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In a Strange Garden: The Life and Times of Truby King

Chapter Seven: Some curious attitudes of his own

Chapter Seven: Some curious attitudes of his own

There is an incongruity in Truby King's attitude to women and his prescriptive approach to baby care that warrants comment at this stage. While his treatment of women doctors passed as gentlemanly, and he could on occasion be more than courteous, some of his advocacy borders on the lunatic, when viewed from the standpoint of the twenty-first century.

Victorian attitudes were notably conservative. King, as the scion of an early migrant family, inherited many of the beliefs of his English parents, conditioned by their trying pioneer times in Taranaki. His upbringing, with its private schooling and a multilingual father, was hardly working-class. King's teacher, Richmond, who concentrated on exploring individual subjects exhaustively, provided him with a unique private education. His wife's Edinburgh upbringing was similarly privileged. As a boarder in her family for the formative part page 84 of his university education, Truby would not have felt out of place. He was often described as an 'awful snob',1 and by his persuasive influence on those who wielded the instruments of power, we must assume that he moved easily among the more important members of Victorian and Edwardian New Zealand 'society'. His seven years in Scotland gave him a strong empathy with 'Home' and 'Empire', and his conservative medical education would have done its best to mould him into a decent chap. While Truby was often at loggerheads with the medical profession, there are no recorded instances of his public distaste or contempt for his chosen occupation.

At Seacliff this decent fellow showed commendable concern for the less-advantaged inmates. His record on the treatment of the insane is laudable. His concern for the underdog and his knowledge of his patients was exemplary. Truby's farming practice at Seacliff showed him to be a good scientist, to have holistic views and a conservative empathy with nature. His belief that 'in plants, just as in the case of animals, the inroads of disease are best prevented by keeping the organism well nourished'2 was further refined to become one of the tenets of the Plunket movement, extolling the merits of breast-feeding:

Nutrition given by the mother is always best, and the wisest breeders will always continue to let Nature have her way where they wish to keep their purebred stock at the highest pitch of health for the perpetuation and improvement of the best strains. When the farmer resorts to hand rearing he does so simply because there is a profit in removing butterfat valued at a shilling a pound and replacing it with vegetable starches and fats which cost him about a penny. But this is not the attitude or feeling of the mother who rears her child by means of a bottle. For the most part she is densely ignorant of the duties of maternity, and does not realise the injustice she is doing to herself and her offspring.3

This masterful seven-page document shows King at his best and worst. At best, he was a good scientist, skilfully communicating his page 85 investigative techniques, explaining clearly his results. At worst, he succumbed to bombast, berating the education system and straying from the subject in hand.

He knew that Parisian mothers in the Great War, without access to cow's milk, were forced to breast-feed, producing babies significantly healthier than their bottle-fed counterparts. He satisfied himself of the merits of natural feeding and wanted to tell the women of New Zealand the folly of incorrect artificial feeding.

His description of women as 'densely ignorant' of the duties of maternity helps explain his simplification of feeding schedules. King wanted a simple regime for baby feeding that could be taught by Plunket nurses and adhered to by nursing mothers. Often disorganised himself, he stipulated 'feeding by the clock' and regular weighing, not because he was a stickler for routine but because the routine could be simply communicated and understood. Many of the 'old school' Plunket nurses became high priestesses of his teachings, themselves feared as 'old battleaxes' and it may be they who should bear some, if not most, of the blame for what was perceived as a prescriptive regime. Certainly the more permissive, relaxed Plunket nurses of the latter part of the twentieth century would have been out of place in Truby King's day.

His views on the place of women are often coupled with those of an influential Dunedin medical colleague and obstetrician, Dr Batchelor, who said in a public lecture: 'It is essential that the State recognise the necessity for a racial divergence in the education of boys and girls about the age of puberty: after passing the standard usually attained at this age, let the girls' studies be chiefly directed to domestic management, domestic economy, physiology and hygiene . . .'4 Batchelor prepared the way for King, who spoke next, delivering his famous 'preposterous farce' speech: 'It is impossible for me to convey how strongly I feel that the common education of men and women upon similar lines was one of the most preposterous farces ever perpetuated . . .'5

This infuriated the women's movement, particularly two of the more vocal woman doctors, Emily Siedberg and Agnes Bennett. They page 86 would have ongoing battles with King and Batchelor over the years. Agnes Bennett later scored a significant victory over King at the 1913 BMA conference in Auckland, when she observed that he had slipped a motion onto the last day's agenda to the effect that education of women was a disadvantage to the nation. King had gone home early, expecting his motion to be passed unopposed. Bennett, in a rousing speech which was greeted by applause, argued forcefully against this. The motion was defeated. She would later describe King and Batchelor as 'The greatest obstacle to women's progress and emancipation that New Zealand has known'.6

Then there are his views on raising adolescents.

In 1906, preceding the foundation of the Plunket movement and as his star was meteorically rising, he produced a publication entitled The Evils of Cram. The previous year he had published Tlie Feeding of Plants and Animals, his synthesis of the successful farming experiments at Seacliff. Truby King was beginning to realise his potential, but more importantly he was beginning to realise that people listened to him.

The Evils of Cram sought reforms of the education system. The debate on education was intensifying at this time, drawing on similar critical sentiments in the United States and Britain, fuelled by the concerns throughout the white Commonwealth about Anglo-Saxon fecundity. Truby King was by no means the originator of this debate, but was able to exploit it as a vehicle for his own views. In the preamble to a dense ninety-three-page document he defined Cram as follows:

A Cram system of Education is one which neglects the body for the sake of the mind, and neglects the mind as a whole for the sake of displaying what can be put into and be taken unchanged out of one corner of it.

Cram centres its attention on superficial fugitive memory and narrow formal scholastic reasoning and attainments, with a view to the passing of examinations. It fails to produce even a good memory, since the development of that faculty depends in the long run on interesting page 87 or useful associations. Cram ultimately impairs memory and receptiveness, and it stifles independent thought and initiative, along with the natural desire for knowledge.

Cram exalts the 'learner' above the 'thinker' and the 'doer', and gives its prizes to the crammer rather than to the honest worker. Its main end is the passing of examinations, and has no broad human outlook.

Cram is wrapped up in the schoolroom, and forgets the world of men and women outside its walls. It lives and dies in the present, and does not concern itself with the practical needs of the community or the country.

Cram and examinations have ruled China for thousands of years, and have dominated Education throughout the civilised world with disastrous results during our time.

Cram is recognised as a leading factor in the production of degeneracy, making many women unfit for maternity and both sexes more or less incompetent. We are using up the strength and energy of the rising generation at the very time when we ought to be developing our future men and women, with a view to the creating of a healthy, capable race and a great country.7

King was well supported in his arguments on educational pressure. His widely respected Dunedin contemporary, ophthalmologist Dr Lindo Ferguson, had previously shown a link between nervous strain and eyesight problems. King knew he could count on many well-qualified educators for support. While he was not alone in railing against the education system of the day, which placed undue value on passing examinations, it is the content of this remarkable document that gives clues to what made Truby King tick. The six paragraphs above began perfectly sensibly, defining the object of his attention. By the time he has reached the final paragraphs, he had been deflected into one of his failings, that of stating of opinion as fact. Whether or not Cram was a significant factor in China was hardly the point; it gave King the opportunity to allude to the Chinese menace, a theme ever-present in the Victorian mind.

page 88

The leap to another Victorian bogey, degeneracy, was not too hard for him to make, allowing him to flirt with his old friend Eugenics. 'A healthy capable race and a great country' were recurrent themes never far from his lips and always calculated to win him applause.

The structure of The Evils of Cram is interesting. The introduction mentions response to King's comments on 'over-pressure in education' and says, 'To facilitate reference, a synopsis of contents has been drawn up, which will enable each reader to readily pick out any section of the subject in which he may happen to be personally interested. A few reprints from leading newspapers outside Otago are included, because they show that there is a consensus of opinion throughout the colony in favour of reform in our scheme of Education. The views of a few leading authorities outside the colony are printed at the end of the pamphlet.'

The first section reports Truby King's lecture to the Froebel Club on 10 May 1906, entitled Lecture on the Science of Education with Criticism of our Methods. (Friedrich Froebel, a teacher trained in Botany and Biology, was born in Germany in 1782 and was the founder of the Kindergarten movement. Froebel believed that 'we must cultivate women, who are the educators of the human race, else the new generation cannot accomplish its task'.)8 King used the address to deliver a review of the education system and an attack on youthful 'over-study'. The report of his lecture covers five pages, beginning with the history of education and ending with two cases of children admitted to the Seacliff asylum. By reprinting the newspaper report, King could further massage his reputation: 'Mr Mark Cohen presided over a large and intensely-interested audience, and in introducing the speaker said that he was one of the best educators of public opinion in Dunedin. He took time to think his subject out thoroughly, and arrived at conclusions as the result of deep and earnest study. Moreover he had the courage of his opinions, and was not afraid to express them.'

King began his address by tracing the history of education and the responsibilities of the teaching profession, acknowledging the contributions of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Herbert Spencer.

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In five pages of historical preamble, King had brought the audience to where he could launch into his chosen topic. In passing, he made mention of some of his favourite themes: sunshine, fresh air, healthy exercise and recreation, noting that without these, girls could not develop into 'women capable of suckling their own children'. These are themes he would weave into the fabric of Plunket.

Developing the theme of overwork in children, King quoted the cases of two children who had been referred to Seacliff, a boy and a girl. He quoted from his report of 1897 on the girl.

In the apparent causes of insanity among patients admitted, that of 'over-study' is of special interest. It is extremely important that parents and guardians should clearly recognise that prolonged and excessive mental strain and neglect of exercise, recreation, and rest, especially among girls, during the period of rapid growth and development, cannot be continued without an ultimate dwarfing of both mind and body, and grave peril to the integrity of the organism. In the stress of competition for honours and prizes the brain is so often worked at the verge of the breaking strain, to the neglect of everything else, that one is inclined to wonder that entire mental collapse does not result more frequently. If the secondary effects of over-pressure among girls is impairing the potentialities of reproduction and healthy maternity were more widely known, it would possibly prove a greater incentive to moderation than the more striking but comparatively rare causation of insanity.

He summarises the girl's history:

No hereditary diseases in the family. Parents temperate, and not nervous; no tendencies to insanity; clever; great powers of concentration; was Dux of a High School; used to work till three o'clock in the morning, and get up again at six a.m.; good memory; very strong will; good power of self-control; affectionate; very energetic and industrious with regard to everything, study, housework, etc. Had good health, but was very sedentary in her habits. Did not go in for games or any recreation.

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Of the boy, King reported:

Some five years before he came to the asylum I was sent for by the boy's mother, who said that he had become paralysed. I went to see him, and found him in bed, very feverish. His mother said he had fainted on the way to school. To my surprise, on examining him I found him to be suffering from acute rheumatic fever. I said: 'This did not come on suddenly' She said: 'Oh, yes: he fainted going to school.' After she had gone I questioned the boy, and he admitted that he had been suffering for some time. 'Oh, yes,' he said; 'but I was going for a scholarship, and I tried to walk to school.' Rheumatic fever causes the most damnable agony, and it is hardly bearable by an adult; and this boy tried to walk to school with that damnable pain, and to conceal it, because his one ambition was a scholarship.

Continuing, the doctor pointed out that these were extreme cases:

The injury done to the thousands of others was apparent in impaired mental and bodily capacity, and in the case of women in weakly offspring or no offspring at all. Spencer said: 'Success in life depends more on energy than information'; and no system which sacrificed energy for information was good. In this life the physical underlay the mental, and the mental must not be temporarily developed at the expense of the physical. He would make some practical suggestions for a start. The syllabus should be greatly cut down; no child should be taught a lot of subjects at once. There should be teachers abreast of modern and fundamental requirements. There were certain things which every teacher ought to do in physical examination of the children under his charge. For example, every child ought to be weighed at school at least every three months; if possible, every month. The children could weigh each other. In that way they would get to be proud of their physical condition, and ashamed of any falling away of it.

Whether two cases of juvenile insanity are adequate proof of wholesale mental breakdown of the youth of the country due to overpressure at school is arguable. King, however, with his forceful oratory managed to persuade his audience without difficulty.

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Under the heading 'Some Press Criticisms' followed three pages of eulogistic reviews from Dunedin's Evening Star, long a crusader against Cram, the Christchurch Press and Lyttleton Times. Newspapers saw him as being eminently newsworthy and would enjoy this symbiotic relationship for many years to come.

In the history of New Zealand newspapers there have been two men who were heartily disliked by reporters and sub-editors, even though they may have admired them. They were Truby King and Viscount Bledisloe, Governor-General during the depression years. Both had the habit of arriving in newspaper offices demanding to see proofs. And both were wont to interpolate phrases and views that they had forgotten to express from the platform. In Dunedin the Otago Daily Times staff used to scuttle for cover when they saw King coming.9

The next section, titled 'Some Expert Opinions', covers ten pages, and comprises favourable published reactions to King's reported address. The quoted experts included many professors, teachers and academics. All the opinions were supportive of King. Many took the opportunity to reiterate all they believed to be wrong with the education system. Truby King had tapped a deep vein of public disquiet, one in which he knew his opinion would be well received and appreciated.

There is only one dissenting voice, that of Mr Alexander Wilson, Rector of Otago Boys' High, who felt obliged to refute King's implicit attack on his school, which the boy in King's address had attended. Wilson, described as 'sensitive and discerning', was an experienced principal, having previously spent twelve years in charge of the Girls' High School. He took King to task for the dramatic method of his presentation and distortion of the facts for the sake of rhetoric. This was too much for Truby King. In his characteristic prose, he set Wilson up as the villain, the oaf, the apostle of everything he despised in the system of education, using his considerable vocabulary to dismiss the dissenting principal. It is not recorded when Mr Wilson's career terminated, but few could but fail to wilt under the attack of Truby King in full voice. In twenty-eight pages King dissected, page 92 analysed, refuted and condemned the hapless Rector. Sadly, King didn't publish Wilson's letter, instead making reference to sections that he particularly disagreed with. Warming to the task, he exposed four 'fallacies' that Wilson has committed. With the luxury of a self-published treatise, King could not resist the temptation to expound all of his theories, exposing as he went some of his more outrageous attitudes.

Leaving aside the padding, here are some of the gems contained in his explanation of the 'fallacies'.

Weighing and Measuring

Such vital questions should not be left to mere conjecture, especially in a school where the headmaster virtually countenances and upholds over-pressure for examination purposes. The rector could easily arrive at a sufficiently accurate estimate of the degree of impairment of growth induced by stress in his own school by having his pupils weighed and measured at the beginning and end of each session, in accordance with the recommendations made in England by Sir James Crichton-Browne a quarter of a century ago, and since so strongly insisted on by Dr Francis Warner and the medical profession in general. By this simple means, a teacher gets warning ahead of almost every case where the health of the pupil is beginning to succumb to over-pressure.

'Weighing and measuring' would become a recurring, almost obsessive theme with King, finding its way into Plunket methodology, but failing to find the same acceptance from educators. King took particular note of Crichton-Browne:

The necessity for games and exercises was pointed out strongly enough by Sir James Crichton-Browne a quarter of a century ago in his now classical popular work 'Education and the Nervous System', and has been insisted on by every educational authority worthy of the name since that date . . . The value of physical education does not now require to be vindicated. It is generally recognised that 'to be a good animal' is one of the first requisites to success in life ... As health is page 93 essential to education, and exercise is essential to health, exercise has come to be regarded as essential to education.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Sir James Crichton-Browne (1840-1937), famous self-publicist, Victorian psychiatrist, and once an assistant to Charles Darwin, is nowadays not viewed so favourably. His work was substantially discredited by J. G. Fitch, Principal Inspector of Schools, who, in a critical memorandum attached to Crichton-Browne's report that King refers to, noted: 'Every one of his judgements is hasty and inaccurate, arrived at by a loose and partial method of inquiry.' Fitch further observed that he had 'the habit of stating an opinion as if it represented a fact'. Perhaps King saw him as a kindred spirit? I. M. Ingram noted of the research methodology:

Crichton-Browne would stand before these large classes with his notebook, and ask pupils to raise their hands if they suffered from headaches. He would note the result in his book, then similarly ask if the headaches were at the front, top or at the back of the head, and whether they occurred early or late in the day. He then claimed in his report that 46.1% of the pupils in elementary schools in London suffered from habitual headache, and linked this to 'overpressure'. No individual examinations of children were made, and the inspector points out that that most of the children seemed bewildered by the questions.

King continued his exhortation on the importance of fitness:

Speaking many years ago to the students of Yale University, Julian Hawthorne earnestly exhorted them to keep themselves always in the fittest physical condition, as the only effective means by which they could maintain supremacy over themselves and those innate tendencies which have to be fought with and mastered. As a doctor, one cannot overstate the medical importance of this aspect of the case, though it cannot be discussed in a public newspaper. I may mention, however that I have a letter from Dr Levinge, late superintendent of the asylum at Christchurch (the physician who has had the most page 94 extensive experience of insanity in this colony) in which he gives his opinion that over-pressure in connection with our school life tends to set up a vicious circle by lessening the power of nervous control, and so paving the way to general instability of the nervous system, sexual irregularities and insanity itself.

He often seems to be concerned with 'those innate tendencies which have to be fought with and mastered'. Beneath his refined language, he could well be suggesting that too much study leads to masturbation.

He continued the theme to consider puberty:

The harmful influence of faulty hygienic arrangements, particularly in regard to open air, sunlight, exercise and recreation, tells more gravely on the organism at the momentous period of puberty than at any other time of life. The reason is obvious. Growth is taking place more rapidly than at any period after infancy — everything is in a state of transition. There is necessarily considerable disequilibration, and the awakening into intense activity of wide areas of the brain tissue previously dormant does not take place without some tendency to loss of control. Any undue mental stress brought to bear at this critical turning point will express itself in further loss of the power of control, and may lead to disaster in the case of either sex. Wrong habits are liable to be contracted and though insanity itself is essentially a disease of adult life, and scarcely arises after birth before the age of twenty is reached, yet we frequently have the seeds of future disabilities in men and women sown during school life. Where insanity supervenes before twenty it. is almost invariably associated with sexual accompaniments, which show clearly to the physician where the lines of defence should be set up. All the greatest schoolmasters of our times, from Arnold of Rugby to Almond of Loretto, have been keenly alive to these considerations, and no one can afford to ignore them who has at heart the welfare of any class of boys or girls. Safety lies in high spirits, good vigorous normal health, and plenty of physical activity. Hysteria or any other manifestation of lack of control is the natural accompaniment of a jaded system and feeble vitality.

page 95

When there is defective nutrition the highest and most delicate brain cells associated with the noblest functions are the first to suffer.

There are admitted to the Seacliff Mental Hospital (exclusive of congenitals), say, 110 patients per annum. Of these, so far as we can ascertain, there is an average of four per annum originally of average or more than average intelligence who have become insane before the age of twenty-one. Of these four I am satisfied that one patient becomes insane through the direct effects of faulty conditions of education [four-fifths of such cases are girls]. About an equal number of cases is associated with marked sexual irregularities. As will be understood, from what I have already indicated, it is impossible to state what proportion of these [nearly all males] would be saved under a rational education system. I may say, however, that the almost invariable histoiy one gets regarding such lads is that they have been sedentary, not given to playing games and inclined to be bookish. [Truby King was described as a bookish lad who hated taking part in games.] Lads made to take part in school games rarely go seriously wrong in this way. Regarding the other half, some factor, such as injury to the head, sunstroke, seduction or marked heredity, has been ascertained in the majority of cases, but there are few instances where no cause is forthcoming . . . However, as I have always maintained, it is not as a cause of actual insanity that school over-pressure concerns us most, but as a potent factor in giving rise to widespread degeneracy and a more or less universal dwarfing of the ultimate physical, mental and moral stature of the whole community.

He went on to quote extensively from two other sources; J. M. Guyau (Education and Heredity) and Herbert Spencer.

'The life of a woman, generally sedentary and under more or less unhealthy conditions, gives no time for recuperation to a constitution exhausted by an irrational education, whereas in the case of man recuperation may take place; on the other hand, the mother's health is of much more importance to the child than the health of the father.

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The mans expenditure in paternity is insignificant compared to the woman's; the latter needs a considerable reserve of physical and moral energy during gestation, maternity, and afterwards during the early education of the child. The mothers of Bacon and Goethe, though both very remarkable women, could not have written either the 'Novum Organum' or 'Faust'; but if they had ever so little weakened their generative powers by excessive intellectual expenditure, they would not have had a Bacon or a Goethe as a son. If during life the parents expend too much of the energy they have drawn from their environment, so much the less will be left for their children . . . Herbert Spencer says, 'If we consider that the regimen of girls of the upper classes is much better than that of girls belonging to the poorer classes, while in most other respects their physical treatment is not worse, the deficiency of reproductive power among them may be reasonably attributed to the overtaxing of their brains — an overtaxing which produces a serious reaction on their physique. This diminution of reproductive power is not only shown by the greater frequency of absolute sterility, nor is it only shown in the earlier cessation of child-bearing, but it is also shown in the very frequent inability of such women to suckle their infants.'

King was particularly fond of quoting Spencer, a Victorian who thankfully is no longer accorded much credence. Spencer was a contemporary of Charles Darwin, an engineer by training who once worked as a sub-editor on The Economist. He died celibate, taking to his grave beliefs that the weak, poor and unintelligent should be discouraged from breeding. He had a strong belief in science, but it is said that he didn't really understand Darwin and misunderstood some of the fundamentals of science. His biographer, Kieran Egan, said of him: 'What we have is a set of ideas that by the end of the nineteenth century were shown to be wrong, or were outmoded, eccentric, confused and flawed.'10 While Spencer's reputation came crashing down, the educational ideas derived from his flawed theoretical structures soldiered on tenaciously.

King appears obsessively drawn to gender differences:

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Now, let me draw Mr Wilson's attention to a matter which he has persistently ignored. My lecture at the Froebel Club was addressed to an audience composed almost entirely of women [the newspaper reports of the meeting failed to note this, too]: the bearing of my remarks was pointed especially to the education of girls; and the extract which I read from my public report in 1897 dwelt almost exclusively on school over-pressure as affecting the potentialities of motherhood. Let me repeat the extract in question:

'In the apparent cause of insanity amongst patients admitted that of "over-study" is of special interest. It is certainly important that parents and guardians should clearly recognise that prolonged and excessive mental strain, and neglect of exercise, recreation, and rest, especially amongst girls, during the period of rapid growth and development, cannot be continued without an ultimate dwarfing of both mind and body, and grave peril to the integrity of the organism. In the stress of competition for honours and prizes the brain is so often worked at the verge of the breaking strain, to the neglect of everything else that one is inclined to wonder that entire mental collapse does not result more frequently. If the secondary effects of over-pressure among girls is impairing the potentialities of reproduction and healthy maternity were more widely known, it would probably prove a greater incentive to moderation than the more striking but comparatively rare causation of insanity.'

Mr Wilson does not seem to realise, when he admits that school over-pressure is doing harm to girls, that he is conceding precisely what I specially tried to impress upon my audience at the Froebel Club, and I think I may fairly say succeeded in impressing on them. Even here, however, there are essential differences between Mr Wilson's views and my own. It never seems to occur to the rector that anything short of an actual breakdown is to be regarded as evidence of harm done. He does not seem to have ever given a thought to such injuries as are referred to by the authorities I have quoted, and he is quite willing to let things drift indefinitely, in spite of his half-hearted admission that we are doing a great wrong to girls in page 98 allowing them to strain themselves in too exacting competitive examinations.

King devoted another four pages to detailed examination of the shortcomings of Wilson's case, to the point of dissecting his reports when principal of the Girls' High some thirteen years previously. Given that King's lecture to the Froebel club was widely and enthusiastically reported, one is inclined to wonder whether an errant high school principal warranted such extravagant treatment.

In conclusion, King listed his ten-point Proposed Fundamental Reforms. They were (in abbreviated form):

1.Adequate open-air playgrounds for every school.
2.Proper provision for heating, ventilating and lighting schools, and a supply of suitable furnishings.
3.The devotion of a reasonable time daily to open-air occupations and recreations, as compulsory part of every school curriculum.
4.Restriction of the quantity of mental work (especially memorising of unimportant matters and excessive quantitative demands made in connection with arithmetic, mathematics, grammar, languages, etc.).
5.Reduction in the number of subjects studied during any one term. The recognition of quality rather than quantity of work.
6.A proper adjustment of studies to meet the respective necessities and aptitudes of boys and girls, the future man or woman always being kept in view.
7.The safeguarding of pupils from mental or physical breakdowns by encouraging open-air games, by simple, practical instruction in elementary hygiene and the laws of life, and by careful adjustment of school burthens by competent teachers trained to detect almost intuitively the first signs of failure in body, mind or spirits. All pupils should be measured and weighed at regular intervals, and a proper register should be kept.
8.The removal of temptation to cram now held out in the form of scholarships.
9.A properly organised and systematised scheme directed towards page 99 fitting pupils attending schools in certain localities for avocations specially related to the main occupations or industries of the districts — e.g., farming, gardening, fruit-growing, fishing, mining, and crafts or trades.
10.A broad, thorough training of all teachers in the fundamental requirements for educating youth to the best advantage in accordance with modern knowledge.

He concluded modestly, 'I am confident that the resultant decrease in disease, degeneracy, and ineptitude would be important, practical and economic considerations for the colony.'

The fifth and penultimate section of The Evils of Cram comprises text of further Truby King addresses. They included:

The Teacher as a Creative Agent (thirteen pages).

Play Games as Education (five pages of an address to the Free

Kindergarten Association).

The Fit and the Unfit — Improving the Race (two pages devoted to his crusade to raise the general standard of health). 'It is possible to centre our attention too much upon disease and forget that the positive, the natural, and the more important thing is health. We are all ready to endow hospitals, and the sentiment is excellent, but we could do more if we bent our efforts towards preventing the necessity for hospitals.'

The final twenty pages of this marathon document are devoted to reprints of information supportive of Truby King's cause, including:

Dr Almond, principal of Loretto school, Edinburgh: True Education Versus Cram. (Almond's support for Herbert Spencer and the perils of examinations.)

Cram and Neglect of the Body by Herbert Spencer. 'On women, the effects of this forcing system are, if possible, even more injurious than on men. Being in great measure debarred from these vigorous and enjoyable exercises of body by which boys mitigate the evils of excessive study, girls feel these evils in their full intensity. Hence the much smaller proportion of them who grow up well-made and healthy page 100 . . . And this physical degeneracy hinders their welfare far more than their many accomplishments aid it. Mammas anxious to make their daughters attractive could scarcely choose a course more fatal than this, which sacrifices the body to the mind. Either they disregard the tastes of the opposite sex, or else their conception of these tastes is erroneous. Men care little for erudition in women, but very much for physical beauty, good nature and sound sense.'

A Woman's Views on Boys, Girls, Marriage and Herbert Spencer by Mrs Earle, in Pot-pourri from a Surrey Garden, 27th edition. 'Mr Herbert Spencer's book has fortunately reached a very cheap edition (published at 6d). It is a book created by the hand of genius, and not the result of personal experience. I humbly bow to it in grateful thanks for all the good I derived from its perusal.'

Overstrain in Schools by Robert Lee, Chairman Wellington Education Board.

The Training of the Human Plant by Luther Burbank. (A treatise on sunshine, good air and nourishing food.)

The Education of Women by W. L. Felter, Brooklyn, New York.

'Marriage and maternity the natural goal . . . education must not spoil for maternity'

Truby King had proved by now that he was a good scientist, the author of a well-researched treatise on plants and animals. He had demonstrated that he could formulate artificial feeding regimes that would produce animals every bit as good as ones reared on their mother's milk. Much of this was work of a high calibre, and formed the basis for what would become Plunket. His trenchant advocacy against over-pressure in schopls was neither original nor was it particularly robust, mixing his opinion with dubious work of later-discredited 'experts', presented forcefully as axiomatic. King's lengthy attacks on a high school principal who sought to stand up to his criticisms is not only petulant and bullying; it is also unwarranted if one accepts the generally favourable response accorded by public and profession to King's anti-cram pronouncements.

The greatest concern emerging from The Evils of Cram are King's page 101 views on women. The proposition of women being 'densely ignorant' and thus unsuitable for further education was hardly popular or widely supported. While it might be argued that he was merely espousing Victorian attitudes widely held at the time, the truth is that he appears to have been at the very forefront of their promotion. How he would move on to found a system of care for babies administered by woman volunteers is not immediately obvious.

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1 Sir Randall Elliot, son of Truby King's personal physician, personal communication, 2000.

2 Truby King, The Feeding of Plants and Animals (Dunedin: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1905).

3 Ibid.

4 Dr F. C. Batchelor, address to the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children, 19 May 1909, p. 7.

5 Truby King, address to the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children, 19 May 1909, p. 11.

6 Beryl Hughes, The Book of New Zealand Women (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1992), p. 80.

7 Truby King, 'The Evils of Cram', Dunedin Evening Star, 1906.

8 Baroness von Marenhltz Bulow, 1848. www.geocities.com/froebelweb/ webline.html

9 Gordon Parry, A Fence at the Top (Dunedin: John Mclndoe, 1982), p. 49.

10 Kieran Egan, 'The Flaw in Progressivism', p. 9. www.educ.stu.ca/people/ faculty/kegan/flawc1-part_2.html