Help a child to use his own ability of gaining free muscles, nerves
clear to take impressions through every sense, a mind open to
recognize them, and a will alive with interest in and love for
finding the best in each new sensation or truth, and what can he not
reach in power of use to others and in his own growth.
The consistency of creation is perfect. The law that applies to the
guidance of the muscles works just as truly in training the senses
and the mind.
A new movement can be learned with facility in proportion to the
power of dropping at the time all impressions of previous movements.
Quickness and keenness of sense are gained only in proportion to the
power of quieting the senses not in use, and erasing previous
impressions upon the sense which is active at the time.
True concentration of mind means the ability to drop every subject
but that centred upon. Tell one man to concentrate his mind on a
difficult problem until he has worked it out,--he will clinch his
fists, tighten his throat, hold his teeth hard together, and
contract nobody knows how many more muscles in his body, burning and
wasting fuel in a hundred or more places where it should be saved.
This is _not_ concentration. Concentration means the focussing of a
force; and when the mathematical faculty of the brain alone should
be at work, the force is not focussed if it is at the same time
flying over all other parts of the body in useless strain of
innumerable muscles.
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