THE EFFECT OF MODERN EDUCATION UPON CHILDREN.
By W. M. D’Aubigne Cabot
The stress of modern education has enormously taxed the brains of children by the multiplicity of studies. Children can not assimilate the ideas in widely differing departments of knowledge at one and the same time. The effort to do so deranges in many instances the entire nervous system of the child. The so-called nervous child is not only not normal, but may be the victim of the educational methods of the present day. The examination system is often a horror to such a child, as the writer knows from his own experience. The studies required of a growing child should never be allowed to disturb the health or interfere with proper rest and exercise. The modern city child seems to be unable to endure the burdens of civilized life as easily as did the children of the past, who were brought up in the country and spent the greater part of the time in the fresh open air. Whether our fathers were more hardy and robust as children than the progeny of the present generation may be an open question, but certainly the conditions of civilized life have so completely changed that at the present day mental and physical education possess equal importance for the growing child. The mind of the child to-day is too often developed at the expense of its vitality and health.—W. M. D’Aubigne Cabot, M. D.