Mental fatigue : a comprehensive exposition of the nature of mental fatigue, of the methods of its measurement and of their results, with special reference to the problems of instruction / by Dr. Max Offner tr. from the German by Guy Montrose Whipple.
- Offner, Max, 1864-1932.
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Mental fatigue : a comprehensive exposition of the nature of mental fatigue, of the methods of its measurement and of their results, with special reference to the problems of instruction / by Dr. Max Offner tr. from the German by Guy Montrose Whipple. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![ments would be too high for the girls, if the average efficiency of boys of this age were taken as the stand- ard ; while from 15 to 17, they would perhaps be too high for the boys, if they were based upon the aver- age efficiency of the girls; or else the requirements would have to be reduced, at first in the interest of the girls, in which case the boys would not be ade- quately stimulated; later on in the interest of the boys, in which case, again, the efficiency of the girls would not be turned completely to account. This is an argument advanced by Burgerstein (524 ff.) against coeducation in the German middle schools, and it is worthy of serious consideration. For the rest, the relations between sex and fatiguability are still quite as uncertain as those between intelligence and fatiguability. The greater susceptibility to fatigue of younger children is to be met by shorter lesson-periods, fewer hours of study and more frequent pauses, particularly in the primary grades. Length of lesson-periods. In dealing with the mat- ter of the length of lesson-periods we may as well see clearly at the start that human nature gives us no absolute warrant whatsoever for making a lesson- period exactly an hour, exactly 60 minutes. The fact that this is the most usual length [in Germany] is due to the simple fact that the clock is divided into 12 sections; in other words, we use hours in school just because we have got used to dividing up our day into twice twelve parts. And we divide our day by twelves for the same reason that we buy our collars, our handkerchiefs, and our candles by the dozen rather than by tens, just because of a preference for](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21211632_0091.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
