THE HYGIENE OF THE MIND AND ITS RELATION TO THE PHYSICAL HEALTH
Heredity; Temperament; Social Instincts; Fear.
Mental Development; Self-control, the Moral Sense, the Religions
Instincts; the Advantages of College Life; Balance of the Mental
Faculties; the Effects of the Higher Education of Women.
The Environment; the Choice of Friends; Literature.
The Power of the Will or Inhibition; the Effect of the Mental
Attitude on the Physical Health; A Definite Occupation a Physical
Necessity; the Psychology of Success.
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.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] “Education as the Controlling Factor in the Physical Life of
Woman,” Four Epochs of Woman’s Life.
[6] “Sex and Society.”