UNIVERSITY BEF0BM8 55 



stocks in the educational shop, still more food is prescribed. The bad 

 mental habits become worse and the only redeeming feature is that, in 

 the attempt to get a general culture, so many different kind of piUs 

 are prescribed that the fatal dose of any one is never administered. 



When the mental balance of an individual becomes so distorted that 

 the currents of thought always run in certain grooves, from which they 

 never emerge and there seems to be no hope of readjustment, such 

 a person is said to be the subject of " fixed ideas " and then the educa- 

 tor is only too anxious to disclaim all responsibility in the patient and 

 shift it to the alienist. In view of the fact that more and more 

 emphasis is being placed by prominent authorities on edmcational sub- 

 jects upon the necessity of insisting upon the importance of the forma- 

 tion of good mental habits, we may ask whether any well-organized 

 effort is being made by the universities to determine the conditions 

 upon which the greatest efficiency of brain activity depends; and then 

 to use this knowledge to arouse and train the potential mental capacity 

 of the students, so as to produce men with sound minds and sound 

 bodies. 



When we approach the discussion of our subject from this stand- 

 point, it is quite obvious that the first and most important questions to 

 be asked relate to the methods to be adopted in training the brain ; and 

 second, and quite incidental, to the character of the information to be^ 

 imparted. It is the first of these two subjects that we shall con- 

 cern ourselves at present. No matter how much we may differ as to 

 'the value of educational ideals, all are pretty well agreed that there 

 are certain definite readily recognized qualities of mind possessed by 

 the educated person. First, there is general intelligence with a marked 

 degree of associative memory, a certain poise or balance commonly 

 designated as good judgment and a tentative rather than a fixed atti- 

 tude towards knowledge, a capacity for concentrating the attention, 

 a quota of emotional activity well under control and a dominant will. 

 Science has taught us that these mental traits are an expression of the 

 functions of the nervous system, and in order to understand them 

 properly, they should be studied as the quantitative and qualitative 

 measure of the individual capacity of the brain. No intelligent person 

 to-day questions the fact that the more marked anomalies of cerebral 

 function, as seen in idiocy, imbecility and the various forms of psycho- 

 ses, can be analyzed and correctly interpreted only by those who have 

 had the requisite special training and experience in connection with 

 the study of the brain. With a singular disregard for logic and com- 

 mon sense, many intelligent persons assume that special skill and 

 experience is not necessary in order to analyze the subtler and less 

 defined anomalies of conduct as revealed in the daily life of normal 

 individuals; nor is any intimate knowledge of the structure and func- 



