Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1889-05-25
MENTAL LAzlNEss.
Inability to Acquire Knowledge Due OnIJ
to Slothful Habits.


to Slothrul Habits.
We doubt il even thoughtful En-
glishmen. apart always from 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 resultfrom ignorance and emerge
from school as ignorant as fishes, while
still larger classes, possibly even
majority, betray the same
impulse as regards particular sub
jects Men are constantly heard to af-
firm in confidential moments that they
literally "can mott 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 tho
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 q dress, a
really difficult process if 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 a man, not without power
OF reasoning and with special apti-
tude for mental arithmetic, de-
clare that a thousand years of tuition
would not enable him to comprehend o
quadratic equation. Indeed, it is one
OF the phenomena Of mental laziness
that it often reveals itself in its acutest
form in the naturally able, and that it
is the reasoner who is most daunted by
a 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 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 way
which at once indicates its source. 1t
does not disappear gradually; it lasts,
apparently, as insuperable as ever, up
to defnable moment; and then,
presto! it is gone never to return. The
truth is. enough has been learned to
awaken unconsciously the faculty of at
tention, 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
any abstract science whatsoever. In
men possessed of the natural bent'
there is, of course, no laziness; because
there is no sense of pain; they learn
without effort perceptible to them
selves, us 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" 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 If Sir j. Lubbock were to
try to teach him the anatomy OF leaf.
He could learn that anatomy If it were
equally essential to his existence
London Spectator.