e of
mental efficiency is to assume an attitude of interestedness. This is
an emotional state and we have seen that emotion calls forth great
energy.

A final aid in promoting increase of energy is that gained through
stimulating ideas. Other things being equal, the student who is
animated by a stimulating idea works more diligently and effectively
than one without. The idea may be a lofty professional ideal; it may be
a desire to please one's family, a sense of duty, or a wish to excel.
Whatever it is, an idea may stimulate to extraordinary achievements.
Adopt some compelling aim if you have none. A vocational aim often
serves as a powerful incentive throughout one's student life. An idea
may operate for even more transient purposes; it may make one oblivious
to present discomfort to a remarkable degree. This is accomplished
through the aid of suggestion. When feelings of fatigue approach, you
may ward them off by resolutely suggesting to yourself that you are
feeling fresh.

Above all, the will is effective in lifting one to higher levels of
efficiency. It is notorious that a single effort of the will, "such as
saying 'no' to some habitual temptation or performing some courageous
act, will launch a man on a higher level of energy for days and weeks,
will give him a new range of power. 'In the act of uncorking the
whiskey bottle which I had brought home to get drunk upon,' said a man
to me, 'I suddenly found myself running out into the garden, where I
smashed it on the ground. I felt so happy and uplifted after this act,
that for two months I wasn't tempted to touch a drop.'" But the results
of exertions of the will are not usually so immediate, and you may
accept it as a fact that in raising yourself to a higher level of
energy you cannot do it by a single effort. Continuous effort is
required until the higher levels of energy have _formed the habit_ of
responding when work is to be done. In laying the burden upon Nature's
mechanism of habit, you see you are again face to face with the
proposition laid down at the beginning of the book--that education
consists in the process of forming habits of mind. The particular habit
most important to cultivate in connection with the production of
second-wind is the habit of resisting fatigue. Form the habit of
persisting in spite of apparent obstacles and limitations. Though they
seem almost unsurmountable, they are really only superficial. Buried
deep within you are stores o