"Sixth, The fact that dyspepsia is a disease chiefly confined to the studious, to those whose minds are much exercised and excited, and to those who, by too early mental education, have had a predominance given to the nervous system, is evidence that the brain is the primary organ affected."

"Finally, If dyspepsia is a disease of the stomach, why is it not more frequently cured by attention to diet than it is?". (Pp. 103, 106, 112, 114, 119.)

These propositions are defended and illustrated at considerable length, and the whole section is worthy of being attentively studied both by physicians and patients. A table is appended, exhibiting the age attained by some of the most distinguished literary men in ancient and modern times, from 50 years to 109.

We have been thus particular, even to detail, on Dr Brigham's views of early mental culture, that we may apply them to the question now so deeply interesting the country and the legis lature, that of infant school education. Mr Cobbett, in one of his Registers, published shortly before his death, applied Dr Brigham's facts and reasonings indiscriminately to the condemnation of these institutions; against which, had he lived, he meant to raise his voice in Parliament. He announced, moreover, his intention of printing a cheap edition of Dr Brigham's work, obviously with the view of making it the popular basis for his warfare against the system. We do not regret that he did not wage the war, but we should have thanked him for a cheap edition of the volume; for we feel that more temperate reasoners, among whom, we are confident, we may rank Dr Brigham himself, can make use of that work, not for the destruction, but for the defence and benefit, of infant schools. Mr. Cobbett's intention regarding it is about to be fulfilled by his

son.

In all that we have written on the subject of Infant Schools,* we have broadly and anxiously stated, that moral training, and that guarded precisely as it is by Dr Brigham in his fifth section,-so as to exercise the superior moral sentiments, which in general, when left to themselves, act too feebly to be in the smallest danger of over-excitement, and to regulate and moderate the selfish passions and animal propensities, is the primary end of an infant school; and that intellectual training should be a secondary and accessary object only. As a secondary object, we have strongly urged that it should never approach to labour, that it should never overtask the infants, and that the utmost they attain should be acquired incidentally, almost unconsciously, and in the very manner in which the infant would instruct himself, by the exercise of his senses and

Vol. vi. p. 418, and vol. vii. p. 108. See also Simpson's "Necessity of Popular Education," p. 133.

observing powers, if left alone; only that his attention should be better directed, and the faculties which Nature, as Dr Brigham rightly affirms, has, in the stage of infancy, appetized for that knowledge of external objects which infancy is the period to attain, should receive their legitimate food better prepared and more usefully administered. We have ever been enemies to long lessons, tasks, and laborious repetitions. When teachers of infant schools have forgotten, as they are perhaps apt to do, that the intellectual training is only secondary, have allotted to it the principal place and the larger share of time, and, yielding to the ignorant prejudices of parents, who wish "learning" for their money, have crammed their infant pupils for the supposed credit of their own teaching, we have held that they were departing from the essential principle of legitimate infant training. Nothing would tend more effectually to bring them back within the proper bounds of that intellectual training which should be harmless and even beneficial, than just such a work as Dr Brigham's; and we, therefore, earnestly recommend it to the perusal and reperusal of every infant school teacher. One obvious improvement it would be well if the directors of infant schools would most especially enforce-a great deal more time ought to be spent in the play-ground, or at least at play, than is now almost any where allowed. The usual alternation is an hour at lessons, and a quarter of an hour in the play-ground. We would have this proportion well nigh reversed; we should wish to see the infants, at the very least, one-half their school day in the play-ground. There can else be no time, no opportunity, for moral exercise in reasonably continued intercourse. The teacher's handbell is rung for a return to lessons before they have had time to commix, and even before they have reaped the benefit of air and muscular exercise; while he himself, engrossed, as he is, with the intellectual department, is led to pay scarcely any attention to the playground intercourse-the true infant school-and the moral discipline which may there be realized.

It does not appear that Dr Brigham has ever seen an infant school on the system of Wilderspin. His objections have all of them reference to common school or nursery tasking and examining. We have not heard that the Wilderspin system has been yet realized in America.* In it, Dr Brigham would at

• There are seven Infant Schools in Boston, which were visited and reported on last year by a Committee of the Boston Phrenological Society. The Report is published in the Annals of Phrenology, No. III. These schools are superintended by female teachers, who devote particular attention to the moral culture of the children, but follow no definite system of tuition. Pictures and objects are however made use of to a considerable extent, and the children are not kept too long in a constrained posture. Some of the schools

VOL. IX.-NO. XLV.

Ee

once see a field for the best possible employment, intellectual, moral, and physical, of children from two to six years of agethe best, the only, arrangement, when they are judiciously managed, for dispensing precisely that kind and degree of intellectual culture, and that moral and physical exercise, which are most desirable, and which can be realized only in a little community of sufficient numbers, as we have often said, and in no private family whatever. But to proceed blindly to cry down the infant school system, by which alone a practical course of moral education can be applied to the great body of the people, from a hasty conclusion that an infant school is a machine for overtasking, overworking, and overexciting, the minds, and destroying the health, of children, would be a proceeding of gross ignorance, and great and serious mischief. Yet we are glad it has been threatened; we rejoice, too, in Dr Brigham's work; for the threat and the work will both tend to put infant school conductors on their guard, lest their schools should lapse into the abuse which has thus been pointed out.

We have only to add on this head, that, in the Edinburgh Model Infant School, with which we are best acquainted, although there is more lesson work and less play-ground exercise than we quite approve, we have not seen or heard of any of the effects of overdoing which Dr Brigham justly deprecates: the

66

are ill-ventilated, and to none is a proper play-ground attached; but still they seem to be much more rationally conducted than those known to Dr Brigham, who resides in Hartford. The Committee, in closing their re port, express the high degree of pleasure and interest they have received from the visits they have paid to these infant schools. The cheerfulness— the activity-the healthy, happy looks of the children-their interest in the various exercises-were such as no friend of the young could look upon without delight. We were glad to see an approach made, as we certainly did in these schools, towards a proper and rational mode of treating and educating the younger members of the family of man. We have observed in these establishments the dawn of a happy day—when human nature shall be trained with an enlightened regard to the powers, faculties, and constitution, assigned it by its great Creator. We are confident that the infant school system needs only to be improved, as it may be, and based firmly, as it ought to be, upon the ultimate principles of human nature, to prove of the highest service in ameliorating man's present condition. Let children be gathered in infant schools as early as possible-let them meet with their fellow-beings in the morning of their days, that they may imbibe early the social principle of humanity let their various faculties and sentiments be exercised and trained as soon as they are developed-let the infant pupil breathe the atmosphere of love, and yield to the mild but firm pressure of authority-let his early discipline be grounded on the future supremacy of his moral sentimentslet all that can adorn, guard, ennoble, and perfect human nature, be aimed at from the beginning of the child's career-and the great purpose of the Crea tor of all will be accomplished." It is added, however, by the Committee, that "this system, good as it is, and excellent as it may be made, is very partially understood, and very poorly supported among us. Its true friends are grieved to see it lying under such neglect." Would that we had it in our power to use different language with respect to infant education in Britain !

children appear in school uniformly in the most rosy health and high spirits, delighting in all they learn as mere amusement, quite as insensible of acquisition as if they were picking it up of themselves, and utter strangers to any thing bearing the semblance of mental labour. These statements are grounded on the personal experience of five years. Mr Wilderspin has enjoyed the experience of nearly twenty, and can fully confirm our conclusions.

ARTICLE V.

LETTER ON THE FUNCTIONS OF THE ORGANS OF COMPARISON AND WIT. By GEORGE HANCOCK, Esq.

To GEORGE COMBE, Esq.

SIR,-I feel assured that the great importance of the science to the advancement of which you have so largely contributed, will induce you to pardon my addressing, I am afraid, rather a long letter to you upon the subject of two phrenological organs with regard to which (though your System and Dr Spurzheim's are the only works which I have had an opportunity of consulting) I have arrived at conclusions entirely different from yours, and in accordance with the opinions of a gentleman whose arguments you appear to have overruled. I allude to the arguments of Mr Scott upon the subject of the two organs of Comparison and Wit, by which he has endeavoured, as it appears to me not unsuccessfully, to prove that the true office of the one is to observe resemblances, and of the other to detect differences. To these arguments Dr Spurzheim objects (and you coincide in the objection), " that the perception of a resemblance is the result of a lower, and that of a difference of a higher, degree of power and activity in each intellectual faculty. Colour, for example, when feeble, sees a resemblance between hues, which, by a more powerful organ, are at once perceived to be different; a feeble organ of Tune perceives harmony, where a higher faculty discovers discord, &c. Hence every organ perceives both resemblances and differences within its own sphere." But if I might be allowed to differ from so high an authority, I would submit that a small organ of Colour does not see a resemblance between colours, which a more powerful organ per ceives to be different; neither does a feeble organ of Tune perceive harmony where a larger organ discovers discord. The feeble organs, in both cases, only do not perceive differences,

which is a very different thing from perceiving resemblances. For, may I ask, how can any organ, whether large or small, perceive resemblances which do not in fact exist? If Dr Spurzheim were correct, a small organ would present the singular anomaly of possessing a greater power of perceiving resemblances than a large organ; and, if the case were to occur, of an individual possessing no organ of Colour at all, he would present the still more wonderful and anomalous instance of a person possessing a power of perceiving resemblances between colours which he could not even perceive. In like manner, a person with little or no organ of Tune, totally incapable of perceiving harmony in sounds which are concordant, would have the power of perceiving harmony in sounds which almost all the rest of the world confess to be discords. The fact however, would appear to me to be, that a person in whom any particular organ is small,-the organ of Colour, for instance,not being able to perceive the difference between any two or more particular qualities,—the qualities blue and green, or red and brown, for example, concludes falsely that they are identical: he supposes or fancies a resemblance, but he does not see or perceive one; for, as I have already observed, he cannot perceive what has in fact no existence.

Again, it is no doubt perfectly true that each intellectual organ perceives both resemblances and differences within its own sphere." But I would beg leave to observe, that this species of resemblance and difference is implied in the very notion of perception. Thus I cannot have a clear perception of the colour green, without discriminating it from all other colours. Neither can I discover the relations which exist between different shades of the same colour, without having a power of perceiving their resemblance. In the same manner, the organ of Tune perceives the relation existing between sounds produced by striking the same note of any musical instrument with dif ferent degrees of force, and between the same note struck on two different instruments, and between two notes which harmonize if struck at the same time, &c. It also discriminates the difference between one note and another, and between two or more discordant notes, and two notes that harmonize. But it does not therefore appear to me to be a very legitimate conclusion, that because each intellectual organ perceives both resemblances and differences existing between the peculiar qualities of which such organ is alone fitted to take cognizance, another organ which is known to take cognizance of resemblances existing between qualities of which it takes no cognizance, but concerning which other organs are alone conversant, should be the same organ as that which takes cognizance of differences between them. As well might it be maintained that the same