CONCENTRATION.
MEMORY GEMS.
Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties.—Smiles
He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither.—Franklin
The important thing in life is to have a great aim and the determination
to attain it.—Goethe
A healthy definite purpose is a remedy for a thousand ills.
—O. S. Marden
The evidence of superior genius is the power of intellectual
concentration.—B. R. Hayden
Concentration begins with the habit of attention. The highest success in learning depends on the power of the learner to command and hold his own attention,—on his ability to concentrate his thought on the subject before him. By the words "habit of attention," we do not mean here the outward, respectful attitude of a docile pupil who listens when his teacher speaks, but something much rarer, much more important, and far more difficult of attainment. We mean that power of the mind by which a person is able to give an intelligent account of what is said, whether in conversation, in lecture, or in sermon; which enables him to grasp at one reading the important points of a problem or a paragraph; and which makes it possible for a student or a reader to so concentrate his attention on what he is doing as to be entirely oblivious, so long as it does not concern him, of what is going on around him.
This is the age of concentration or specialization of energy. The problem of the day is to get ten-horse power out of an engine that shall occupy the space of a one-horse power engine, and no more. Just so society demands a ten-man power out of one individual. It crowns the man who knows one thing supremely, and can do it better than anybody else, even if it be only the art of raising turnips. If he raises the best turnips by reason of concentrating all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor to the race, and is recognized as such. The giants of the race have been men of concentration, who have struck all their blows in one place until they have accomplished their purpose. The successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose. "Scatteration" is the curse of American business life. Too many are like Douglas Jerrold's friend, who could converse in twenty-four languages, but had no ideas to express in any one of them.
"The weakest living creature," says Carlyle, "by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something; whereas the strongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind."