Electric Schoolroom? Silly.

Dr. Humphries So Characterizes Proposed Tesla Plan.

Dr. H. R. Humphries, neurologist at the Post Graduate Hospital, does not think very highly of Nikola Tesla's scheme to improve the mental condition of defective children by electric stimulation. As a neurologis for ten years at the Vanderbilt Clinic and for five years at the State Hospital for the Insane, Dr. Humphries has had experience with mental diseases and he feels very strongly on this particular subject.

"As I understand the proposed scheme," he said, "the plan is to charge the walls of the schoolroom where the defective children are with electricity and so to set up in the air a high grade frequency current. It is believed that this current will stimulate the cerebral cells of the defective child and so improve mentality. The proposition is silly.

"In my opinion, based upon years of ob- servations and experiment, there would be no value in such a proceeding. If we thought there was any value in it we could supply every defective child at our hospitals with a skull cap in which could be set up such a high grade frequency current, but we know that there would be no use in trying it. That would be to overestimate the therapeutic value of electricity.

"To use the walls of a schoolroom to bring stimulation to the cells of the brain has no scientific basis and is opposed to common sense. It is reported that such an experiment has been tried successfully in Sweden. If that is true no report from a reputable source has been made on it. Those who are conversant with the subject will characterize the scheme as silly."

Supt. Maxwell is reported to favor trying out the scheme of Mr. Tesla and will put the proposition up to the Board of Educa- tion at its meeting next month. The cost of installing the apparatus in a schoolroom would be $1,000. Opposition from different quarters has madeets appearence. Others than Dr. Humphries have expressed their opposition to the scheme and a formal protest to the Board of Education against the experiment has been talked of.