Over-Pressure in Schools.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 86, 24 January 1885, Page 5

Over- Pressure in Schools.

" The following sad case of over- pressure," writes a correspondent of the "Pall Mall Ga'/efcte," who supplies us with full documentary evidence, "will no doubt excite general commiseration. Three months, ago a poor bricklayer in the East End of London being summoned for the non-attendance of his son, .aged twelve years, called in a medical man, who certified that the boy was * suffering from over-study.' 'The least excitement,' continued the doctor, 'or anxiety about getting a lesson ready, is more than his brain can stand, and if any pressure be brought to bear upon him to force his learning his lessons, the probability is that he will suffer from chorea. Under these circumstances the doctor had no hesitation in saying that his little patient ' not now able to attended school, although he would probably be fit to return in a few weeks,' and the summons was of course withdrawn. What makes the case more pathetic is that the poor little fellow must have done all his study by himself at home, for it afterwards appeared that he had never been to school regularly, that he had not passed even the lowest standard, and that the number of his attendances for the last four months was 0. He had during that period been at work in a coal shop, and the people actually complained of his being 'a nuisance to the neigbourhood.' They stupidly put down to a riotous disposition what was really the result of premonitory symptoms of chorea from ' over-study.' "