Our Great System

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 14 March 1907, Page 9

Our Great System

The process of sharpening the wits j)f, '-the young idea ' may easily be carried too far. If we may judge by one of the discussions at the Medical Congress last week, ' Our Great National System ' is hollow-grinding the youthful intellect almost to the point where it can no no longer stand the strain. : There are ', said ~ Dr. Lindo Ferguson, the noted specialist, ' some of these children who - ought to be fed up and massaged instead of bfcing stuffed with free education. . . It ought to be remembered that one cannot put more into- a pint pot than" it can. contain ; and by increasing the curriculum indefinitely, and putting on extra lessons, you cannot get more into the children. '. 'I heartily ".concur ', said Dr. Truby 'King (who has made a close study of mental fatigue under school-work), ' with the spirit of Dr. Lindo Ferguson's remark that you cannot get more than -a pint into a pint pot. But there are ta"sks attempted or imposed under the conditions of our school life which utterly pass the proper capacity of any growing person.- I know instances in which girls worked as much as thirteen hours a day for examinations, and yet Professor Kraepelin, the greatest authority on the subject, says that the only thing that prevents children from being made demented at schools., where they are kept continuously at work, is the fact that they are unable habitually to sustain the thought and attention expected of them for more than three-<quarters of an hour at a stretch. Nature is less cruel and exacting than We are.' ' The first thing to do ', said a teacher who took part in the discussion, "is to produce a good animal. And if the whole of the school-time is to be devoted to mental training — and there are those receiving that training who are not physically capable— the State is spending money to no 'purpose '„