Billy Ward was what the Scotch tenderly call an “innocent,” for though thirteen years old, he was like a child of six. He had been an unusually intelligent boy, and his father had hurried him on too fast, giving him all sorts of hard lessons, keeping at his books six hours a day, and expecting him to absorb knowledge as a Strasburg goose does the food crammed down its throat. He thought he was doing his duty, but he nearly killed the boy, for a fever gave the poor child a sad holiday, and when he recovered, the overtasked brain gave out, and Billy’s mind was like a slate over which a sponge has passed, leaving it blank. (Little Men, Ch. 2)
Now, we don’t go in much for brain-fever caused by over-studying today, but Alcott certainly feels strongly about the grammar stage as it was misapplied in the 19th century! Little Men is quite an interesting book when read as a declaration of educational philosophy. Only…how did the Plumfield pupils manage to spend so stinking much time outside observing nature while living in Massachusetts? Were winters there in the 1870s just a lot milder than Pennsylvania winters in the 2010s? I think an Alcott/Mason approach to education would be way easier in, say, Malibu than the Northeast!