Worry and anxiety interfere with the one as much
as with the other. If you can drop a muscle when you have ceased
using it, that leads to the power of dropping a subject in mind; as
the muscle is fresher for use when you need it, so the subject seems
to have grown in you, and your grasp seems to be stronger when you
recur to it.
The law of rhythm must be carefully followed in this training for
the use of the mind. Do not study too long at a time. It makes a
natural reaction impossible. Arrange the work so that lessons as far
unlike as possible may be studied in immediate succession. We help
to the healthy reaction of one faculty, by exercising another that
is quite different.
This principle should be inculcated in classes, and for that purpose
a regular programme of class work should be followed, calculated to
bring about the best results in all branches of study.
The first care should be to gain quiet, as through repose of mind
and body we cultivate the power to "erase all previous impressions."
In class, quiet, rhythmic breathing, with closed eyes, is most
helpful for a beginning. The eyes must be closed and opened slowly
and gently, not snapped together or apart; and fifty breaths, a
little longer than they would naturally be, are enough to quiet a
class.
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