Education and Insanity?

In the early nineteenth century, a group of reformers set out to establish a system of public education in the United States. At the time, in rural areas, schools closed in the spring and fall and ran all summer long, so that children could help out in the busy planting and harvesting seasons. In the city, many schools mirrored the long and chaotic schedules of the children’s working-class parents. The reformers wanted to make sure that all children went to school and that public school was comprehensive, meaning that all children got enough schooling to learn how to read and write and do basic arithmetic and function as productive citizens.

But, those early educational reformers were also tremendously concerned that children did not get too much schooling. In 1871 the commissioner of education published a report on the “Relation of Education to Insanity.” During a study of 1,741 cases of insanity it was determined “over-study” was responsible for 205 of them. The report included, “Education lays the foundation of a large portion of the causes of mental disorder.” Another pioneer of public education believed that working students too hard would create a “most pernicious influence upon character and habits. . . Not infrequently is health itself destroyed by over-stimulating the mind.” Education journals reported constant worries about overtaxing students or blunting their natural abilities through too much school work.

Historian Kenneth Gold wrote: The reformers strove for ways to reduce time spent studying, because long periods of respite could save the mind from injury. Hence the elimination of Saturday classes, the shortening of the school day, and the lengthening of vacation---all of which occurred over the course of the nineteenth century. Teachers were cautioned that “when [students] are required to study, their bodies should not be exhausted by long confinement, nor their minds bewildered by prolonged application.” Rest also presented particular opportunities for strengthening cognitive and analytical skills. As one contributor to the Massachusetts Teacher suggested, “it is when thus relieved from the state of tension belonging to actual study that boys and girls, as well as men and women, acquired the habit of thought and reflection, and of forming their own conclusions independently of what they are taught and the authority of others.”

And that’s the way it was.