, is proof, if not of cruelty, then of woeful ignorance.

The case is no doubt in a great degree exceptional--perhaps to be
paralleled only in other institutions of the same class. But that cases
so extreme should exist at all, goes far to show that the minds of the
rising generation are greatly over-tasked. Expressing as they do the
ideas of the educated community, the requirements of these training
colleges, even in the absence of other evidence, would imply a
prevailing tendency to an unduly urgent system of culture.

It seems strange that there should be so little consciousness of the
dangers of over-education during youth, when there is so general a
consciousness of the dangers of over-education during childhood. Most
parents are partially aware of the evil consequences that follow
infant-precocity. In every society may be heard reprobation of those who
too early stimulate the minds of their little ones. And the dread of
this early stimulation is great in proportion as there is adequate
knowledge of the effects: witness the implied opinion of one of our most
distinguished professors of physiology, who told us that he did not
intend his little boy to learn any lessons until he was eight years old.
But while to all it is a familiar truth that a forced development of
intelligence in childhood, entails either physical feebleness, or
ultimate stupidity, or early death; it appears not to be perceived that
throughout youth the same truth holds. Yet it unquestionably does so.
There is a given order in which, and a given rate at which, the
faculties unfold. If the course of education conforms itself to that
order and rate, well. If not--if the higher faculties are early taxed by
presenting an order of knowledge more complex and abstract than can be
readily assimilated; or if, by excess of culture, the intellect in
general is developed to a degree beyond that which is natural to its
age; the abnormal advantage gained will inevitably be accompanied by
some equivalent, or more than equivalent, evil.

For Nature is a strict accountant; and if you demand of her in one
direction more than she is prepared to lay out, she balances the account
by making a deduction elsewhere. If you will let her follow her own
course, taking care to supply, in right quantities and kinds, the raw
materials of bodily and mental growth required at each age, she will
eventually produce an individual more or less evenly developed. If,
however, you insi