O'SHEA — ASPECTS OF MENTAL ECONOMY. 191 



attention absolutely to the task in hand. He should put out of 

 sight and hearing every stimulus which tends to distract atten- 

 tion. One cannot urge too strongly the desirability of fraterni- 

 ties and rooming houses having a rigid law that during certain 

 study periods there shall be a gag on every mouth and a mill- 

 stone attached to every heel. 



A large number of our students — over forty per cent. — re- 

 ported that their study periods are interrupted ; some have only a 

 very brief period during which they are certain of being unmo- 

 lested. Five reported one hour that could be given without in- 

 terruption to study; twenty-two, two hours; forty-seven, three 

 hours ; fifty-four hours ; thirty, five hours ; twenty-eight, six 

 hours ; thirteen, seven hours ; five, eight hours ; one, nine hours. 

 Engineers have little time that is given uninterruptedly to study 

 aside from their laboratory work. This report indicates a need 

 of reform, for more reasons than one, too. It has already been 

 said that interruption involves waste; but it has an even more 

 serious psychological effect. In order to discover the deeper re- 

 lationships existing between ideas in any field one must have 

 long periods for reflection. It is to be feared that many of our 

 students do not have leisure to explore the depths of the subject 

 which they study; they simply attach ideas to the mind in a 

 sort of tangential fashion through the exercise of the verbal 

 memory. Reason seems to prosper only in relatively long per- 

 iods of application, while the mechanical memory may utilize 

 profitably mere snatches of time. 



While economy demands uninterrupted periods for study, yet 

 this does not mean that the student should apply himself five or 

 six or seven hours without any relaxation. On the contrary 

 investigations by Burgerstein, 1 Holmes, 2 Kraeplin, 3 and others 

 show that greater progress is made in the intellectual operations 

 if attention be not constrained to a given task beyond the point 

 of fatigue. 4 If at the approach of fatigue the attention be re- 

 leased for a time it will return with renewed vigor and in the 



l Ped. Sem., June, 1892, pp. 60, et. seq. 



s Ped. Sem., Vol. Ill, pp. 213-234. 



^Loc. cit. 



«Cf. Newsholme op. cit., p. 66. Also Kotelmann, School Hygiene, Chap. XIII. 



