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

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

    48/98 (page 42)
    of tbo spirit and ideas of their time/’^—have received no better education, when young’, than their associates who were never known beyond their own neighbour- , hood. In general their education was but small in early life. Self education, in after life, made them great, 80 far as education had any effect. For their elevation they were indebted to no early hot-house culture; but, like the towering oak, they grew up amid the storm and the tempest raging around. Parents, nurses, and early acquaintances, to be sure, relate many anecdotes of the childhood of distinguished men, and they are published and credited. But when the truth is known, it is ascertained that many—like Sir Isaac Newton, who, according to his own statement, was “ inattentive to study, and ranked very low in the school, until the age of twelveor, like Napoleon, who is described, by those who knew him intimately when a child, as “ having good health, and in other respects was like other boys,”* — do not owe their greatness to any early mental application or discipline. On the contrary, it often appears, that those who are kept from school by ill health, or some other cause in early life, and left to follow their own inclination as respects study, manifest in after life poM'ers of mind;, which make them the admiration of the world.-j- * Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes. This lady says, My uncles have a thousand times assured me, that Napoleon, in his boy¬ hood, had none of that singularity of character attributed to him.” t Shakespeare, Moliere, Gibbon, Thomas Scott, Niebuhr, Sir Walter Scott, Byron, Franklin, Rittenhouse, R. Sherman, Professor Lee, Gilford, Herder, Davy, Adam Clarke, &c. The last named person was a very unpromising child, and learned but little before he was eight ■or ten years old. But at this age he was “ uncommonly hardy,” and ^ possessed bodily strength superior to most children. He was con¬ sidered a “ grievious dunce,” and was seldom praised by his father but for his ability to roll large stones,■—an ability, however, which I con¬ ceive a parent should be prouder to have his son possess, previous to the age of seven or eight, than that wliich would enable him to recite all that is contained in all the manuals, magazines, and books for infants that have ever been published. [Sir Richard Blackmore, himself a physician, and man of obser¬ vation, remarks, that “ particular persons, by their peculiar com¬ plexion, come early to their parts, and, like summer fruit, thrive and ripen apace ; while others of a less sprightly and volatile constitution, advance slowly to maturity. The first make a fine bloom, and quickly bring forth, but the last are most capable of strong and durable pro¬ duction.”—lllackmore on Writing. Essays, vol. ii, 1717.—S. ]