Overpressure

A girl lies bedridden in Brooklyn and a boy has recently been broken down in ÍJew York, whose casos aro sadly suggestive. The girl with the pride of her parents, and their glory n her class success in the great school Eor girls whlob shc attended prompted her to overworlc. Her application to gtudy did not seem excessive. She worked only a littlo harder than is conimon, so far as such work can bo moasured by tho timo dovoted to it, and she toóle timo enough for sleep. Yet sho was eager and anxious and somowhat fearful oí being excelled in her class; and so, without knowing that she did so, she mado heavier demands upon her strength than sho was ablo to meet with safety. Examination day carne, and she conquered. Then " she Ihrew herself down upon a sofa to sleep, and fell into a stato of coma from which it was ímpoQoihio to arouse her for nearly a weck. Krom that day- now about three years gone - to this, she has been unablo to riso from her couch. The girl is a wreek; her intellect is shattorod, and evcry hour of life is a torturo to hor. The boy was p. bright fcllow not over ambitious on his own account, but lovingly ambitious to gratify his father's prido in him. In a!l his studies but ono he had plnin sailing onough, but in that one - Latin - he encountered unusual diffieulty becauso of somc peculiar want of adaptation to tho study of languages. He failedin au examination, and his father foolishly manifested a good deal of ïnortiiication over the occui'ence. The poor boy was resolute in his deterniination to spare his father a second hornillation of tho kind, and so ho drove himself unmerciiully in his study. Night after night ho uro =e from his bed as Koon as the house was still, and secretely worked at his Latin until uear the gray of tlio morning. Nobody knew of tli is exoess, and tho father would have forbidden it had he known. But preaently the coliapse came. The the strain, and it is now a serióus question whether his restoration even to tolerable healtli will v.vv.v bo eflecled by tho rest and out door lifo ordercd for lnm as the last small hope of saving him. These aro but sample cases. There aro hundreds of others like thetn, and there are thousauds in which uo such collapse comes, but in which grave injury is nevertheloss done to mind or body, or both. Bright boys and gids are educatcd into dull men or wornen; hoalthy boys and girls are converted by cducational processes into nervous, querulous hypocliondriaes, or are trained into iocipient consmnption or licai't discase, orothorinsidous malady that spoils as well as sliortens their lives. It is not worth while to ask ourselves seriously whether, in our "high pressure" system of edueation, tho pressure is not dangcrously high? lo not the emulations of the school-room, tho inilucnce of teachers, and the senseless rivalrics croated by tho making and CAimilimUun ojjtcra atl'ord quite all tho stimulous that can be safely put unon childhood? And, above all do we not mislead children to their hurt by placing or seeming to place, a higher value upon school success than such success actuully has? Supposo a boy stands rat lier low in his class, wluit then? Does it follow that he is laoking in capacity, or even that he lias any constitutional and permanent lack of industry? Surely nobody who has been at pains to observe the facts of life can hold such an opinión. At the end of our late war a young man was graduated at the top of his class at West Point, and a friend said to him: "Well, X., your career is secure, ofcourse." "lam notsosure of that," was the reply; "I havo graduated at tho top of mv ciiiss, it is true, but there is Qrant, you know, who graduated at the bottom of liis, and he isn't quito a íailure in liíe." Morcovcr, and apart from al] thia, tlie fact reruains that some minds ruaturc more slowly than others, and ocquirinv wii !i admirable eertaihty, and assimilating knowlodge most These miss examinatáons írequently, and aro not the worse but the better for missing thom, bccauso thorcis prolit for sucii minds in {íoing twice over given ground. In any case, a fallare in examination is not disgraceful, and it is falso and hurtful for paronts and teachers to trcat it as if it wcre in somo way shameful. That