functioning of mental processes seated in the brain, it should be manifest that these, too, should reach excellence best when they are trained by a capable hand during the formative period of early youth.

To Learn to Concentrate Keenly. Games Are the Best.-Therefore. the first fault to avoid in order to prevent neuroticism, is an inattentive slovenliness of thought and act.

The finest of all means for developing the power of attention in children are exercises and games, more especially the latter; because, if properly conducted, they counteract slipshod ways, and make for an efficiency the results of which are evident at once giving a satisfaction which sustains the attention. But even games can be psychologically harmful if they are allowed to deteriorate into an inattentive go-as you-please without zest.

Active play stimulates attention in two ways: firstly by the interest and by the pleasure of accomplishment; and secondly by the emulation of others. On account of that very interest, however, games must be used moderately, and as a means to an end, or they will speedily dwarf in the child's mind his interest in more directly useful accomplishments.

The social function of play will be spoken of when the inclinations, altruism, anger, and anxiety are discussed.

Over sustained Attention.-Every athletic trainer knows that staleness supervenes when an athlete is taxed beyond a certain point. To be stale or overdone is the colloquial expression for what physiologists would call fatigue. Now, psychologists have by experiment proved that attention is very quickly tired; and the more intense it is, the sooner it fags, even while interest is maintained. Pedagogy shows the futility of prolonging children's work beyond certain hours even for the sake of the work itself. For the sake of the child's health, physicians have long pointed out the inimicalness of artificially stimulating the interest of a fagging child.

Just as detrimental to concentration of attention as is the lack of training is the exhaustion ensuing upon an effort too sustained for the child's capacity. The maximum concentration is only possible for a very short period, and even then is proportionate to the favorableness of the conditions both bodily and psychologically. For instance, it would be very wrong to compel a child to practise concentration while his energies are engaged in the

digestion of a heavy meal, or immediately after strenuous muscular activity, or when in need of sleep. None of these wellknown dangers would be incurred by wise parents of a neurotic child.

But there is another aspect of overprolongation and insistence upon the attention of a nervous child; that is, the cultivation of an overnice or scrupulous manner of performance and of thought. The development of this quality becomes interwoven with the deepest feelings of the personality; in consequence, its avoidance had better be considered after we have discussed the relation of the feelings to neuroticism.

Overintensity. Eagerness and overintensity not only exhaust, but frequently lead to ineffective effort, a kind of stammer of movement, a lack of directness and precision. Of course this physical expression in movement is only reflection of the action of the brain which is the director of the movements, which are merely the index to wavering thought. The remedy for this condition is to insist upon deliberateness and system both in play and work. The practice of musical exercise is especially beneficial in teaching steadiness at gradually increasing velocity. The practice of recitation from memory, or the systematic relation of incidents which have happened is another useful method in the correction of this defect.

Overeagerness may lead a child to neglect his meals and sleep, so that even when there is no mental stammer, and there is a high degree of dexterity at work and play, yet nervous instability ensues on account of imperfect repair of waste. For example:

A boy of 11 (Case 84) was brought by his mother because of grimaces and nervous movements which she knew presaged a breakdown such as he had had twice before on account of which he had to spend two years away from school, rusticating. He was a boy of extraordinary capacity, far exceeding others of his age in all athletic sports, and when at school immediately springing to the top of his class. Conversation showed that he was no mere parrot, but had both common sense and poise. He even recognized his own overintensity, but his ambition made him unwilling to lay much stress upon it from fear of being kept from school and athletics.

His good sense was shown by his retaining a friendly attitude even though forbidden the competitive athletics which he loved.

This, however, was perhaps the easier as the other restrictions were minimal, consisting merely of a modification of the diet to make it accord with the principles already spoken of in the preceding part of this article, and the enforcement of a half-hour period of complete rest after meals. The object of this was twofold. First, to secure repose for digestion; and secondly, indirectly to prevent hasty eating, as when he could not go out immediately after dinner nothing was to be gained by bolting it. These simple measures produced astonishing results, the grimaces all disappearing, and the boy acquiring much greater stamina.

This boy's father is of the same temperament, a type whose mental processes are very much more rapid than the average individual's, so that in the same space of time two or three times the usual amount of work can be accomplished, at a corresponding expenditure of nerve-force.

These persons are nearly always subject to insomnia. This is not due to worry, not even to a desire to think for the pleasure of it. It is because the energies have been so actively deployed toward the cerebrum that the body processes cannot settle down to the resting pace. The condition is quite similar to that produced in most people by tea or coffee. It has, of course, a purely physical basis, and is very likely due to an overabundance of substances of internal secretion which activate the tissues as we know is done by the products of the thyroid gland, the adrenal, and the pituitary body.

In this variety of exceptional child there is need of very special treatment in the direction of shorter hours of work, and great attention to nourishment and repose. If this is not secured, the vitality needed in the struggle of life will be dispersed prematurely, and the individual will fail to complete his undertakings from lack of stamina.

The Mismanagement of Emotion, Sentiment, Desires and Inclinations.-(a) Intemperance.-An emotion is an involuntary reaction within the body itself without reaction upon the environment. For instance, the word pathos expresses the idea of a suffering of the subject without any external action. This apparent difference between emotion and action has an anatomical foundation; for motion is accomplished by contraction and relaxation of muscles in which the protoplasm (6) is arranged in

layers across the grain, and it is subject to direct control by what we express as the will; whereas emotion is accompanied by contractions and relaxations of non-striped muscle which moves only such tissues as the coats of blood-vessels, the walls of stomach, intestines, and other organs, the roots of the hair, the substances contained in the cells of the glands. So much is this so that the feeling derived from these movements is to some psychologists the emotion; and a person without these structures would feel no emotion even at the most distressing circumstances. But while the reaction of emotion cannot be influenced directly by willing it, yet it is for practical purposes under the influence of the central nervous system, that is to say, through the impressions received by the senses, the sensations of which are by association elaborated into perceptions on account of the memory of similar allied, contiguous, or contemporaneous sensations. These are abstracted into what we call ideas, and the process of elaboration is called thought.

Now, every sensation is either pleasurable, painful, or indifferent, and likewise is each percept, idea, and process of thinking. The chance of any of the latter being entirely indifferent is very small. The feeling toward a thought is a species of emotion known as feeling tone. It is a practical axiom that the feeling tone depends upon the thought of that moment, and is a condensation of the numerous feeling tones concomitant upon the episodes of which that thought is the abstraction. Which element of a thought shall preponderate is a matter of attention; and as each thought has its sombre and bright elements it may be made capable of affecting the feelings either pleasantly or unpleasantly. The popular expression, "looking at the bright side," has a real psychological foundation. By deliberate attention to the ugly or distressing aspect of the recollection of an episode, pessimistic feeling is readily induced along with its various bodily reactions, muscular relaxation, shown by sagging back and shoulders, drooping mouth, slow movements, lack of ambition, the interference with digestion and assimilation, showing themselves as indigestion, constipation, slowing of respiration, and interference with the internal secretions of the body.

On the contrary, if attention is focussed upon the pleasing or beautiful elements in the concept, a feeling of satisfaction is engendered shown by bright eyes, radiant face, brisk step, active

breathing, good digestion, and enterprising mind. The degree to which the way of looking at things can affect one's judgment is illustrated on a large scale by various associations of optimists whether these band together under a religious aspect or not.

Shakespeare has made Hamlet say: "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." This is not a mere phrase. The effect of the way of looking at things upon the bodily reactions is most profound as has been proved beyond refute by most carefully controlled experiments.

Pavloff by his experiments on the dog proved that merely showing him the whip would suppress the flow of gastric juice. The dog was a victim of his imagination, and became ill to the extent of an incapacity to secrete gastric juice, which means very ill indeed. In fact, psychogenetic physical illness of this kind may reach such a degree as to cause death, as has been experimentally shown by Crile and others.

The sufferings induced by the " gnawing fox" of the Japanese are made possible only by a deeply rooted belief in its existence. For example, a woman (Case 85) after labor declared she felt the "fox coming"; this was her interpretation of the after pains she felt. The great parade of the neighbors in attempting to prevent the "fox's "attack only reinforced the patient's apprehension, and soon a horrible convulsion signalized her seizure by the fox. Terror and convulsions held her until the exorciser was called. He declared that the fox would leave her at four o'clock the next day provided certain offerings were placed on a certain tomb for it to eat. This simple suggestion caused her to dismiss her terror suddenly at the hour designated. The crudeness of the mechanism (7) in the case of this ignorant Oriental need not make us smile, for some of our Western cases are very little better.

The following case illustrates the mechanics of tics (8) and insomnia by suggestion.

A child had a series of tics consisting of smacking the lips (Case 86) and bending down, touching the floor, resulting from her desire to avoid hurting others with her breath which she believed was noxious, and to avoid hurting the floor with her hard heels. Therefore, she applied the "healing kiss" to the air which she expired, and the " healing touch" to the floor. After these had been removed through sanatorium treatment she was