In spite of all their efforts, bed-time came before the lessons
were learned. The little geography student had been nodding over her book
for some minutes, and she had the philosophy to say, "I don't care; I'm so
sleepy. I had rather go to bed than hear any kind of a story." But the
elder ones were grieved and unhappy, and said, "There won't _ever_ be any
time; we shall have just as much more to learn to-morrow night." The next
morning, however, there was a sight still more pitiful: the baby of seven,
with a little bit of paper and a pencil, and three sums in addition to be
done, and the father vainly endeavoring, to explain them to him in the
hurried moments before breakfast. It would be easy to show how fatal to
all real mental development, how false to all Nature's laws of growth,
such a system must be; but that belongs to another side of the question.
We speak now simply of the effect of it on the body; and here we quote
largely from the admirable article of Col. Higginson's, above referred to.
No stronger, more direct, more conclusive words can be written:--
"Sir Walter Scott, according to Carlyle, was the only perfectly healthy
literary man who ever lived.
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