School-teachers are prone to believe
themselves worn out from the mental work and the strain of the
strenuous life of teaching. Many a fine, conscientious teacher has
come to me with this story of overwork. But the school-teacher is as
easily re-educated as is any one else. I usually begin the process by
stating that I taught school myself for ten years and can speak from
experience. After I explain that there is no physical reason why the
teachers of some cities are fagged out at the end of nine months while
those in other cities whose session is longer can hold on for ten
months, and stenographers who lead just as strenuous a life manage to
exist with only a two-weeks' vacation, they begin to see that perhaps
after all they have been fooling themselves by a suggestion, "setting"
themselves for just so long and expecting to be done up at the end of
the term. Many of these same teachers have gone back to their work
with a new sense of "enough and to spare" and some of them have
written back that they have passed triumphantly through especially
trying years with no sense of depletion.

In any work, it is the feeling of strain which tells, the emotionalism
and feeling sorry for oneself because one has a hard job. It is
wonderful what a sense of power comes from the simple idea that we are
equal to our tasks.

=Sudden Relief.= The story of Mr. V. illustrates Professor James's
statement that often the fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical
point, and then suddenly passes away. Mr. V. was another patient who
was "physically exhausted." When the rest of "the family" went
clamming on the beach, he felt himself too weak for such exertions, so
I left him on the sand to hold the bag while the rest of us dug for
clams. The minute I turned my back he disappeared. I found him lying
flat on his back, resting, behind the bulk-head. I decided that he
needed the two-mile walk home and we all set out to walk. "Doctor,
this is cruel. It is dangerous. My knees can never stand this. I shall
be ill!" ran the constant refrain for the first mile. Then things went
a bit better. Toward the last he found, to his absolute astonishment,
that the fatigue had entirely rolled away. The last half-mile he
accomplished with perfect ease. Needless to say, he never again
complained of physical exhaustion.

=False Neuritis.= Miss T. was suffering from fatigue and very severe
pains in her arms, pains which were supposed to be the result of real
neur