Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/166 (page 63)
    1 restored by those who, in all attempts to remedy it, jact upon the bodily organization. Should teachers of youth venture thus, like Phaeton, to guide the chariot of the sun, while ignorant of the power they endeavour to superintend, and of the means of controlling its irregular action ? As reference has just been made to books for chil- ) dren, it seems a fitting opportunity to enlarge a little I upon this topic. Hhey then, excessively abundant. I Some are announced as purposely prepared “ for > children from two to three years old.” Many are for the Week-day Infant School; some for the Sabbath Infant School; some to teach children history and geography ; and others to instruct them in geometry, theology, and metaphysics. “The Child’s,” “The > Girl’s,” “ The Boy’s,” Books have been multiplied on i almost all subjects, until they have become nuisances. Where is the proof that they have ever benefited a j single child ? Do the youth now, of the age of fifteen, I who have used such books most of their lives, who I committed to memory innumerable truths, and were 1 taught to reason when at the age of three or four, possess more active and independent minds than their parents possessed at the same age ? Does their mental ] power now show the good effect of their early and 1 extraordinary culture ? Do not the numerous slender, I delicate, and pale-faced youths who are seen in our j colleges, and in boarding schools for girls, exhibit the bad effects of this system ? I ask again, where is any j evidence that books, put into the hands of children before the age of seven or eight, are of any lasting