The solidarity of brain and mind is an axiom of modern medicine, and it is a fundamental principle that must be kept constantly in view in all physical and mental training. Hitherto unsoundness, inefficiency, and weakness of mind have only been lightly touched upon in preventive medicine, but the importance of the mind as the chief factor in health and disease is so paramount that it can no longer be ignored.

The problems that present themselves to the mother and the educator to-day are practically the same, and the mother is one of the most potent educators that we have—how the mind can best be strengthened, broadened, and be made the most efficient working instrument possible through the application of modern scientific and physiologic knowledge. These are questions of vital importance to the human race.

Heredity.—Holmes says: “Each one of us is only the footing up of a double column of figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells, and some of them are plus and some of them are minus. We are mainly nothing but the answer to a long sum in addition and subtraction. Slight obliquities are what we most have to do with in education.”

There are certain hereditary predispositions that will develop under certain conditions; some of them are good, some are evil; that is, with the natural development of the mind, certain peculiarities of the ancestors will be reproduced. The problems suggested are how the mind can best be developed, educated, and trained, so that hereditary weaknesses may be counteracted or held in abeyance, and that latent hereditary talents may be discovered and developed.

The first proposition that we have to face is that like produces like. There are modes of education, of conduct in life, and of occupation that should be avoided where a boy or girl is handicapped by a bad heredity. There are special precautions and attention to physiologic laws which would save the minds of many young men and women with a bad heredity from passing into a state of inefficiency and actual disease. Heredity implies only potentiality toward good or evil, and the latter may be averted by knowledge and the proper practice.

Temperament.—This comprises the general make up of the individual, the shape of the head, the appearance of the eyes, the mobility of the features, the texture of the hair and skin, and the kind of movement. The recognition of the kind of temperament, and a suitable training for its best development, is of the greatest importance in attaining good health and success in life.

There are four general types of temperaments—the nervous, the phlegmatic, the arthritic, and the scrofulous or lymphatic.

The nervous temperament has certain marked characteristics, as the small, wiry figure, the well-shaped head, the bright, restless eye, nervous bearing, highly strung and sensitive nerves, feeling pain keenly and bearing it badly. This woman is imaginative, sensitive, fond of intellectual work, often artistic and ambitious. In her the brain and mind are dominant above all else. When run down, this woman will be difficult to bring up again to the normal level. She will grow thin, dyspeptic, irritable, and often neuralgic. She will be peculiarly liable to nervous disorders.

This temperament has its special temptations—alcohol and sedative drugs are two of them. Alcohol is not taken steadily or for social reasons, but for the effect of alcohol on the brain, and there is the greatest danger of becoming addicted to alcoholic habits, and finally of becoming an uncontrollable dipsomaniac.

The phlegmatic or bilious temperament relates more to the training of the body, since in this class of cases the mind is not exposed to the same dangers, but the oversanguine temperament has its own dangers, which may lead to lack of effort, speculation, and financial ruin.

The arthritic have a predisposition to both rheumatism and gouty disorders, to which they are distinctly more liable than others, and the fact that there is this latent tendency should be taken into consideration during childhood and youth.

Social Instincts.—Social instincts lie at the foundation on which the family and community is based. It may be said that any individual who is destitute of them is in an abnormal condition, hence a right training of the social instincts is, beyond doubt, one of the most important means of securing happiness to the individual and order to society. The child’s or youth’s relation to others, her affection for others, and her altruistic practices, all go for the making of society, good citizenship, and patriotism in the race.

At the school age the social instincts are one of the strongest elements in life, and one of the most powerful adjuncts in developing mind and body. The cravings of young women for social amenities are stronger, and her deprivation of them more hurtful, than in the case of young men. There are few girls in whom it does not require some regulation. The strain of too much social life is injurious; social dissipation cannot be combined with school life without wrecking the health of the young woman; nervousness, anemia, and mental depression follow.

That individual cannot be said to be healthy mentally whose social instincts are poor and perverted. Commonly one of the first symptoms of a disordered mind is the diminution of the social instinct. The insane are notoriously asocial.

Fear.—This is one of the most elemental and primitive of the emotions. Biologists assure us that fear and surprise were the first of the emotions to be developed, and that the feeling of the ludicrous was the last. Darwin says that the earthworm knows fear, and darts into its burrow like a rabbit when alarmed. So we see that fear is common to all forms of animal existence, even to the lowest. This universality of fear has come about through the working of the laws of natural selection, which prescribe that only those creatures shall survive that can best adjust themselves to their environment. Within limits, fear as a primary instinct has been and is eminently useful. It is the cry of alarm raised by the senses which act as guardians of the body, and, at a signal, in virtue of the nervous automatism, the organism is put in a position of defense. On the other hand, fear may serve to paralyze, as has been observed in the case of birds, many of which, though scarcely wounded by the small shot, fall to the ground as if struck by lightning, panting with wide-open eyes. In human life, while fear incites to activity, it may also paralyze that activity.

Mosso says that the fear that young children have of cats and dogs, before they have learned why they are to be feared, is a consequence of heredity. We are born to a heritage of fear. If we fear ghosts and demons less, we fear microbes and bacteria more. The professional or business man fears failure, but fear should be a guardian, not a jailer. A healthy fear of indigence will lead to thrift, industry, and such measures as will secure one’s personal independence. Up to a certain point, fear is a protection, but beyond that it paralyzes.

Mental Development.—We note that at birth the brain is mindless, and that the brain-cells, which are the vehicle of the mind, undergo their greatest development during childhood from stimuli coming from without the body. The brain-cells possess infinite possibilities and potentialities. They are developed from the stimuli from without through the eyes, ears, touch, taste, and smell. There is another series of constant impressions which are received from within the body, and these come from the muscles.

These impressions, conveyed to the brain-cells from the body, and from the outer world beyond the body, leave a fixed registration, the writing on the brain-cells has begun, and this constitutes memory; and the imprint on these cells is similar to that which type leaves of letters and words on the page of the printed book. These printed impressions on the cells can be revived and seen and heard by the mental consciousness, just as a printed book can be opened and seen and read by its owner.

The natural qualities of the mind are imitation, acquisitiveness, emotionalism, and imagination.

The force of example in the home, at school, and in the book world is among the most potent influences in molding character. The young girl instinctively imitates her mother, her friends in real life, and in her book world, and the woman will be the composite production, combining traits of all of these, which will be ingrafted on the ancestral traits which have been inherited.

In young children it is difficult to decide where the imagination leaves off and the spirit of untruthfulness begins. In any case, the tendency to exaggeration and untruthfulness are so prevalent in childhood that it must be checked at the earliest signs of its appearance. The vice becomes so deep rooted that it affects the mind in all its workings and the entire life as well. It follows men and women into their business careers, their scientific life, and their professions.

Professor Swift, in a very interesting study of the development of the mind, invokes the aid of biology to show that all children are but little animals, having no inborn notions of right and wrong, inheriting no sense of justice; savage, by nature, and predatory by instinct.

He finds a psychic justification for fighting among boys. “Fighting in some form,” he says, “is one of the first means by which the mind becomes accustomed to intense action. To fight well, a boy must be capable of severe concentration of attention.”

And he has found the age at which boys come to think that laws and the recognized rules of right conduct should be voluntarily respected varies from fifteen to seventeen years and older. These figures are approximately correct for girls.

Absolute truthfulness, square dealing, honesty, honor, and an esprit de corps should be demanded. Hitherto these principles have not been sufficiently inculcated in girls as the fundamental principles on which life must be met. The discipline has been too lax in the home and in the school; it is that of implicit and prompt obedience on the word of command; the proper subjection to and respect for those placed in authority; the kind of discipline given in business life, the hospital, and the army, and the lack of which has cost so much happiness and so many thousands of lives.

Self-control.—The perfect capacity for self-control in all directions and at all times is the ideal state at which we aim. It is the standard aimed at by developing the power of the will and the strength of inhibition. The great difficulties, the magnitude of the task, may be conceived of from the saying of the wisest of all men: “He who conquers his own spirit is greater than he who taketh a city.” The reason is plainly evident—all the hardest battles of life must be fought out alone, there is a feeling of isolation, as if one were struggling alone against the combined forces of the universe, and, at the same time, there is going on the struggle for the mastery between the two conflicting natures, “When I would do good, evil is present with me.” Whereas, in concerted action there is a feeling of sympathy, of reinforcement from outside help, and the pleasant stimulation of competition.

If youth were taught that certain enemies were going to present themselves on the field, that they come for the most part in the first instance single handed, and if grappled with one at a time, and the contest between right, and perhaps inclination, be then and there fought to a finish, each successive time the conflict would be easier and the victory more certain; that in losing such a battle there must always be a certain loss of self-respect, a feeling of moral weakness, it may be even so slight a fault as the exaggeration of facts; while, on the other hand, a victory always gives something of the same feeling of exultation that one has in any fairly won contest or game. A feeling of pleasurable superiority, of having one’s self well in hand. In the moral habits every gain on the wrong side undoes the effects of many conquests on the right. The training of the will becomes the most vital of all problems. Nothing that is learned in youth is really so valuable as the power and habit of self-restraint, of self-sacrifice, of energetic, continuous, and concentrated effort.

The Moral Sense.—From fifteen to twenty-five years of age is the most crucial period of life in regard to the hygiene of the mind. It is during this period that the brain first exhibits some of its strongest hereditary tendencies. While such mental factors in human life as conduct and character are being consolidated, as they now are, hereditary predispositions manifest themselves, telling for good or evil, for success or failure.

The acquisitions then made are critical in the extreme and often final. The real love of right, hatred of wrong, duty, conscience, religion, become solid and effective in forming character.

The emotional nature instinctively shows a leaning toward the opposite sex; love between the sexes toward the close of adolescence is the most intense and most unreasoning of human passions. The sense of right, wrong, and duty become active principles, dominating the character. There are yearnings after the ideal, an intense scorn of and hatred of evil. The purposes in life are then shaped. The impressions and resolutions then formed affect the whole tenor of the woman’s life, as a rule, more than at any other time.

The capacity to feel pleasure reaches its greatest intensity. The sex relations are built up on safe and natural lines, regulated by family life, social feelings, and the carrying of the thoughts and the emotions into other channels, controlled by certain instinctive natural tendencies, by morality and religion. To think and feel properly should mean to act rightly as a physiologic corollary.

Music, literature, and art, imaginative works of all sorts, mix themselves up with the sex feeling, so that the two help to form the emotional nature. Far-away glimpses of poetic feeling, pleasurable altruism, citizenship, and patriotism show themselves in the earlier stages and give direction to life in the later. The whole period is one of immense importance for the health and happiness of the remainder of life, and the risks to the body and mind are then very great. A fact which is of great importance, and which is especially true of adolescence, is that it is possible by undue pressure to use up stores of energy that should have been spread out over very long periods. Through such overexertion in study or in games too heavy a drain is made on futurity, and mental disorders at this time are by no means infrequent, mental depression being generally the first to appear. This is more especially true in the descendants of neurotic families. The subjects are troubled with neuralgias, insomnias, and there is a pessimistic view taken of life.

The Religious Instincts.—Möbius says, “We reckon the downfall of religion as one of the causes of mental and nervous diseases. Religion is essentially a comforter. It builds for the man, who stands amid the evil and misery of the world, another and fairer world. Besides his daily careful life, it lets him lead a second and purer life. The consciousness of being within the hand of Providence, and the confident hope of a future redemption, is a support to the believer in his work and care, for which unbelief has no compensation. Meditation calms and refreshes him like a healing bath. Worship breaks in upon the daily drudgery of his days with rest and meeting.” The morality of a nation suffers most severely through the downfall of its religion, as experience has always and everywhere proved.

The religious instinct has a very close relation to the emotions, morals, esthetic feelings, to social instinct, and to sex. The feelings of reverence and awe, and the consciousness of the infinite in man are vague, but are the most powerful parts of his nature.

Religion furnishes the only pure ideals that half of the world has access to. It has proved an intellectual stimulus, and roused a metaphysical frame of mind in some of the most vigorous nations, such as the German and Scotch. It leads more toward refinement of life than any other agency. It stimulates the benevolent and altruistic feelings, and leads to their practical demonstrations; it fights vice and immorality; it seizes on the best that is in man and transforms the character.

The Advantages of College Life.—College life is of the greatest possible advantage to girls in many ways: it is broadening to the mind; discipline is maintained, and, at the same time, the girl is thrown on her own resources; adequate means are provided for developing both mind and body to their greatest capacity.

Whether the girl comes from the country, a country town or city, her social group is comparatively limited; her world is very little and the ego is very large. The discipline that any large body of students bring to bear on the conduct and behavior of the individual is one of the important advantages of a college training. The insignificance of the ego, who is only a unit in this large community, is quickly impressed on the gray matter of the brain, and the rough and unpleasant angles are soon smoothed off. This, in addition to the discipline afforded by the college officers, and the total lack of discipline is the weakest point in the average girl’s education. To be brought into intimate relation with the members of a large and educated community is in itself a liberal education. To learn to respect the rights and the opinions of others, to perceive that any given subject has a great number of points of view, is attaining toward a healthy mental balance that will make the woman broader minded, more sympathetic, more companionable, and more charitable in her views of life.

In addition to the regular college curriculum are the opportunities afforded, not only to special students, but to the entire body of students, for a liberal education in music and art, and so a broad foundation for general culture is laid that will greatly increase the opportunities for pleasure all through life.

So that, in addition to the actual knowledge acquired by a college education, there are also the advantages of the discipline of and development of mind and body; the knowledge of how and what is worth while to study; the power to study and solve life’s greatest problems for herself and those dependent on her; the firm muscles, the clear brain, the steady nerves, the power of judgment, the control of the will, and the formation of character—on all of which the ultimate happiness and success in life depend.

Dr. Beard gives to brain workers a value of life of fourteen years above the average. The brain-working classes are less apt to worry, less apprehensive of indefinite evils, and less disposed to magnify minute trials than those who live by the labor of their hands.

Spinoza says that every advance toward perfection gives us happiness, and it is safe to say that the buoyancy which characterizes contemporary thought, the hopeful outlook amidst the dangers which threaten us, the sense of the added cubit to the man’s stature, are due largely to the recognition of the power for good within his soul of which he was not formerly aware.

Balance of the Mental Faculties.—There must exist a certain balance between the various faculties of the brain in order to insure sanity. A high order of intelligence without much will, or keen emotions without a corresponding power of inhibition, and overmastering will and slight moral sense, vivid imagination without common sense, intense social instinct without much conscience, fervid religious instinct without much sense of duty or altruism, must invariably produce one-sided and unbalanced individuals, and the results would be bad for society; and too many of these one-sided or unbalanced people would impair if not endanger the safety of the State.

Excessive ambition, misdirected energy, longing for the unattainable, regret for the unalterable, anticipation of future unhappiness, lack of a sense of perspective, fretting over non-essentials, indecision, reopening of troublesome questions already settled, avarice, selfishness, excessive emotions, uncontrolled passions, and the actual cultivation of the melancholic state are some of the causes of mental anguish and subsequent physical suffering.

Well-balanced mental faculties give a philosophic view of life; guard the mental and hold the emotional in check; grasp the true relationships in life, and view it in the proper perspective.

The Effect of the Higher Education of Women.—Nothing is so convincing as actual experience and statistics;[5] and nothing is so broadening to the mind as the study of history.

Never before in the history of the human race has any such large body of young women been given the educational advantages for the development of body and mind which they enjoy to-day. From antiquity there have been exceptional women, who were highly educated and cultured, as in Alexandria, Athens, and in the old European universities, but up to the present day any tendency toward the education of the masses of women has been looked at askance, and in this respect the position of the people of the United States was long peculiarly provincial.

To two men belong the great credit and honor of conceiving the idea of a liberal college education, and a medical college training, for women in this country.

In 1865 Mathew Vassar, “having recognized in woman the same intellectual constitution as in man,” founded a college for women only, and thus gave women the opportunity for the same education that young men enjoyed at their colleges.

In 1850 the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania was incorporated. The idea of establishing a college for the medical education of women originated with Dr. Bartholomew Fussel, of Chester County. The query arose in his mind, “Why should women not have the same opportunities in life as men?”

Just how strong the public sentiment was against these movements, and the leaders of the opposition comprised the most prominent educators and physicians of the day, and what impediments they placed in the way, it is now difficult to realize.

The opponents of the higher education of women urged three final objections: First, women were mentally incapable of receiving the same kind of intellectual education as was given to young men at college. Second, they lacked the physical endurance to bear the strain of mental work. And, third, such an education would render the young woman masculine—she would no longer be willing to look after the ways of her house, her natural affections and power to love would vanish, she would become unwilling to marry and bear children.

Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard University, who has so long been the great educational leader in this country, in his paper on “The Higher Education of Women,” says: “During the past thirty-five years three distinct apprehensions concerning the effect of the higher education of women seem to me to have been removed. In the first place, there was a perfectly sincere doubt (because there was little experience to go upon) whether young women were so capable as young men of receiving what was then called the higher education; or, in other words, whether the young woman had the capacity to master by study the traditional subjects of the higher education. That doubt has been completely removed.

“Secondly, it was feared that if the young women studied in the colleges three or four years, beginning at about eighteen years of age, that such study would have serious effect on their health and on their fitness for their natural functions in after-life. This apprehension was felt by many physicians and was warmly expressed. For a whole generation we have been trying the experiment, and the result is perfectly clear. These apprehensions have not been justified. It is apparent that young women can do much mental work for three or four years between the age of eighteen and twenty-two, not only without impairing their physical vigor, but all the time improving it, if they live wisely and under right conditions.

“And thirdly, there was the strong apprehension felt by many excellent people, lest in the process of the higher education young women would be denatured. They admitted that young men were not denatured in any way by the higher education at college, but they thought that there was a serious chance that young women would be altered in their feminine nature by the process of education. It has turned out that a young woman who studies in college, from the age of eighteen to twenty-two, is no more altered in her nature than a young man is who goes through a similar process. It takes a great deal more than that to alter the nature of a woman.

“I suppose that this apprehension was based on the fact that women seem, to men at least, more tender, fragile, and delicate than men, and, therefore, more liable to be bruised or coarsened than men; it was feared that the kind of public life, so to speak, in large groups would have some tendency to deprive them of their natural delicacy, refinement, and tenderness. It has not turned out so, and everybody recognizes that it has not turned out so.”

When higher education, the professions, and industrial pursuits are all unquestioningly thrown open to women, then it can be reasonably supposed that they will come to possess those traits of mind—judicial, logical, creative, etc., now generally considered as masculine traits, and they will not only be more attractive and companionable for their husbands, but will be far more competent teachers for their children, their enlarged range of thought and vision inspiring greater confidence in their sons, and stimulating higher ideals in both sons and daughters.

The Environment.—As we have seen, the brain registers every impression from within and from without; if the impressions are those of discomfort, gloom, darkness, ugliness, those things, being inharmonious to the constitutional working of the brain, do harm and tend to set up bad habits. First, the body must be healthy, and the environment good in order to insure a healthy, vigorous mentality. Too much thought and care cannot be given to the environment of the child, youth, and adult.

Careful attention must be given to the toilet. The quality and condition of the underlinen, the cut and fit of the clothes, all tell on the mind. It has been said that a man tries to live up to his clothes; hence, the uniform of the soldier and the cassock of the priest. Clothes are not only an index of the character, but they help to make it. The clothing that comes into intimate contact with our bodies has a soothing or irritating effect upon the mind. It has also been said that for a woman to know that she was properly dressed had a soothing influence on the mind, second only to that of religion itself.

In the evening, laying aside the business suit of the day with all the anxieties and dust of toil, and replacing it by a tasteful house-gown, brings a sense of freshness that brightens the mind and stimulates the appetite. The clothing should always be suitable to the employment, to the purse, and to the surroundings, or good taste is violated, and, again there is an unhealthy reaction on the mind.

To live in a gloomy house, with a dull ugly wall-papers, and no sunshine entering the room, may produce in their inhabitants want of appetite, interfere with nutrition, make them gloomy, unhappy, and hard to live with. While esthetic surroundings render life happier, brighter, and higher.

If one cannot afford expensive paintings to hang on her walls, she can select photographs of the old masters, neatly framed, which, placed in harmonious surroundings, elevate the mind, cause a love of the beautiful, develop the taste, and lay the foundation for a broad culture that will increase the enjoyment of nature as well as of art.

The Choice of Friends.—We have seen that the impressions conveyed to the brain-cells leave a fixed registration and are indelibly stamped there. These may be called the sensitive plates of the mind, and it is because of this writing on the brain that the selection of our friends and associates is a matter of such vital importance.

The subconscious mind, of which we hear so much to-day, does not originate thought; it can only elaborate and develop it, and the most important fact which has as yet been discovered in regard to the subconscious mind is that it is suggestible; that is, it is subject to moral influence and direction. A few words of commendation and praise brighten the whole day; if we can forget our pain for a little while, it is apt to cease.

All our greatest intellectual leaders, from time immemorial, have been unanimous in their teachings that one of the most important elements in the molding of the mind and character was the nature of our friendships. Tennyson says, “I am a part of all that I have met.” “A man’s friendships shape his life more than aught else, or more than all else.” The immortal bard puts it, “It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take disease of one another; therefore, let men take heed of their company.” And again, “’Tis meet that noble minds keep ever with their like, for who so firm that cannot be seduced?”

Certain requirements and standards should be met, and the girl or woman should be sure that the individual, whether man or woman, comes up to the standards of her own clan.

A friend should be congenial, with similar tastes, opportunities, and training; frank in criticism, yet sympathetic in spirit; loyal and staunch in adversity, and one who disseminates an atmosphere which is broadening, elevating, and uplifting. Such a friend is to be desired and to be sought after.

Literature.—Not one of the least of the great molding influences on the mind and the social life of to-day is its literature, and the form of this which reaches the greatest masses of the people are the daily press, the literary magazines, and the modern novel. It is scarcely possible for the young to conceive the great impression which is made on the mind and character by the kind of books which they read. Carlyle said, “We cannot look however imperfectly upon a great man without gaining something from him.” And to this statement might well be added, it is impossible for the mind to be brought into intimate contact with the lives of dissolute men and women, so vividly portrayed in many of the novels of the day, without being smirched by it. It is no more safe to read such a class of books, hoping to escape contamination, than it would be to live in the malarial districts of Africa, and hope to escape contracting that insidious disease.

However limited the geniuses may be in our immediate circle of friends, each of us may have for her most intimate friends the greatest geniuses the world has ever known, and have them at their best.

Two axioms should always be kept in mind—a real love for books is formed in early life or not at all, and to have books for friends one must own them, have them on her own shelves, to take down and put up at will, to mark, to compare, and study. So whatever else one lacks, she should always have her own library, even if it is a limited one.

Next in importance to the recognition of good reading must necessarily be a recognition of the limitations of one’s reading. Whether in the capacity of student, housewife, mother, or business woman, the time that can be devoted to general literature is very limited.

A careful study of history and biography should always precede fiction. It is a fundamental part of a liberal education to know something of the world’s history, and the history of the English nation, as well as the biographies of the men and women who were such important factors in making its various epochs.

This should be followed by a study of the classics, and that education has not been liberal which has not included a study of the modern classics. German literature opens up a new and delightful world. A study of the classics forms the taste, elevates the mind, broadens the vision and the power of judgment, and it is a profound help in the formation of character. After such reading as this, who would be willing to spend her time on the cheap and trashy novels of the day.

Good modern fiction should be taken up as a recreation by the woman whose life is laborious, its questions perplexing, and its complications tiresome; in other words, after the woman has left the high-school or college and has entered on her life’s vocation. For young girls, not only is too much time apt to be given to fiction which should be devoted to other and more important matters, but it is apt to do much harm by giving them a wrong impression of life.

The Power of the Will or Inhibition.—The conduct of mankind is chiefly governed by the emotions, instincts, and impulses. Spencer traces all human action to the desire for pleasure in the large and philosophic sense of the term. If this be so, then the education and hygiene of the emotions and impulses must be of the very highest importance in the life of each individual and in the social world. The question arises, and it is all important, can those inhibitory centers be so developed in youth, and so cultivated in life, that they can act as antagonists to what is morbid? Can they be used as direct preventive and curative agencies against tendencies and impulses which are foolish and hurtful? And the answer of educators, as the result of large experience and observation, is emphatically, yes.

But the training, to be efficient, has to be systematic, persistent, and along well-defined lines. The first step in this training must be the strict avoidance of all that has a tendency to lower the standards of morality, whether this is in the line of companions, literature, the stage, music, or art. To do otherwise is not brave, but as foolhardy as it would be for a weak army to advance against a powerful foe; it means annihilation or to be taken prisoners of war.

To overcome obsessions and delusional beliefs by volitional effort, the effort should be made to direct the mind to other subjects which have nothing whatever to do with the obsession, rather than to make a direct stand of the will against it, since the will may put forth its utmost strength in the way of direct repression of the temptation to any immoral action, and may entirely fail, while, by directing the same amount of force in changing the direction of thought, complete success may be attained.

The influence of the will upon the emotions is a matter of the highest importance in regard to the direction of the current of thought and the determination of actions. Control your passions; govern your temper. We can no more avoid feeling mentally hurt than we can feeling physical hurt, but we have exactly the same power of the withdrawal of the attention from the mental hurt as from the bodily pain, by determinately fixing it upon some other object.

“I am, I ought, I can, I will,” are, as has been well said, the only firm foundation-stones upon which we can base our attempts to climb into a higher sphere of existence. The first implies a faculty of introspection, the second a moral judgment, the third a consciousness of freedom to act, the fourth a determination to exercise that power.

The influence of the will on the conduct is first automatic, through previously acquired habits; second, through the emotional state, and third, by our notions of right and wrong. In the fundamental principles of living must be included a genuine consideration of the right of others. The memory is an automatic reproduction of ideas, the mechanism of recording processes.

The education of the will, the power of breasting the current of the desires, and doing for long periods of time what is distasteful and painful, all tend to increase the power of inhibition and strength of the will. Nothing that is learned in youth is really so valuable as the power and habit of self-restraint, of self-sacrifice, of energetic, continuous, and concentrated effort.

Seneca claims that difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body. Plato said, that “self-conquest is the greatest of all the victories.”

Character lies preëminently in the sphere of the will, and anything which weakens the will saps the worth of life at all points. The strength of will bears not only on character, but on happiness and influence as well. The leader must show reserved power, and make it plain that she has herself well in hand, to secure confidence. “Will makes men giants.”

The Effect of Mental Attitude on the Physical Health.—The ordinary operations of the mind have little effect on the physical condition, but such emotions as fear, worry, anxiety, grief, despair, anger, hatred, and the like depressing emotions act directly upon the muscular and nervous mechanisms, profoundly affecting the secretions and the excretions, and stamp themselves upon the very tissues of the organism.

Of all the mental attributes the emotions are the most exhausting. A woman can spend more of her strength in five minutes of unnatural excitement than in a day of calm, steady brain work.

A perfect temper is not only a prime requisite for a club president, but for every man and woman in this hard workaday world, with its fierce competitions, its petty jealousies, and the stiletto practices of the cowardly, and it is one of the greatest preventives of indigestion, insomnia, and nervous prostration.

Forget your grievances. Every time that one repeats them to herself or to a friend she lives them over again, and the original trouble was but the merest moiety of suffering compared to a wound torn open afresh every day. To cherish a vindictive spirit does a vast amount of injury to the possessor of that spirit. In view of the facts of the beneficial effects of fighting upon small boys, and that the combative propensities of the Irish peasant commonly evaporates with his shillelagh, it would seem commendable to introduce boxing matches among women as a way to settle their differences.

From the standpoint of health, the intense excitement attendant on playing for high stakes, the loss of sleep, the unnatural life, the loss of money that one can ill afford to lose, must eventually lead to a serious if not to a fatal breakdown.

It is not the natural and reasonable intellectual work that injures the brain, but the various emotions—ambition, anxiety, disappointment, the hopes and fears, the loves and hatreds of our lives—that wear out the nervous system and endanger the balance of the brain.

Powerful emotion is like concentration attended with dissociation, it occupies the mind to the exclusion of all else, even to the dictates of self-preservation and reason. The will is more or less suspended and held in abeyance during the emotional states.

The too great concentration of the attention on one’s business or occupation is a self-indulgence that often ignores the importance of the lighter side of life and the legitimate claims of family and friends.

Less ambition and more philosophy would greatly lessen the number of cases of nervous prostration and allied neuroses. All of one’s fortune is not staked on one throw of the dice; if the woman fails in one direction, there are other resources left.

Concentration of the mind on the physical suffering leads to the so-called habits in disease; there may have, in the first place, been a real physical cause. For example, in case of injury to a limb followed by severe pain in that member it has happened that after amputation of the limb the consciousness of pain persisted in the brain. In the functional neuroses, the first cause may have been a real physical one, but the individual becomes so self-centered, it is with difficulty that the mind can be withdrawn from the ego, and a cure can only be effected by supplanting the intense egotism by new interests.

Medical literature contains numerous observations of ailment caused by fright, and even of death itself so caused. It is not uncommon for medical students to contract the disease about which they are studying. In the old small-pox epidemics it was a very generally observed fact that those who feared contracting the disease were the most apt to get it. The reason is very easily explained—fear so suppressed the functional activities of circulation and nutrition, as to predispose the individual to take any disease to which she was exposed.

Autosuggestion is the predominant element in the concentration of the thought on one particular subject, and of the narrowing of the perspective to a single point of view.

Prolonged anxiety or grief will cause an emaciation, second only to that of tuberculosis itself, by the depression of the heart’s action and the circulation, the loss of appetite, the interference with nutrition, and the loss of sleep.

Worry is, as we have seen, in the first instance most frequently bred of exhaustion, but, if indulged in, it readily becomes a fixed habit, and the mind rapidly settles into a state of fixed gloom.

Worry is a type of fear. It is a futile regret over past mistakes and the miserable forecasting of the future. It has been called the great shortener of life under civilization—of all forms the financial one is the most frequent and, for ordinary minds, the most distressing.

Anxiety and the anxious frame of mind is in readiness to take fright in connection with our most vulnerable points on all occasions of apprehension or uncertainty. As no one’s future can be clear throughout, there is never wanting the matter of anxiety to a mind susceptible of this state.

It is a significant fact that our asylums are recruited from the classes who spend their lives amid narrow monotonous surroundings; hence the large proportion of women, especially of farmers’ wives, whose lives are probably the most narrow and the most monotonous. From this result the fixed ideas, the obsessions, and all the absorbing egotism of insanity.

With a variety of valuable and permanent interests, the mind is well safeguarded against attacks of worry. The overworked woman should increase her recreations, leave home for short intervals, travel, and have entire rest and change of scene. With increased vigor of body will come increased power of the will and the capacity to abolish worry.

Anger floods the brain with blood, and if the arteries are brittle, as they are in old age, and the individual is just as old as her arteries, the rise in arterial tension may result in the rupture of a blood-vessel, and the subsequent hemorrhage into the brain may cause an attack of apoplexy, paralysis, or even death. Attacks of anger hasten the deterioration of the arteries; in this way anger has been known to cause death.

Every violent physical sensation will react on the lungs; every powerful normal emotion, whatever its cause, will also make its influence felt on the respiratory functions. An exercise which is performed with tranquil breathing if the mind is free from care, quickly produces respiratory disturbances if the mind is brooding and preoccupied. Those who have acted as seconds in a duel to men accustomed to the use of the sword know that they become breathless in the duel much more quickly than they do in the fencing school.

Depressing emotions make themselves felt in the respirations of animals as well as of man. A sensitive horse, which is badly used at its work, or even roughly spoken to, rapidly becomes breathless.

The dog is incomparably less swift than the hare, but is able to catch it; the fright of the hunted animal disturbs its breathing and robs it of much of its strength.

In fright the disorder of the respiratory movements destroys the regularity of the interchange of gases which takes place in the lungs, between the venous blood and the atmospheric air, and thus profoundly hinders the function of the aëration of the blood.

The more impressionable the subject, the more easily do the emotions influence his respiratory actions. Hence, the superiority in certain bodily exercises of men whose minds are calm and masters of themselves.

Emotional causes, such as worry, anxiety, and grief, as well as the more tangible physical factors, cause softening and disease of the tissues, which frequently accounts for the arteriosclerosis and premature senility. Alienists have long found abundant evidence that abnormal physical conditions are capable of producing mental diseases, but the reverse is quite as true.

And not only the imagination, but the intellect, the emotions, and the will have or may have a powerful influence over the sensations and organic functions.

It is not only profoundly true that mental attitude has much to do with bodily function, capable of producing changes in its nutrition and secretion, but we may go further and say that healthful and hopeful habits of thought do much to put the body on the defensive against the assaults of disease.

Mental attitude refers not to the will or the emotions, but to the mind in its entirety. The trend of a woman’s thoughts, the use she makes of her intellect, the strength of the volition, the sense of responsibility, and the objects of her life are all questions that have a distinct bearing upon the bodily functions and the health of the individual.

A Definite Occupation a Physical Necessity.—It is now generally conceded by the leading sociologists of the day that women who are not engaged in the duties of maternity need the same intellectual and industrial activities as men. Many go further, and it is their opinion that there is no reason for excluding women, who are fulfilling the duties of maternity, from exercising full intellectual and physical activities in other directions. And the proof that this is not a mere theoretic assumption is to be found in the fact that many women have not only given birth to a family of children, but have successfully reared them, and, in addition, have been eminent in other pursuits and callings. Well-known illustrations of this fact are to be found among the most noted sovereigns that Europe has ever had—Catherine de Medici, Maria Theresa, Catherine II of Russia, and Queen Victoria.

Pleasure seeking, as the end and object of life, leads to ennui, disgust, and physical and mental deterioration, while the slavery of housework, the childish vanities, and petty cares and vexations are most injurious to the nervous system, so that for the life of the housewife the education preceding it should be broad; and the more highly educated the woman is, so much the more effectually can she free herself from attaching too much importance to every little detail, and so neglecting what is higher and more important, and it will be a great preventive of irritability of temper, quarrelsomeness, and even melancholia and mental derangement, from which so many of these women suffer in consequence of the monotony of their lives.

Every girl when she leaves school, which she should consider the very alphabet of her education, should prepare herself for some definite occupation, just as her brother does.

Clouston, in answer to the question as to how the powers of the mind can best be developed, conserved, and made the best use of for life’s work, says: “It is a most fortunate thing, if, during the later period of adolescence, an occupation in life has been selected which really suits the capacity of the individual and goes with his innate tendencies. The seriousness and the settledness of the life of the period, with the bracing of every nerve and sinew to do the work, to gain a reasonable position in society, and to enjoy a fair amount of happiness, is in itself a tonic of no mean value, while overtaxing of body and mind is always a risk, as well as an ambition which overreaches itself. The repressions of woman’s life in civilized society constitute one of her serious strains and dangers. The life and conditions of a working woman who has six or seven children in a few years, who has small means, and but little help, is in my judgment the very hardest of any human being in our modern social system.”

Thomas[6] thus sums up his views as to the evils resulting from the non-occupation of women of the better classes. “Human nature was made for action; and perhaps the most distressing and disconcerting situation which confronts it is to be played on by the stimulations without the ability to functionate. The mere superinducing of passivity, as in the extreme case of solitary confinement, is sufficient to produce insanity, and the emotion of dread or of passive fear is said to be the most painful of the emotions, because there is no possibility of relief by action.

“The American woman of the better class has superior rights and no duties, yet she is worrying herself to death; not over specific troubles, but because she has lost her connection with realities. Many women, more energetic and more intelligent than their husbands or brothers, have no more serious occupation than to play the house cat, with or without ornament. It is a wonder that more of them do not lose their minds; that more of them do not break with the system entirely, is due solely to the inhibitive effect of early habits and suggestions.

“The remedy for the irregularity, pettiness, ill health, and unserviceableness of modern women seems, therefore, to lie along educational lines. Not in general and cultural lines alone, but in a special and occupational interest and practice for women, married or unmarried. This should preferably be gainful, though not onerous or incessant. Normal life without normal stimulation is impossible, and the stimulation best suited to the nervous system is some form of interesting work.”

The Psychology of Success.—Success has been defined as the accomplishment, the realization of what has been willed or wanted, the ripe fruition of the well-tended tree. The achievement of fame or fortune is what the world generally regards as success.

Before entering on an enterprise, all the premises in the case must be had in order to form correct judgments, otherwise incomplete and imperfect knowledge of the case will lead to error in judgment, in which there could be said to be “no chance of failure, it was a certainty.”

An element that always makes for success is to be able to supply a want of the public; it is partly a question of demand and supply. It is sometimes possible to create a demand. But, as a rule, success is the fruition of patience and well-directed energy.

There is nothing which tends so much to the success of volitional effort as the confident expectation of its success, while nothing is so likely to induce failure as the apprehension of it. Since the tendency of the cheerful and joyful emotions is to suggest and keep alive the favorable anticipations, while that of the depressing emotions is to bring before the view all the chances of failure, the former will increase the power of volitional effort and the latter will diminish it.

The mental condition also exerts a direct influence upon the physical powers, through the organs of the circulation and of the respiration, the heart’s impulse being more vigorous and regular, the aëration of the blood being more efficiently performed, in the former of these conditions than in the latter.

Success too easily won, or won early in life, may really be a cause of failure, because, having been once achieved, the individual may be content with what she has and not proceed to higher development. And so a very inferior success may be the tomb of energy and the satisfied goal of ambition, instead of a stimulus to higher things.

Lack of success may also be caused by indulgence or lack of courage, the individual preferring to sail along the chartered course of mediocrity rather than to strike out a new path for herself, involving risk, anxiety, and endless work.

And perhaps jealousy in the rank and file of the lazy, indifferent, and mediocre far more often impedes effectually the road to success than is dreamed of, so that a greater degree of secretiveness, warding off the scent, of the intentions, the aspirations, and the methods of work, until the object shall have finally been achieved.

Another and most important secret of success is to recognize failure as only a stepping-stone to higher things. Eggleston says, “Persistent people begin their success where others end—in failure.”

The people who succeed in this world are the people who get up and look around for the circumstances they want; if they cannot find them, make them. “Circumstances,” said Napoleon, “I make circumstances.”

There are four mental requisites necessary to the achievement of success, namely: a clear view of the end; a judicious indifference to the sentiment around by the sweeping away of obstacles; an indomitable energy; and the power to resist the temptation to rest on the soporific plane of mediocrity.