Heredity; Temperament; Social Instincts; Fear.
Mental Development; Self-control, the Moral Sense, the Religions Instincts; the Advantages of College Life; Balance of the Mental Faculties; the Effects of the Higher Education of Women.
The Environment; the Choice of Friends; Literature.
The Power of the Will or Inhibition; the Effect of the Mental Attitude on the Physical Health; A Definite Occupation a Physical Necessity; the Psychology of Success.
The solidarity of brain and mind is an axiom of modern medicine, and it is a fundamental principle that must be kept constantly in view in all physical and mental training. Hitherto unsoundness, inefficiency, and weakness of mind have only been lightly touched upon in preventive medicine, but the importance of the mind as the chief factor in health and disease is so paramount that it can no longer be ignored.
The problems that present themselves to the mother and the educator to-day are practically the same, and the mother is one of the most potent educators that we have—how the mind can best be strengthened, broadened, and be made the most efficient working instrument possible through the application of modern scientific and physiologic knowledge. These are questions of vital importance to the human race.
Heredity.—Holmes says: “Each one of us is only the footing up of a double column of figures that goes back to the first pair. Every unit tells, and some of them are plus and some of them are minus. We are mainly nothing but the answer to a long sum in addition and subtraction. Slight obliquities are what we most have to do with in education.”
There are certain hereditary predispositions that will develop under certain conditions; some of them are good, some are evil; that is, with the natural development of the mind, certain peculiarities of the ancestors will be reproduced. The problems suggested are how the mind can best be developed, educated, and trained, so that hereditary weaknesses may be counteracted or held in abeyance, and that latent hereditary talents may be discovered and developed.
The first proposition that we have to face is that like produces like. There are modes of education, of conduct in life, and of occupation that should be avoided where a boy or girl is handicapped by a bad heredity. There are special precautions and attention to physiologic laws which would save the minds of many young men and women with a bad heredity from passing into a state of inefficiency and actual disease. Heredity implies only potentiality toward good or evil, and the latter may be averted by knowledge and the proper practice.
Temperament.—This comprises the general make up of the individual, the shape of the head, the appearance of the eyes, the mobility of the features, the texture of the hair and skin, and the kind of movement. The recognition of the kind of temperament, and a suitable training for its best development, is of the greatest importance in attaining good health and success in life.