hould so train the mind that we can think about the thing only of
which we wish to think, concentrate our whole mind upon it till the
time comes to put it away; then dismiss it in a moment, turn to
something else, and think no more about it, till its proper time. The
mind is soon trained to pass from one subject to another in a moment,
with all its powers of concentration. This mastery of the mind, once
attained, will enable us to study at all times and places regardless of
circumstances. The man who can not study amid the wild shouts of the
excited multitude is not his own master. He who can command his time
and his talents only when no surging billows beat against his quiet
retreat, has necessarily to spend much of life in which he has neither
time nor talents which he can call his own. A very important item,
then, in the economy of time, is to learn to labor under difficulties,
till we rise superior to external surroundings. To keep the reins of
the mind well in hand when there is a stampede all around us, is
absolutely essential in the great crises of life. This is attained only
by training the mind to instantaneous concentration under all
circumstances. This, then, I would urge you to persist in until it is
accomplished. Without this you will lose much time in acquiring
information, and, what is of vastly more importance, you will be
unprepared to use what you have at the very time, it may be, when it is
most needed.

Another important element in the economy of time we learn from the
great Teacher who said, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be
lost." If He who had the power to create as well as to preserve, was
such an economist of the remnants of loaves and fishes, how much more
should we save the fragments of time, which we can not lengthen out a
span?

Many people seem to think they can make garments only out of whole
cloth. If they have not an abundance of uninterrupted time in which to
accomplish a thing, they think they can not accomplish it at all. Such
men accomplish but little, not for want of time, but for want of its
economy. To avoid this waste, we must learn to weave whole garments out
of the mere ravelings of the fabric of time. But some complain that
they can not "get up steam" for intellectual labor in these fractions
of time. We don't need to "get up steam." The "steam" should be already
up. We only need to change the gearing. "There is a momentum in the
active man," says Mathews, "which of