tings a whole volume of
rules and principles bearing upon education might be gleaned. In 'Il
Convito' he expresses himself fully on the different ages of human
growth and development; speaks of obedience as an essential
requisite for the child; after his father he should obey his master
and his elders. He should also be gentle and modest, reverent and
eager to acquire knowledge; reserved, never forward; repentant of
his faults to the extent of overcoming them. As our soul in all its
operations makes use of a bodily organ, it behooves us to exercise
the body, that it grow in grace and aptness, and be well ordained
and disposed in order that the soul may control it to the best
advantage. Thus it is that a noble nature seeks to have a sound mind
in a sound body."

{363}

THE CHURCH AND THE MENTALLY AFFLICTED.

It is especially with regard to the attitude of the churchmen, the
people, and even the physicians of the Middle Ages toward insanity,
that most opprobrium has been heaped upon the Church and her teachings
in the so-called histories of the relations of science to theology or
faith. Much of what has been said that has been supposed to tell worst
against the Church, however, should not rest upon the shoulders of
ecclesiastics, and should not be set down to the evil effect of
theology. It is easy now to look back and blame men for the acceptance
of supernatural agencies as causes in nearly all cases of mental and
nervous diseases, but the reason for this is rather to be looked for
in the nature of man than in his belief in religion. Ethnology shows
us traces of it everywhere. Our American Indians, long before any
tincture of Christianity, and before any hint of theology of any kind
reached them, beyond that which develops spontaneously from the depths
of their natural faculties, believed in the effect of the evil spirits
in producing disease, and, of course, particularly the mental diseases
which made men do things so contrary to their own interests, and often
so harmful to the beings they loved best in the world.

In the Middle Ages they had not yet outgrown this primitive way of
looking at mental diseases. For that matter, we have not even as yet.
The intelligent classes in the community are, as a rule, convinced of
the physical basis of mental diseases, but there are a {364} great
many people who still are inclined to think that some of them, at
least, are manifestations of some punit