23. Mental Training
The mind has a certain vegetative power which can not be wholly idle. If it is not laid out and cultivated into a beautiful garden, it will shoot up in weeds and flowers of a wild growth. From this, then, is seen the necessity of careful mental cultivation—a training of all the faculties in the right direction. This should be the first great object in any system of education, public or private. The value of an education depends far less upon varied and extensive acquirements than upon the cultivation of just powers of thought and the general regulation of the faculties of the understanding. That it is not the amount of knowledge, but the capacity to apply it, which promises success and usefulness in life, is a truth which can not be too often inculcated by instructors and recollected by pupils. If youths are taught how to think, they will soon learn what to think. Exercise is not more necessary to a healthful state of the body than is the employment of the various faculties of the mind to mental efficiency. The practical sciences are as barren of useful products as the speculative where facts only are the objects of knowledge, and the understanding is not habituated to a continual process of examination and reflection.
It is the trained and disciplined intellect which rules the world of literature, science, and art. It is knowledge put in action by trained mental faculties which is powerful. Knowledge merely gathered together, whether in books or in brains, is devoid of power, unless quickened into life by the thoughts and reflections of some practical worker. But when this is supplied knowledge becomes an engine of power. It is this which forms the philosopher's stone, the true alchemy, that converts every thing it touches into gold. It is the scepter that gives us our dominion over nature; the key that unlocks the storehouse of creation, and opens to us the treasures of the universe. It is this which forms the difference between savage and civilized nations, and marks the distinction between men as they appear in society. It is this which has raised men from the humblest walks of life to positions of influence and power.
The lack of mental training and discipline explains, in a large measure, why we so often meet with men who are the possessors of vast stores of erudition, and yet make a failure of every thing they try. We shall at all times chance upon men of profound and recondite acquirements, but whose qualifications, from a lack of practical application on their owners' part, are as utterly useless to them as though they had them not. A person of this class may be compared to a fine chronometer which has no hands to its dial; both are constantly right without correcting any that are wrong, and may be carried around the world without assisting one individual either in making a discovery or taking an observation. Every faculty of the mind is worthy of cultivation; indeed, all must be cultivated, if we would round and perfect our mental powers as to secure therefrom the greatest good. Memory must be ready with her stores of useful knowledge, gathered from fields far and near. She must be trained to classify and arrange them, so as to hold them in her grasp. Observation must be quick to perceive the apparently trivial events which are constantly occurring, and diligent to ascertain the cause. The judgment must pronounce its decision without undue delay; the will move to execution in accordance with the fiat of an enlightened understanding.
This work of mental training, apparently so vast, is really so pleasant and easy that it sweetens every day's life. There is no excuse for the youth who is content to grow up to mature life and its duties with a mind whose powers are untrained, and which has not received the advantages of a practical education. Some may think they are excused by poverty; but lack of means has not robbed them of a single intellectual power. On the contrary, it sharpens them all. Has poverty shut them out from nature, from truth, or from God? Wealth can not convert a dunce into a genius. Gold will not store a mind with wisdom; more likely it will fill it with folly. It may decorate the body, but it can not adorn the soul. No business is so urgent but that time may be spent in mental training. One can not well help thinking and studying; for the mind is ever active. What is needful is to direct it to proper objects and in proper channels, and it will cultivate itself. There is nothing to prevent but the will. Whoever forms a resolute determination to cultivate his mind will find nothing in his way sufficient to stop him. If he finds barriers they only strengthen him by overcoming them. Whoever lives to thirty years of age without cultivating his mind is guilty of a great waste of time. If during that period he does not form a habit of reading, of observation, and reflection, he will never form such a habit, but go through the world none the wiser for all the wonders that are spread around him. A small portion of that leisure time which by too many is given to dissipation and idleness, would enable any young man to acquire a very general knowledge of men and things. One can live a life-time and get no instruction; but as soon as he begins to look for wisdom it is given him. Even in the pursuits of practical, every-day life numberless instances are constantly arising to aid in mental training. There are few persons so engrossed by the cares and labors of their calling that they can not give thirty minutes a day to mental training; and even that time, wisely spent, will tell at the end of a year. The affections, it is well known, sometimes crowd years into moments; and the intellect has something of the same power. If you really prize mental cultivation, or are deeply anxious to do any good thing, you will find time or make time for it sooner or later, however, engrossed with other employments. A failure to accomplish it can only demonstrate the feebleness of your will, not that you lacked time for its execution.
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of reading as a means of training the mental faculties. It is by this means that you gather food for thoughts, principles, and actions. If your books are wisely selected and properly studied, they will enlighten your minds, improve your hearts, and establish your character. To acquire useful information, to improve the mind in knowledge and the heart in goodness, to become qualified to perform with honor and usefulness the duties of life, and prepare for immortality beyond the grave, are the great objects which ought to be kept in view in reading.
There are four classes of readers. The first is like the hour-glass, and, their reading being on the sand, it runs in and runs out, and leaves no vestige behind. A second is like a sponge, which imbibes every thing, and returns it in the same state, only a little dirtier. A third is like a jelly-bag, allowing all that is pure to pass away, retaining only the refuse and the dregs. The fourth is like the slaves in the diamond-mines of Golconda, who, casting away all that is worthless, obtain only pure gems.
We should read with discrimination. The world is full of books, no small portion of which are either worthless or decidedly hurtful in their tendency. And as no man has time to read every thing, he ought to make a selection of the ablest and best writers on the subjects which he wishes to investigate, and dismiss wholly from his attention the entire crowd of unworthy and useless ones. Always read with your thoughts concentrated, and your mind entirely engaged on the subject you are pursuing. Any other course tends to form a habit of desultory, indolent thought, and incapacitate the mind from confining its attention to close and accurate investigation. One book read thoroughly and with careful reflection will do more to improve the mind and enrich the understanding than skimming over the surface of a whole library. The more one reads in a busy, superficial manner, the worse. It is like loading the stomach with a great quantity of food, which lies there undigested. It enfeebles the intellect, and sheds darkness and confusion over all the operations of the mind. The mind, like the body, is strengthened by exercise, and the severer the exercise the greater the increase of strength. One hour of thorough, close application to study does more to invigorate and improve the mind than a week spent in the ordinary exercise of its powers. We should read slowly, carefully, and with reflection. We sometimes rush over pages of valuable matter because at a glance they seem to be dull, and we hurry along to see how the story, if it be a story, is to end.
At every action and enterprise ask yourself this question: What shall the consequences of this be to me? Am I not likely to repent of it? Whatever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss. Take time to deliberate and advise, but lose no time in executing your resolution. To perceive accurately and to think correctly is the aim of all mental training. Heart and conscience are more than the mere intellect. Yet we know not how much the clear, clean-cut thought, the intellectual vision, sharp and true, may aid even these. Undigested learning is as oppressive as undigested food; and, as with the dyspeptic patient, the appetite for food often grows with the inability to digest it, so in the unthinking patient an overweening desire to know often accompanies the inability to know to any purpose. To learn merely for the sake of learning is like eating merely for the taste of the food. To learn in order to become wise makes the mind active and powerful, like the body of one who is temperate and judicious in meat and drink.
Thought is to the brain what gastric juice is to the stomach—a solvent to reduce whatever is received to a condition in which all that is wholesome and nutritive may be appropriated, and that alone. Learning is healthfully digested by the mind when it reflects upon what is learned, classifies and arranges facts and circumstances, considers the relations of one to another, and places what is taken into the mind at different times in relation to the same subjects under their appropriate heads, so that the various stores are not heterogeneously piled up, but laid away in order, and may be examined with ease when wanted. This is the perfection of mental training and discipline,—memory well trained, judgment quick to act, and attention sharp to observe. We invite and urge all to turn their attention to this subject as something worthy of those endowed with reasoning powers. It is not a wearying task, but one which repays for its undertaking by making much more rich in its joys and inspiring in its hopes all the after-life of the man or woman who went forth bravely to the work which heaven has decreed as the lot of all who would enjoy the greatest good of life.
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