alike in quantity and quality. If this be not attended to, growth and education will be alike retarded. The child must have nutritive material for the needs of each.” It should be understood that to overtax the growing brain of a child is as erroneous, nay, more so, than to overwork or exhaust its body ; either course is liable to entail penalties. Far more severe are those which avenge the over-wrought brain than the exhausted body! In a recent admirable article, Dr. Crichton Brown has so clearly pointed out the evils of the form of overwork to which my proposition relates, that I venture to quote his remarks, as they forcibly express my own views on the subject. He says :—“ School hours fall mostly in the early part of the day, but a little enquiry will reveal that the heaviest part of school work is not generally performed at that time. If any boy or girl be asked ‘ What is the most trying part of your school work ? ’ the invariable answer is
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