biologically.
Another influential 19th-century physician was Amariah Brigham, who believed that “cultivating intellectual faculties of children before they are six or seven” would prove devastating effects for the child (McGill-Franzen, 1992, p. 57). Other doctors of the same mind believed that more than an hour of schooling for those under the age of 8 could lead to “imbecility or premature old age” (p. 57).
If this belief were commonplace in today’s society, it would mean the child would be in a state of peril. Enter Vygotskian psychologists who, like developmentalists, believe that instruction can be implemented prior to development. This way of thinking lends itself to the belief that “by talking with grownups and capable peers as