122 PSTCIIOLOOY. 



the period below twenty is more important still for tlie fix- 

 ing of personal habits, properly so called, such as vocaliza- 

 tion and pronunciation, gesture, motion, and address. 

 Hardly ever is a language learned after twenty spoken 

 without a foreign accent ; hardly ever can a youth trans- 

 ferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and 

 other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of 

 his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how 

 much money there be in his pocket, can he even learn to 

 dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their 

 wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest * swell,' but he 

 simply cannot buy the right things. An invisible law, as 

 strong as gravitation, keeps him within his orbit, arrayed 

 this year as he was the last ; and how his better-bred 

 acquaintances contrive to get the things they wear will be 

 for him a mystery till his dying day. 



T]ie_great thing, then, in all education, is to make our 

 nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund 

 and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the 

 interest of the fund. For_this ice must make aidomatic and 

 habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actioois as tve can, 

 and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to 

 be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the 

 plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can 

 hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more 

 our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own 

 proper work. Th^-e is no more miserable human being 

 than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and 

 for whom the ligliting of every cigar, the drinking of every 

 cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and 

 the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express 

 volitional deliberation, jyull half the time of such a man 

 goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought 

 to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his 

 consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet 

 ingrained in any one of my readers, let him begin this very 

 hour to set the matter right. 



In Professor Bain's chapter on 'The Moral Habits' 

 there are some admirable practical remarks laid down. 

 Two great maxims emerge from his treatment. T he fir^ t 



