he
_intellectual_ faculties not only, but of the passions and moral
feelings of our nature, as well as of consciousness and every other
mental act. It is also well established that the brain is the principal
source of that nervous influence which is essential to vitality, and to
the action of each and all of our bodily organs. As, then, its functions
are the highest and most important in the animal economy, it becomes an
object of paramount importance in education to discover the laws by
which they are regulated, that by yielding obedience to them we may
avoid the evils consequent on their violation.

Let no one suppose these evils are few or small; for, in the language of
an eloquent writer, "the system of education which is generally pursued
in the United States is unphilosophical in its elementary principles,
ill adapted to the condition of man, practically mocks his necessities,
and is intrinsically absurd. The high excellences of the present
system, in other respects, are fully appreciated. Modern education has
indeed achieved wonders. It has substituted things for names, experiment
for hypothesis, first principles for arbitrary rules. It has simplified
processes, stripped knowledge of its abstraction and thrown it into
visibility, made practical results rather than mystery the standard by
which to measure the value of attainment, and facts rather than
conjecture its circulating medium."[21]

[21] Report on Manual Labor, by Theodore D. Weld, 1833.

_A sound original constitution_ may be regarded as the first condition
of the healthy action of the brain; for, being a part of the animal
economy, it is subject to the same general laws that govern the other
bodily organs. When a healthy brain is transmitted to children, and
their treatment from infancy is judicious and rational, its health
becomes so firmly established that, in after life, its power of
endurance will be greatly increased, and it will be enabled most
effectually to ward off the insidious attacks of disease. On the other
hand, where this organ has either inherited deficiencies and
imperfections, or where they have been subsequently induced by early
mismanagement, it becomes peculiarly susceptible, and frequently yields
to the slightest attacks. The most eminent physiologists of the age
concur in the opinion that, of all the causes which predispose to
nervous and mental disease, the transmission of hereditary tendency from
parents to children is