LETTER IX.
THE CULTIVATION OF THE MIND
(Continued.)
In continuation of my last letter, I shall proceed at once to the minor details of study, and suggest for your adoption such practices as others by experience have found conducive to improvement. Not that one person can lay down any rules for another that might in every particular be safely followed: we must, each for ourselves, experimentalize long and variously upon our own mind, before we can understand the mode of treatment best suited to it; and we may, perhaps, in the progress of such experiments, derive as much benefit from our mistakes themselves as if the object of our experiments had been at once attained. It is not, however, from wilful mistakes, or from deliberate ignorance, that we ever derive profit. Instead, therefore, of striking out entirely new plans for yourself, in which time and patience and even hope may be exhausted, I should advise you to listen for direction to the suggestions of those who by more than mere profession have frequented the road upon which you are anxious to make a rapid progress. In books you may find much that is useful; from the conversation of those who have been self-educated you may receive still greater assistance,—as the advice thus personally addressed must of course be more discriminating and special. For this latter reason, in all that I am now about to write, I keep in view the peculiar character and formation of your mind. I do not address the world in general, who would profit little by the course of education here recommended: I only write to my Unknown Friend.
In the first place, I should advise, as of primary importance, the laying down of a regular system of employment. Impose upon yourself the duty of getting through so much work every day; even, if possible, lay down a plan as to the particular period of the day in which each occupation is to be attended to; many otherwise wasted moments would be saved by having arranged beforehand that which is successively to engage the attention. The great advantage of such regularity is experienced in the acknowledged truth of Lord Chesterfield's maxim: "He who has most business has most leisure." When the multiplicity of affairs to be got through absolutely necessitates the arrangement of an appointed time for each, the same habits of regularity and of undilatoriness (if I may be allowed the expression) are insensibly carried into the lighter pursuits of life. There is another important reason for the self-imposition of those systematic habits which to men of business are a necessity; it is, however, one which you cannot at all appreciate until you have experienced its importance: I refer to the advantage of being, by a self-imposed rule, provided with an immediate object, in which the intellectual pursuits of a woman must otherwise be deficient. I would not depreciate the mightiness of "the future;"[77] but it is evident that the human mind is so constituted as to feel that motives increase in strength as they approach in nearness; otherwise, why should it require such strong faith, and that faith a supernatural gift, to enable us to sacrifice the present gratification of a moment to the happiness of an eternity. While, therefore, you seek by earnest prayer and reverential desire to bring the future into perpetually operating force upon your principles and practice, do not, at the same time, be deterred by any superstitious fears from profiting by yourself and urging on others every immediate and temporal motive, not inconsistent with the great one, "to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever."[78]
While your principal personal object and personal gratification in your studies is to be derived from the gradual improvement of your mind and tastes, this gradual improvement will be often so imperceptible that you will need support and cheering during many weeks and months of apparently profitless mental application. Such support you may provide for yourself in the daily satisfaction resulting from having fulfilled a certain task, from having obeyed a law, though only a self-imposed one. Men, in their studies, have almost always that near and immediate object which I recommend to you to create for yourself. For them, as well as for you, the distant future of attained mental eminence and excellence is indeed the principal object. They, however, have it in their power to cheat the toil and cheer the way by many intermediate steps, which serve both as landmarks in their course and objects of interest within their immediate reach. They can almost always have some special object in view, as the result and reward of the studies of each month, or quarter, or year. They read for prizes, scholarships, fellowships, &c.; and these rewards, tangibly and actually within their reach, excite their energies and quicken their exertions.
For women there is nothing of the kind; it is therefore a useful exercise of her ingenuity to invent some substitute, however inferior to the original. For this purpose, I have never found any thing so effectual as a self-imposed system of study,—the stricter the better. It is not desirable, however, that this system should be one of very constant employment; the strictness of which I spoke only refers to its regularity. As the great object is that you should break through your rules as seldom as possible, it would be better to fix the number of your hours of occupation rather below, certainly not above, your average habits. The time that may be to spare on days in which you meet with no interruption from visitors may also be systematically disposed of: you may always have some book in hand which will be ready to fill up any unoccupied moments, without, even on these occasions, wasting your time in deliberating as to what your next employment shall be.
You understand me, therefore, to recommend that those hours of the system which you are to impose upon yourself to employ in a certain manner are not to exceed the number you can ordinarily secure without interruption on every day of the week, exclusive of visitors, &c. &c. Every advantage pertaining to the system I recommend is much enhanced by the uniformity of its observance: indeed, it is on rigid attention to this point that its efficacy principally depends. I will now enter into the details of the system of study which, however modified by your own mind and habits, will, I hope, in some form or other, be adopted by you. The first arrangement of your time ought to be the laying apart of a certain period every day for the deepest thinking you can compel yourself to, either on or off book.
Having said so much on this point in my last letter, I should run the risk of repetition if I dwelt longer upon it here. I only mention it at all to give it again the most prominent position in your studies, and to recommend its invariably occupying a daily place in them. For every other pursuit, two or three times a week might answer as well, perhaps better, as it would be too great an interruption to devote to each only so short a period of time as could be allotted to it in a daily distribution. It may be desirable, before I take leave of the subject of your deeper studies, to mention here some of the books which will give you the most effectual aid in the formation of your mind.