strong; but the food adapted for the
strong is never suitable, and is often poisonous to the weak. There must
therefore be, in all cases where the young are concerned, as careful a
selection of the mental food, as there is of the food for the body; and
the parent or teacher should, in all cases, present only such subjects,
and such ideas to his pupils, as the state of their faculties, or the
progress of their knowledge, enables them to understand and apply.

Another striking point of analogy between mental and bodily nourishment,
is to be found in the effects of repletion, when too great a quantity of
food is communicated at one time.--As the increase of a child's bodily
strength does not depend upon the mere quantity of food forced into his
stomach, but upon that portion only which is healthfully digested and
assimilated; so in like manner, the amount of a child's knowledge will
not correspond to the number of ideas forced upon his attention by the
teacher, but to those only which have been reiterated by the mind, and
committed by that process to the keeping of the memory. In both cases,
the evil of repletion is two-fold; there is the waste of food and of
labour, while the strength and the growth of the child, instead of being
promoted, are retarded and diminished. The physical appetite gains
strength, by moderate exercise; but it is palled and weakened by every
instance of repletion. The desire for food is never for any length of
time at rest, so long as the stomach is kept in proper tone by moderate
and frequent feeding; and the quantity of food which a healthy child
will in these circumstances consume, is often surprising. But whenever
the stomach is gorged, then restlessness, uneasiness, and not
unfrequently disease, are the consequences. The digestive powers are
weakened, the tone of the stomach is relaxed, and, instead of the
healthful craving for food which should occur at the proper interval,
the appetite is destroyed, and food of every kind is nauseated.--Exactly
similar is the case with the mental appetite. The natural curiosity of
children, or, in other words, their desire of information, before it is
checked or overloaded by mismanagement, is almost insatiable; and the
astonishing amount of knowledge which they usually acquire between the
ages of one and three years, while under the guidance of Nature, has
been formerly alluded to. But this desire of information, and this
capacity for receiving it, are by no