The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1911. MENTAL EFFICIENCY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 56, 20 October 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1911. MENTAL EFFICIENCY.

A writer in the “Outlook” tells us that efficiency is one of the words of the moment. It has caught the popular attention and stands for a real advance in business methods. Continuing, it is asked if a good many people are not beginningto wonder whether there is also a higher efficiency than they have obtained in their intellectual life. Owing, among other causes, to the vivacity, so to speak, of the climate, to the easy-going habits of most of their preparatory schools, to the still easier-going habits of most American homes in the dealing of parents with children, and to the intellectual vice of excessive newspaper-reading, Americans have developed quickness at the expense of strength, and superficial area of information at the expense of depth of knowledge. It is not difficult in any field to count a long list of efficient men and women who could deal strongly with actual conditions; it is not easy in any field to count five or six who have mastered the principles and are qualified to study the philosophy of action in that field. A great part of this'value of attaining an object is securing discipline by the way, and any one who arrives at the and and escapes the discipline finds himself in possession of the material without the skill with which it can ho used effectively. Mental efficiency, above all things, involves avoidance of shot cuts as fatal to real efficiency which comes only as a result of discipline. Some time ago Mr Arnold Bennett, tli o novelist, pu'olidicd a little book, “How to Live on Twentyfour Hours a Day,” a kind of . practi-

cal manual on the use of time. This book he has now supplemented by* •in essay on “Mental Efficinecy.” Mr Bennett is both interesting and veracious. He makes no promises, and holds out no inducements which do not involve good, honest co-operation on his readers’ part. He reports some interesting letters which he has received from readers on this subject, which betray the consciousness of being mentally less than efficient, and of being quite eager to reinforce mental action by a “course of treatment for the mind.” Mr Bennett makes simo very simple and obvious, but much-needed, suggestions. “The greatnumber of us,” writes one correspondent, “are in a state of semi-slumber, with minds which arc only exerted to one-half of their capability.” Another correspondent admits the conlit ion and suggests that one of the

host euros for mental sedentariness is arithmetic; which for most people beyond school-days would be like the advice to take a hateful medicine. All sm ts of pleasant remedies have been proposed, none of which afford the slightest hope, because they are all attempts to get round the inevitable discipline. One correspondent writes to Mr Bennett: “Till a man has got his physical brain completely under

control—suppressing its too great receptivity, its tendencies to reproduce id'y ititie thoughts of others, and to he swayed hy every passing gust of emotion—i hold that lie cannot do a

tenthfp.irt of the work that he would then be able to perform with little or no, effort. . . Mental efficiency can ‘Jjc gained by constant practice in modulation—hy concentrating the mind,.'say, for hut ten minutes daily, hut fwitn absolute regularity, on some of the highest thoughts of which it is capable. Failures will he frequent, but they must he regarded with simplo indifference and dogged persevere face in the path chosen. If the path ho followed without intermission even for a few weeks, the results will speak for themselves.” This is, apparently the gist of the whole matter; a plain signboard on the road which he who runs may read: There is no <short cut to the mastery and freeniso of the body. Only-by persistent exercise, which may be slight in time and moderate in quantity, but which jhnist ho regular and persistent, is it-ltd be obtained. In like manner, one gets the free use of his fnind only by persistent exercise.