CHAPTER I. "OVERWORK IN SCHOOLS." The Scholastic Regimen-Report of the French Academy of Medicine. "Mental Overwork" and Sedentary Life-Proposed Remedies; A more Simple course of Study, and more Physical Exercise-How these Reforms must be applied. Their Mutual Dependence-Difficulty of Simplifying the Course of Study. Dangers of more Physical Exercise without Diminution of Mental Work-Are Bodily Exercises Recreation for the Brain ---Unrecognised Importance of care in the Choice of all Exercise for the Needs of Cerebral Hygiene. A HYGIENIC question of the greatest interest has for some years attracted the attention of the public and the profession. We are alarmed by the dangers of excessive work of children in schools and academies, and the highest authorities have pointed out the sad results of mental overwork. The French Academy of Medicine, officially invited to give counsel both on the extent of the evil and on the nature of the remedies to be applied, came, after an animated discussion, to the following conclusions: "Without concerning itself with the course of study, of which however it desires a simplification, the Academy insists specially on the following points: "A longer time of sleep for the younger children: for all the scholars a shorter time in class and preparation, that is a shorter time spent in sedentary occupations, and a proportionate increase of the time for recreation and exercise. "The imperious necessity of making all the scholars perform daily exercises of physical training proportional to their age (walking, running, leaping, formations, developments, regular and prescribed movements, gymnastics with apparatus, fencing, games of strength, etc.)"* The French Academy of Medicine points out in the existing scholastic regimen two different faults: excessive mental work, for it desires a more simple course of study -and insufficient muscular exercise, for it advises increased attention to physical exercise. But if we consider the actual terms of the resolutions, the learned assembly does not appear to consider the two proposed reforms as of equal urgency. It insists on the "imperious necessity" of "a shorter time spent in sedentary occupations," while it rather vaguely expresses a "desire" to see a more simple course of study, without giving any definite counsel about the mental work of the scholars. It seems that the members of the learned assembly have especially wished to decide with their full authority on the question of sedentary life, which is more directly within the province of medicine, and have preferred to leave to other judges the care of deciding whether the children really perform excessive mental work. We may then hope that a new enquiry, directed by specialists, will allow us to form a judgment on this question of mental overwork with as much clearness as the French Academy of Medicine has decided in the matter of physical exercise. But many months have already elapsed since the publication of the Academy's report, and no step has been taken, no enquiry has been officially ordered. The question of mental overwork after having, quite rightly, excited everybody, seems to be passing into oblivion. It is surrounded by silence, as if everything had been said. Must we then consider the report of the Academy of Medicine as a sufficient guide? If it were, we should be tempted immediately to apply the reform which it declares to be most urgent, and to greatly increase the amount of bodily exercise, while reserving for a later reform the diminution of mental work, which is not so * Comptes rendus de l'Académie de Médecine. July 15, 1887, strongly recommended, and the initiation of which presents moreover much more serious difficulties. In fact there is nothing easier than to impose upon children daily exercises of training, nothing seems more difficult than to diminish the lessons. Intellectual contest is now the commonest form of the struggle for existence, and if a child, letting his brain rest, demand from it merely moderate exertion, he risks being beaten in the race by rivals who are more regardful of success in the struggle than of the laws of hygiene. Is it then possible to apply the remedy pointed out by the Academy as an urgent necessity, without first making the reform on which it does not so strongly insist? Are we to increase the muscular exercise of the children even in cases in which we have not yet "simplified the Tourse of study"? Will it be advantageous, finally, to make children, who are suffering from excessive mental fatigue, perform a “daily regimen of physical training"? The academic report has not foreseen this question, and here is an unfortunate want. It is not an indifferent matter whether the two reforms suggested are mutually indispensable, and whether the prescriptions recommending exercises of strength and skill are addressed merely to children who lead too sedentary a 'life, or if they also apply to those children who do an excessive amount of mental work. An explicit commentary was so much the more needed, because already the general opinion, in advance of the decision of the judges, had pronounced in favour of the application of gymnastic exercises of all kinds in the treatment of mental overwork. All those who have appreciated the beneficial effects usually produced by physical exercise, seem impatient to see, while waiting for other reforms, gymnastic teaching take a larger place in educational establish ments. If we believe what most people say, bodily exercises will have a double effect, and will extend their benefits to the wearied mind of the child as well as to his en |