n? Are not the perils of school life already serious enough,
without adding stimuli to induce them to throw themselves into these
perils with all their energies? A number of deeply interesting
comparative studies have been made of late on clever and stupid
school-children, those who gain prizes and those who incur punishment.
Certain anthropologists, somewhat ingenious in matters of science,
have studied the question in such good faith that they have even
proposed to inquire whether the more brilliant prize-winners show
evidences of morphological superiority, congenital marks of a natural
privilege, a brain more highly developed than that of mediocrity. On
the contrary, anthropological notes reveal their physical inferiority,
i.e. their low stature and their remarkably narrow chest measurements.
Their heads are in no way distinguished from those of less clever
scholars; many of them wear spectacles.

Thus we get a clearer picture of the life of a child who diligently
performs all his tasks with a dread of making mistakes which may
become positive anguish; who learns all his lessons, thus of necessity
depriving himself of a walk, a saunter, an hour of rest. Obsessed by
anxiety to be the first, or even stimulated by illusions of a future
more brilliant than that of his companions, exhilarated by the praises
and prizes which make him believe himself to be "one of the hopes of
his country," and the "solace of his parents," he rushes forward to
future impotence, as if dazed by a fairy vision. His careless
companions, on the other hand, have well-developed chests, and are the
merriest boys in the class.

Other types of clever pupils are those who are helped at home by
tutors, or educated mothers who devote themselves to their
advancement; while other types of dull pupils, often punished, are
poor children who are not made welcome in their homes, but are left to
themselves, sometimes in the streets; or who are already working for
their bread in the early hours of the morning, before coming to
school. In an inquiry I made, the children who were praised and passed
without examination were in the category of those who brought a good
luncheon with them; the children at the bottom of the class, who
incurred punishments, were those who brought no provisions, or only a
piece of bread.

It must not be supposed that the above is an exhaustive enumeration of
the causes which contribute to the deceptive phenomenon connected with
priz