Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Education on Physiognomical Principles: Or How to Develop the Mind and Body of Youth in Accordance With Various Types of Organisation
It will be seen how grave is the responsibility which rests upon parents in deciding upon the time at which their child shall be deprived for the best part of the day of the pure air of heaven and wanton freedom of limb. Anatomical researches have de monstrated that complete ossification of the bones - that is to say, a permanent hardening of the substance which originally was only the soft gristle referred to -does not take place until the child is nine years of age. At these early years the muscles, too, are only in a transition state, and being susceptible to pressure or any sustained force, the greatest care is necessary in avoiding conditions which may impede their full develop ment, or even bring their growth to a standstill altogether; and here again is another weighty argument against imprisoning children of tender years in school-rooms or elsewhere where the most perfect freedom of action within certain limits is denied them. But the most condemnatory argument is found in the condition of the heart and lungs. These portions of the budding frame-work, the most delicate and most easily injured of the whole, are expanding and growing, and an adequate quantity of fresh air and exercise is absolutely indispensable to their healthy development. The tendency to engender the seeds of disease in these organs is peculiarly active in children of an early age, and anything that tends to impede the development of their healthy action ought to be shunned as the breath of the pestilence. No condition can possibly be more fatal to this development than the crowded school-room with its vitiated atmosphere, laden with particles of dust, and destitute of all the properties which we have just pointed out as essential for the well-being of the child. The position of the body, too, is quite antagonistic to the health ful action of the heart and lungs. These require the body to move about for their due expansion. This school-room life does pro duce the effect, however, of expanding and developing one part of the youthful system, while it is depressing and crushing the life out of all the others but, alas! This unequal development is only another element of ultimate physical and mental ruin. The sensations of the poor child are the only portion of the organisa tion which here receive any impetus in the shape of exercise. They are, in fact, appealed to in an inordinate degree, and in the inverse ratio in which the other faculties are snubbed and de pressed; and what is the consequence? The brain and nerves of sensation are developed to a painful degree. They become most acutely sensitive, and the poor child becomes ultimately a large-headed, nervous, conceited morbidity - miserable himself, and with all the requisites duly prepared for in?icting the most excruciating misery upon all those who are unfortunate enough to be much in contact with him.
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