Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects

Of this nature is the plea put in by some for the rough treatment experienced by boys at our public schools; where, as it is said, they are introduced to a miniature world whose hardships prepare them for those of the real world. It must be admitted that the plea has some force; but it is a very insufficient plea. For whereas domestic and school discipline, though they should not be much better than the discipline of adult life, should be somewhat better; the discipline which boys meet with at Eton, Winchester, Harrow, etc., is worse than that of adult life – more unjust and cruel. Instead of being an aid to human progress, which all culture should be, the culture of our public schools, by accustoming boys to a despotic form of government and an intercourse regulated by brute force, tends to fit them for a lower state of society than that which exists. And chiefly recruited as our legislature is from among those who are brought up at such schools, this barbarising influence becomes a hindrance to national progress.

3

Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine.

4

Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine.

5

Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology.

6

Morton's Cyclopædia of Agriculture.

7

Morton's Cyclopædia of Agriculture.

8

It is needful to remark that children whose legs and arms have been from the beginning habitually without covering, cease to be conscious that the exposed surfaces are cold; just as by use we have all ceased to be conscious that our faces are cold, even when out of doors. But though in such children the sensations no longer protest, it does not follow that the system escapes injury, any more than it follows that the Fuegian is undamaged by exposure, because he bears with indifference the melting of the falling snow on his naked body.

9

We are not certain that the propagation of subdued forms of constitutional disease through the agency of vaccination is not a part cause. Sundry facts in pathology suggest the inference, that when the system of a vaccinated child is excreting the vaccine virus by means of pustules, it will tend also to excrete through such pustules other morbific matters; especially if these morbific matters are of a kind ordinarily got rid of by the skin, as are some of the worst of them. Hence it is very possible – probable even – that a child with a constitutional taint, too slight to show itself in visible disease, may, through the medium of vitiated vaccine lymph taken from it, convey a like constitutional taint to other children, and these to others.

10

Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine, vol. i. pp. 697, 698.

11

Westminster Review, April 1857.

12

For detailed proof of these assertions see essay on "Manners and Fashion."

13

The idea that the Nebular Hypothesis has been disproved because what were thought to be existing nebulæ have been resolved into clusters of stars is almost beneath notice. A priori it was highly improbable, if not impossible, that nebulous masses should still remain uncondensed, while others have been condensed millions of years ago.

14

Personal Narrative of the Origin of the Caoutchouc, or India-Rubber Manufacture in England. By Thomas Hancock.

15

The idea that the Nebular Hypothesis has been disproved because what were thought to be existing nebulæ have been resolved into clusters of stars is almost beneath notice. A priori it was highly improbable, if not impossible, that nebulous masses should still remain uncondensed, while others have been condensed millions of years ago.

16

This was written before moustaches and beards had become common.

17

British Quarterly Review, July 1854.

18

It is somewhat curious that the author of The Plurality of Worlds, with quite other aims, should have persuaded himself into similar conclusions.

19

Macmillan's Magazine, March 1860.

20

For numerous illustrations see essay on "The Origin and Function of Music." (#pgepubid00019)

21

Fraser's Magazine, October 1857.

22

Those who seek information on this point may find it in an interesting tract by Mr. Alexander Bain, on Animal Instinct and Intelligence.