Observations on the Scientific Study of Human Nature

That there is a large amount of mental perversion, and absolute stupidity, as well as of bodily disease, produced in school, by measures which operate to the prejudice of the growing brain, is not to be doubted; that dulness, indocility, and viciousness, are frequently aggravated by teachers, incapable of discriminating between their mental and bodily causes, is also undeniable; while, that teachers often miserably fail to improve their pupils, and then report the result of their own incompetency as failures of nature, all may have seen, although it is now proved that the lowest imbeciles are not sunk beneath the possibility of elevation. (p. 42)