"coronation." But this
constant stream of thought can be broken into at any point by a spoken
word, a passing vehicle, which diverts the mind's trend. So the nurse
can take advantage of the mind's very suggestibility, and substitute for
the unhappy and sickness breeding by turning attention to anything else
of a happier color, and may divert the entire stream of thought in that
direction. She who knows these simple laws of the mind, and who at all
knows people, is a therapeutic agent of unlimited value.

HABIT IS A CONSERVER OF EFFORT

It is always easier to follow a beaten path than to break one's way
through untrodden forests. It is easier to walk after we "learn how,"
and learning how is simply doing it over and over until the legs and
feet have acquired habits of motion and accommodation to distances and
to what is underfoot. It is easy to do anything after we have done it
again and again, so that it has become second-nature, and
"second-nature" is habit. The wise man early forms certain habits of
personal care, of eating, sleeping, exercising; of study, of meeting the
usual occurrences of life. The first day he spent at anything new was a
hard one. Nothing was done naturally. Active attention had to be keenly
held to each detail. He had to learn where things belonged, how to do
this and that for the first time, how to work with his associates.

Do you remember the first hospital bed you ever made, the first bed-bath
you gave, the first massage? You had to be taught bit by bit, detail by
detail. You did not look upon the finished whole, but gave almost
painful attention to each step that led to the made bed, the completed
bath, or the given massage. Your fingers were probably all thumbs unless
you had experience in such things before you came to the hospital. Your
mind was tired from the strain of trying to remember each suggestion of
your instructor. The second time, or certainly the third or fourth time,
it went better. After a week of daily experience you gave the bath or
massage or made the bed with much less effort. A month later the work
was practically automatic and accomplished in a fraction of the time you
spent on it that first day. Now you can do it quickly and well with
little conscious thought; and at the same time carry on a brisk
conversation with your patient or think out your work for the day. Your
mind is free for other thoughts while you perform the task easily and
perfectly. Your method of d