All the kindly counsellors who, in scientific journals, entreat us to keep on tap “a vivid hope, a cheerful resolve, an absorbing interest,” by way of nerve-tonic, forget that these remedies do not grow under glass.  They are hardy plants, springing naturally in eager and animated natures.  Artificial remedies might be efficacious in an artificial world.  In a real world, the best we can do is to meet the plagues of life as Dick Turpin met the hangman’s noose, “with manly resignation, though with considerable disgust.”  Moreover, disagreeable things are often very stimulating.  A visit to some beautiful little rural almshouses in England convinced me that what kept the old inmates alert and in love with life was, not the charm of their bright-coloured gardens, nor the comfort of their cottage hearths, but the vital jealousies and animosities which pricked their sluggish blood to tingling.

There are prophets who predict the downfall of the human race through undue mental development, who foresee us (flatteringly, I must say) winding up the world’s history in a kind of intellectual apotheosis.  They write distressing pages about the strain of study in schools, the strain of examinations, the strain of competition, the strain of night-work, when children ought to be in bed, the strain of day-work, when they ought to be at play.  An article on “Nerves and Over-Pressure” in the “Dublin Review” conveys the impression that little boys and girls are dangerously absorbed in their lessons, and draws a fearful picture of these poor innocents literally “grinding from babyhood.”  It is over-study (an evil from which our remote ancestors were wholly and happily exempt) which lays, so we are told, the foundation of all our nervous disorders.  It is this wasting ambition which exhausts the spring of childhood and the vitality of youth.

There must be some foundation for fears so often expressed; though when we look at the blooming boys and girls of our acquaintance, with their placid ignorance and their love of fun, their glory in athletics and their transparent contempt for learning, it is hard to believe that they are breaking down their constitutions by study.  Nor is it possible to acquire even the most modest substitute for education without some effort.  The carefully fostered theory that school-work can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned.

Life is a real thing in the school-room and in the nursery; and children—­left to their own devices—­accept it with wonderful courage and sagacity.  If we allow to their souls some noble and free expansion, they may be trusted to divert themselves from that fretful self-consciousness which the nurse calls naughtiness, and the doctor, nerves.  A little wholesome neglect, a little discipline, plenty of play, and a fair chance to be glad and sorry as the hours swing by,—­these things are not too much to grant to childhood.  That careful