164 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION J. 
method, that is, a habit of functioning always in a certain 
manner. It is one of the inherent qualities of the living tissues 
of the body to function in a certain manner after a certain 
number of repetitions of a stimuli, and they acquire a habit. 
These habits of functioning in tissues are often apparent after 
attacks of disease, and especially so in patients of an unstable 
nervous constitution. In these cases, after the disease has dis- 
appeared, certain tissues will persist in continuing to function 
as though they were still subject to the morbid influence. This 
in its essential characters constitutes what is called memory. As 
the period of life of this second lustrum is characterised by great 
plasticity in the tissues of the cortex, and perceptions are vivid, 
it is pre-eminently suited for the organising of dogmatic and 
axiomatic truths. As Bain writes in Hducation as a Science :— 
“It is specially interesting to view this plastic moment 
with reference to moral impressions. Commands, maxims, 
verbal directions are all well laid up in the memory; even the 
more difficult doctrines of religion may find a lifelong lodgment 
by being iterated at this period. . . . We must also look 
at the dispositions to obedience, the cultivation of the affections 
and sympathies, and the foresight of remote consequences.” 
The habits of method or proper sequence would still be 
largely of an intelligent, rather than of a reasoning nature, and 
the amount of their acquisition will depend on the natural in- 
herent quality of the brain tissue of the particular individual. 
If they are to rise to a higher psychic value than the intelligent 
actions of animals, it is necessary that they should become sub- 
ject to the influence of the “will.” What is meant by “ will” 
might be expressed by another word, namely, “inhibition.” It 
is a well-known fact in physiology that one nervous functioning 
has the power of inhibiting another, either altogether or by 
directing it into another channel. A familar example of inhibi- 
tion is the prevention of sneezing, which is simply a reflex action 
resulting from irritation of the nasal mucous membrane. The 
incipient sneeze can be at once arrested by placing the finger 
on the upper lip at its junction with the septum of the nose. 
This is not a mental act, but physically is analogous to what 
occurs in the cortex when an act of volition is performed. This 
laying down of the foundation of a discriminative mental atti- 
tude should be of great value in the subsequent efforts at reason- 
ing, or the forming of concepts. The educational scope of this 
lustrum is the forming of perceptions, the acquirement of 
knowledge in the concrete, the acquirement of habits of methods 
and proper sequence by the cultivation of the power of inhibi- 
tion, or willing. In other words, as the lustrum of general 
training. 
The third lustrum is characterised anatomically by the de- 
delopment of intra-associated connections, allowing of still more 
