An Expert Declares Children’s Minds Injured by Early Study by F. G.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Nov 7, 1907

An Expert Declares Children’s Minds Injured by Early Study

By F. G.

[The San Francisco Examiner of Feb. 17, 1907, published the following report of an address by Mr. Luther Burbank. It is so suggestive that we copy it.—F. G.]

“THE public school is no place for a child,” said Luther Burbank, the plant expert, in a recent address before the Eugenics Society of San Francisco, delivered at Fraternal Brotherhood Hall. Mr. Burbank was discussing the similarity between the raising of plants and of children.

“One false step in the care of a young plant will retard its growth for life. So it is with a child,” he declared. “A few drops too much water on a plant, or a few drops too little, a harsh wind,—a circumstance seemingly trivial,—will leave its impress till death. A child must be as tenderly cared for. No child should be sent to school until the mind has definitely formed—until the age of ten or twelve. Our children are held back through their entire careers by being forced into the class room too soon. This is apparent even in their school days, when they are two or three grades behind the place they would occupy were they not forced.

“A child should run barefoot on the ground. Leather prevents the absorption of the magnetism of the earth.”