St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1889-01-26
MENTAL LAZiNESS.
Inability to Acquire knowledge Due On
to SlOthsul Habits.

to Slothsal Habits.
We doubt If even thoughtful En-
glishmen. apart always from a limited
class of experienced and observant
teachers. are at all aware Of the extent
to which many more women are
swayed by what is really nothing but
mental laziness. Numbers of them
positively will not apply their minds at
all preferring any consequences which
may result from ignorance and emerge
from school as ignorant as fishes, while
still larger classes, possibly even
a majority, betray the same
impulse as regards particular sub
jects. Men are constantly heard to st-
firm in confidential moments that they
literally ''can not acquire this or that
ordinary branch Of knowledge, while
they do learn at the very same time
things much more difficult. and requir-
ing precisely the same kind of mental
capacities. Hundreds of men will pro-
fess positively inability to learn the
commonest facts relating to any
science but their own. even when their
own is kindred to the one discussed;
while thousands of women will calcu-
late accurately all the measure
ments necessary for n dress, a
really difficult process il accuracy is to
be attained. and then declare unblush-
ingly that they can not, no they can
not understand rule-of-three, or calcu-
late Mr.. Goschen's interest in their
own fortunes. Half the men in the
world who are not sensitive to music
think it an impOssibility for them to
learn to read musical notation; and we
have heard man. not without power
of reasoning and with a special apti-
tude for mental arithmetic, de-
clare that n thousand years OF tuition
would nos enable him to comprehend a
quadratic equation. Indeed, it is one
of the phenomena of mental laziness
that 1t often reveals itself in its ac,ltest
form in the naturally able, and that it
is the reasoner who is most daunted by
particular set Of syllogisms, not one
whit more difficult than those he has
already mastered. The inability is
not positive. but only relative. and is
produced either by what we call want
of interest in the subject. which may
be either instructive or natural
or by a sense OF pain in the effort, that,
like the pain to the arms in swimming.
can be overcome only by frequent and
continuous practice. If the necessity
is peremptory, the inability speedily
disappears, and that often in a wcy
which at once indicates its source. 1t
does not disappear gradually; it lasts.
apparently, as insuperable as ever. up
to a definable moment; and then,
presto! it is gone never to return. The
truth is. enough has been learned to
awaken uncOnsciOusly the faculty Of at
tcntion, or. in other words. TO take away
the pain OF it. and then the natural
power has its full swing. That is, we
believe. the unvarying experience OF
every man who learns chess-which no
man every fOrgets-and OF all except
the few with natural bent" who study
men possessed of the natural bent"
there is, of course, no laxiness. because
there is no sense Of pain; they learn
without effort perceptible to them
selves, as the savage learns the wilder
ness OF natural facts necessary to enable
him to hunt or fish for food with sue
cess. A savage never knows any
thing about the forests"-cxccpt the
myriad of minute indications necessary
to tell him where to find the great
maggots which he eats. He is COM
peeled to learn that, and his mental
laziness, therefore, does not stop him
as it would il Sir j. Lubbock were to
try to teach him the anatomy of leaf.
He could learn that anatomy il it We're
equally essential to his existence
London Spectator.