t they are not at times desirable. But they do
not of themselves generate earnest thought. The vacant mind, that has
not yet learned to think, is when thus left to solitude and stillness,
quite as likely to go a wool-gathering, or to fall asleep, as to wrestle
with some hard uninviting train of thought. The appliances and the
invitations to mental application, if we have really learned to study,
must be mainly in ourselves, not in our surroundings. Besides, the
greater part of the actual thinking and study, that has to be done by
those in professional life, that will have to be done by you, when you
enter upon the practice of your profession as a teacher, must be done in
circumstances not of your own choosing, just as time and opportunity may
offer, by snatches, and at odd intervals, and often in the midst of
distracting sights and sounds. I venture to say that three fourths of
the graduates of this school, who are now teaching, have no opportunity
for daily study and preparation for the duties of the school-room,
except that afforded by a seat in the evening in the common sitting-room
of the family, surrounded by children that are not always models of
behavior, and within sight and hearing of all the petty details of
household life. It is not therefore in itself undesirable that a part at
least of your study at school should be performed in a common room,
where there are some temptations to be resisted, some distractions to be
ignored. Acquiring the ability to study without distraction in the
presence of others and in the midst even of confusion and noise, is as
important to you as is the learning how to think aloud, in the presence
of a class, which I have defined to be the true nature of a recitation.
The ability to study and the ability to recite are intimately
correlated, and the symptoms of both are unmistakable to the practised
eye and ear. I know just as well, by a glance of the eye on entering a
study-room, what pupils are making intellectual growth, as I do on
entering the class-room and listening to the recitations. One might as
well feign to be in a fever, as to feign study. Nothing but the thing
itself can assume its appearance.

5. I approach my next subject of remark with some hesitation. Yet on no
point, in the whole theory of mental action, have I a more fixed and
assured conviction. Perhaps I may explain my meaning better, if I
introduce it with one or two comparisons.

Action of every kind, mental or