Education phrenologically & physiologically considered : a lecture / by L.N. Fowler.

  • Lorenzo N. Fowler
Date:
Between 1873 and 1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Education phrenologically & physiologically considered : a lecture / by L.N. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/16 page 3
    s lad to me and asked me liow to train him. I said to the father, “ Do you wish your son to live?” “Of course I do,” replied the father. “ Then,” said I, “ you must take him from school, and have him to attend to some physical labour. If you want him to know more and die early, the way to attain your wishes is to keep him constantly study¬ ing and in school. You will thereby outrage the laws of his nature, and the hoy will also be sacrificed.” The father said, “ It is difficult for him to study all the time, on account of his health. But we cure him as soon as we can, when he is obliged to stay at home, and then we stimulate him with presents, and his teachers stimulate him with prizes, to study harder to catch up with his classes; for he is the best scholar in the school, and I would not like him to take an inferior position.” I reasoned with this ambitious, well-meaning, but mistaken father, and he began to understand that when a child has a very large head, and is precocious in mental development, he will not amount to much in life unless he has a good body to sustain the mind. When people generally understand these things, we shall have an improved system of education. The first important consideration for a child is a sound constitution. If the system is diseased, racked with pain, poorly fed, and subjected to an impure atmosphere, or if its energies are con¬ sumed through the brain, then the body suffers in proportion as it is robbed of that which belongs to it. Great attention should be paid to diet, to exercise, and to the quality and quantity of air that is breathed. Frequently children are confined in close school-rooms, and obliged to breathe air from which the oxygen has been nearly consumed. Children need instruction about violent running and playing, as many children die suddenly, or never fully recover from excesses of exercise. Too much attention * cannot be paid to the body ; for it is necessary in order to sustain mental effort that the body shall be in a good con¬ dition. Teachers can do much in directing the mental powers of their pupils, but they cannot remould them, or give faculties and physical stamina when there is an absence or great deficiency of either body or brain. Action, speed, and expertness, are the order of the day in every de¬ partment. It is the live child, the fast horse, the express train, the telegraphic news that we want. Man lives faster and his pulse beats from seven to ten times more in a minute now than it did fifty years ago. We mature earlier, we eat and live faster, we travel faster, we get news with the speed of lightning, across the ocean by telegraph, and it seems as if there is more life in the atmosphere than there was formerly. All the faculties act from some motive or desire on the part of the child or individual. A weaker faculty is increased by stimulating the de¬ sire for its gratification, and it is important to present as high a motive for a stimulant as is possible. The moral brain should give the standard of excellence; but those organs that axe naturally the most active should aid to make up for the deficiency in the character resulting from the action of small organs. The only way to increase the power of a faculty, is to increase its
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image