[Footnote 44: _Op. cit._, pp. 47 _et seq._]
[Footnote 46: Papers in Penology, 1891, pp. 57-69; _cf._ Collin, also in same, pp. 27, 28; Wright, American Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry, vols. ii and iii, pp. 135 _et seq._]
It follows from what has gone before that cerebral fatigue is a most important matter to be reckoned with in all the affairs of life, but especially in education, where the foundations for nervous vigor or weakness are being permanently established, and where relatively little can be accomplished in either intellectual or moral training unless the physical instrument of mind be kept in good repair. It needs no argument to beget the conviction that we should if possible ascertain what circumstances produce fatigue most frequently in the schoolroom, so that they may be ameliorated and their injurious consequences thus avoided. What, then, are the most important causes? It is well to appreciate at the outset that every individual has a certain amount of nervous capital which, when expended, leaves him a bankrupt, and it is of supreme import to him that something should always be kept on the credit side of his account. If we would deal most wisely with a pupil, then, whose activities we are able to direct, we should know just what demands we could make upon his energies without fatiguing him. But we can not hope at the present time and under present conditions to discover with accuracy the fatigue point of each individual, and even if we were able to do so, we would doubtless find it next to impossible to observe it at all times in our teaching, especially in our large graded schools. But we can at any rate adjust our requirements with some degree of accuracy to the average capacity of the whole.
Regarding the number of hours of mental application per day which may be safely expected of a pupil in school, investigations have tended to show that there is a danger of requiring too many. When pupils return to school morning after morning without having recovered from the previous day's labors, it is evident that too heavy draughts are being made upon their nervous capital. It may be said in reply that many factors conspire to produce this depleted condition, as insufficient sleep, inadequate nutrition, and outside duties; but the answer is that under such unfavorable circumstances less work may be demanded. As the curriculum is planned in many places, alike in graded and ungraded schools, the pupil is expected to be employed in the school for five or six hours a day no matter what may be his age, and to this work should be added studies at home for the older students. Now, as Kraeplin[47] has justly observed, Nature ordains that a young child should not give six hours' daily concentrated attention in the schoolroom, but, rather, she has taken pains to implant deeply within him a profound instinct to preserve his mental health by refusing to attend to hard work for such a long period. Consequently, in such an educational _régime_, the mind of the pupil continually wanders from the duties in hand. The most serious aspect of this is apparent, that when attention is constantly demanded and not given, or when a pupil is pretending or attempting to keep his thoughts turned in a given direction, yet allows them to drift aimlessly because he is practically unable to control them, he is acquiring an unfortunate habit of mental dissipation. It seems certain that healthful and efficient mental activity requires that a child apply himself in a maximum degree for a relatively short period, the duration differing with the age of the individual and the balance of nervous energy to his credit; and then he should relax, attention being released for a time.