Danger of Over-Stimulating.

Otago Witness, Issue 2430, 10 October 1900, Page 60

Danger of Over-Stimulating.

This is a great danger— a clanger peculiar to our clay. Oh.ldien are so much amused and tuight and waited on to-day, that it is a, very great difficulty to prevent premature development, whicn always, sooner or later, means prematme decayCompetitive examinations, scholarships, and entrance examinations pII mean so much proficiency at a certain early age, that the average boy or girl has to be worked early to attain it, often to the peunanenl iniury of its mental power and general health, and it is difficult, ;£ not impossible, for the individual schoolmaster or parent to set themselves agiin.-t it. But m die matter of amusements the question is still in the parents' hands, and we may and shculd keep our children as long as we possibly can t<> simple childi.-'h pleasures, and not spoil their enjoyment of these by giving them .m artiiicuii appetite for n'ore exciting and unsuitable things. I heard a good tlory told by an educational: m, tlu othei cl-uy which illustrate!, ihis truth, Thret lutle baby Yoah were, ho said,, shinped foi Sydney Zoological Gardens, and with them sufficient jNestlc's. milk to teed them through the whole voyage. But it was on a passenger ship, and the second day the pasist-ngers discovered thut it wr.s amusing to feed the little creatures with scraps, and especially raw meui. Aften a few days of such potting the little lions refused to look at their milk food, and

demanded the scraps and raw meat, nor would they look at their milk again. A few weeks after they reached Sydney they died of rickets. Such will be the fate of over-stimulated children. We all know what happens when a horse is worked too young or a plant is forced into premature blooni, and children whose early achievements amaze us but too often drop out or become dull and feeble before youth is passed.