is literally true that the world looks brighter in the morning. The carefully observed results of fatigue in man all emphasize the wisdom of prompt heeding of the warnings of weariness, and the necessity of alternating periods of work and rest for both mental and moral health. Mosso's observations showed that "fatigue causes many strange phenomena: color-blindness, involuntary movements, hysterical symptoms, amorousness, hallucinations, prolonged after-images, and almost every kind of subjective and objective symptoms, suggesting the weaker parts of body or mind." The mental symptoms in normal fatigue, as noted by Dr. Cowles, are "loss of power of memory1; sense of perception less acute; association centers less spontaneous, and therefore slower 2; the vocabulary diminishes; lowering of emotional tone; the attention unstable and flickering." These are the symptoms which the rational man ought to note as indicating that he is falling below his best, and he ought to plan to get back as promptly as possible to that best. The secret of the finest and the largest 1 Corning says that the fluctuations of memory may be taken as a kind of barometer of the sanitary condition of the mind. Brain Exhaustion, p. 71. 2 Cf. Royce, Op. cit., p. 217. work is to keep persistently at one's best. "Renewed power comes after rest and sleep." "But when the process of restoration is continuously incomplete, pathological fatigue or neurasthenia is the result." Fatigue is, therefore, not merely physically uncomfortable; it is intellectually and morally dangerous, and it makes temptations possible that have cost many a man his character. The record of Saturday nights in this world of ours would make tragic reading. Germany may be said to have a practically national problem, that turns on the use of Saturday night. These facts help one to see why Mosso should insist that "the work done by a fatigued muscle (and the same law seems to hold for brain action) injures it far more than the same work under normal conditions"; for "half of a given quantity of work does not require half of a given time for rest." "A man's efficiency, then, depends upon his habits of mental thrift." Men evidently vary considerably in the promptness with which the nerve - cells recover from fatigue. Every man must find for himself his best periods of work and rest; but having found his individual law, he should remember that there is no gain but only loss in work undertaken contrary to that law. In a word, self-control lies at the very basis of character, and of all achievement, intellectual or moral; the chief psychical condition of self-control is power of attention; attention is the chief factor in mental fatigue; the chief bodily condition of power of attention is, therefore, surplus nervous energy; and the conditions of surplus nervous energy are plain-food, rest, recreation, sleep, and especially avoidance of every species of excess, particularly emotional excess. And these conditions are largely within our control. Even sleep is largely under control of the will, and the world's best workers know this. Bodily conditions rightly observed can mightily help both intellectual and moral efficiency. The religious life, least of all, with its belief in God as creator of both body and mind and expressing himself in their laws, can ignore these facts. While recognizing clearly that these are not all, nor the most important conditions, it will still, in subordination to the higher interests, be loyally obedient to these lesser laws. The spirit of obedience is best seen, often, in fidelity in the littles. How dear a price, in the spiritual life, has often been paid for the ignoring of this first plain physical condition of selfcontrol! We must persistently aim, then, at surplus nervous energy, at what Emerson calls "plus health." And in no calling is this more imperative than in teaching, especially in the teaching of little children. It is the special prerogative of the child to see things freshly. If one is to be able to put himself at the child's point of view and see for him, one requires, above all, freshness - freshness of body, mind, and spirit. He must be neither strained nor fagged. This demands plus health. Dr. Munger makes the same suggestion for the ministry in the order of the words in the felicitous title of an important address to theological students, "Health, Vitality, Inspiration." "If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them." As Dr. Gulick says of his "Ten Minutes' Exercise for Busy Men": "Exercise every day. If you don't you cannot say that it is a failure, you are the failure." Herbert Spencer, broken down with nervous exhaustion, made his farewell address to Americans on "The Gospel of Recreation." Sydenham, author of a valuable treatise on gout, Lagrange says, "suffered from his first attack immediately on finishing his book." Knowing the truth, unfortunately, is not doing it. Americans, especially, need Spencer's warnings, since no nation so persistently disregards these facts. For neurasthenia is a peculiarly American disease; some have even ventured to call it Americanitis. There are natural reasons for this condition, indeed, but they do not lessen the danger. One factor-that is at the same time both cause and symptom-is our nervous over-activity and tendency to repeated changes of occupation. But it should not be forgotten that this persistent disregard of nervous conditions both makes impossible our intellectual supremacy as a nation and increases enormously the difficulties of our moral problems. The greatest things cannot be possible to a people that is living on its nerves. Intellectual supremacy and moral leadership for a people requires long-continued labor on the part of many individuals. There is incalculable loss in the constant changing of intellectual leaders. We may well wonder if we are not attempting to live at a pace that gives |