impressions to the
mind. The brain, in like manner, when much exhausted, becomes incapable
of thought, and consciousness is well-nigh lost in a feeling of utter
confusion. At any time in life, excessive and continued mental exertion
is hurtful; but in infancy and early youth, when the structure of the
brain is still immature and delicate, permanent injury is more easily
produced by injudicious treatment than at any subsequent period. In this
respect, the analogy is complete between the brain and the other parts
of the body, as we have already seen exemplified in the injurious
effects of premature exercise of the bones and muscles. Scrofulous and
rickety children are the most usual sufferers in this way. They are
generally remarkable for large heads, great precocity of understanding,
and small, delicate bodies. But in such instances, the great size of the
brain, and the acuteness of the mind, are the results of morbid growth,
and even with the best management, the child passes the first years of
its life constantly on the brink of active disease. Instead, however, of
trying to repress its mental activity, as they should, the fond parents,
misled by the promise of genius, too often excite it still further by
unceasing cultivation and the never-failing stimulus of praise; and
finding its progress, for a time, equal to their warmest wishes, they
look forward with ecstasy to the day when its talents will break forth
and shed a luster on their name. But in exact proportion as the picture
becomes brighter to their fancy, the probability of its becoming
realized becomes less; for the brain, worn out by premature exertion,
either becomes diseased or loses its tone, leaving the mental powers
feeble and depressed for the remainder of life. The expected prodigy is
thus, in the end, easily outstripped in the social race by many whose
dull outset promised him an easy victory.

To him who takes for his guide the necessities of the constitution, it
will be obvious that the modes of treatment commonly resorted to should
in such cases be reversed; and that, instead of straining to the utmost
the already irritable powers of the precocious child, leaving his dull
competitors to ripen at leisure, a systematic attempt ought to be made,
from early infancy, to rouse to action the languid faculties of the
latter, while no pains should be spared to moderate and give tone to the
activity of the former. But instead of this, the prematurely intellig