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from these simple responses. However, biologists and psychol- 

 ogists agree that it is only carrying a little further this matter of 

 response to a stimuli: It is held by some people that most of 

 our everyday actions, of which we do not think, are due to reac- 

 tions to certain stimuli. Most of the acts which we perform 

 during a day's work are the results of the automatic working of 

 various parts of our body. The heart pumps the blood which 

 circulates its load of food, oxygen, and wastes ; the movements 

 of breathing are performed; the kidneys and skin discharge the 

 wastes from the body; and the nerves carry messages to and 

 from the brain. These many complicated acts go on every day 

 within the body and are seemingly undirected, but they are in 

 reality under the control of the autonomic nervous system. 



On the other hand, the body may also be influenced by what 

 goes on around it. Our entire day at school may be colored by 

 what happened at the breakfast table. Or suppose we oversleep, 

 eat our breakfast hastily, run to school, reaching there a few 

 minutes late, and therefore are marked tardy. This sequence 

 of events will influence our entire day. The digestive glands 

 in the stomach have not been properly stimulated, due to our 

 hastily eaten breakfast. Certain internal secretions of the glands, 

 poured into the blood when we ran to school and when we were 

 declared late, might arouse our emotions, and cause us to do and 

 say many things for which we would probably be sorry later. 

 All of the actions were really initiated through changes in our 

 environment. The fact that we overslept made breakfast later, 

 our hurry made school seem further away, the closed door gave 

 us a decided jolt and changed the smooth running of our nervous 

 machine. So conditions do modify our life activities. 



Most of our activities are habits ; that is, we have learned to 

 do them so well that we can now do them without thinking. 

 Habits may be broken, but to do this we must become conscious 

 of them, and earnestly try to break them. Either we shall become 

 slaves to habits or habits will serve us. That is the thing that 

 every person should realize while still in high school. Later, good 

 habits cannot be acquired or bad habits cannot be broken so easily 

 and one will eventually become conquered by his habits. 

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