“There is,” says Huxley, “no satisfactory proof at present, that the manifestation of any particular kind of mental faculty is especially allotted to, or connected with, the activity of any particular region of the cerebral hemispheres,”[1] a dictum against the phrenologists, but coming to us on too high authority to be disputed. It is not possible to localize the ‘faculties’ — to say you are cautious with this fraction of your brain, and music-loving with another; but this much is certain, and is very important to the educator: the brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you will find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work. School time-tables are usually drawn up with a view to give the brain of the child variety of work; but the secret of the weariness children often show in the home schoolroom is, that no such judicious change of lessons is contrived.
[1] Huxley, Thomas. Lessons in Elementary Physiology. MacMillan & Co., 1878, pg 269.
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