Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/402

388 acquisition of memories of such things as the part in question has been specially designed to appreciate. This is particularly true of the parts related to vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc.

5. The higher mental faculties, such as judgment, reason, self-control, etc., require the concerted action of different parts of the brain's surface. This is because all such acts are based, of necessity, upon our recollections of past events. These recollections may have been acquired by the aid of sight, hearing, general sensibility, smell, etc.

6. The cells of different areas of the brain do not exhibit in individuals the same aptitude for the acquisition of knowledge—some people remembering most easily what they see, others what they hear, others what they handle, etc.

7. In case some parts are deprived of their functions, other parts are rendered vicariously more active. We see this illustrated in the extreme sensitiveness of the ear and touch in the blind.

8. Prolonged disease of any part of the brain may cause a wasting-process (atrophy) within the brain-cells of that part.

With these deductions as a basis, we are prepared to discuss intelligently what may be regarded, in the light of existing science, as our guides toward promoting the best welfare and growth of this important organ. The views which I shall advance here are based upon the physiological facts enumerated. These have been satisfactorily demonstrated within the past decade.

In the first place, I would raise my voice in strong protest against the popular fallacy that every child, who presents no apparent deformity of limb or evidence of physical or mental weakness, "should be sent to school early to keep it out of mischief."

During the period of early childhood (from four to seven years of age) most of the knowledge gained by the brain is acquired chiefly, if not exclusively, through the organs of sight, of hearing, and of touch. The brain is thus kept in a state of healthy activity—receiving all manner of impressions, and storing up memories of what is consciously imparted to it. Of the special senses, sight is by far the most important to the child, because it is the most used.

Now, congenital and acquired deformities of the eye are not infrequent. They are among the most common of malformations—although too often unrecognized. Very often a serious defect of vision in a child is not suspected by its parents. Again, the fact is frequently dismissed, even when the existence of such a defect is known, with the remark that "glasses are a disfigurement to a child, and that any child is better off without them than with them." I have been pained