Evening star., 1895-10-18
THE ACADEMY OF FORTY.

THE ACADEMY OF FORTY.
A Discussion of Concentration" Mt
the WimOdaughsis.
The October session of the Wimodaughsis
Academy was held Wednesday evening,
with an attendance Of nearly all the mem
bers. The guests were Miss Durham and
Miss Livings. Mrs. Havens magister. open
ed the business meeting, and Miss Mary H.
Williams, vice magister, read the minutes
of previous meetings. The unfinished bus
iness" was the election Of scribe, and Miss
Anna Force English was chosen by unani-
nous standing vote. Mrs. Alice NJ Good
win, director of the evening, then opened
tne conversation on "Concentra ton vs.
Narrowness." which proved to be the most
suggestive and fertile topic yet discussed.
Mrs Goodwin's idea was that the workers
OF the world drifted into narroWneSs; that a
development on general lines fitted one for
better work op his own line. She said: ITO
accomplish anything, one must concentrate
thought and action upon the object to be at
tanned or obtained, but one need not dedicate
an entire life to it. Take physician who is
SO absorbed in his work that he sees in every
person he meets a possible fracture Bright 8
disease or apoplexy: he knows absolutely
nothlns or the healthy, outside world, and
very little of his own family He has con-
centrateG his abilities until he has not only
narrowed himself. but his capacity and eff
feceiveness on his own plane of endaayor
on the other hand, take the surgeon, who
gives three-quarterS Of his time to his life
work and the other fourth Just as conscien-
tiouSly to the outside world-he knows what
the new books are saying, what scientists
are discovering; he is in touch with the ad-
Vanced thought; goes to the theater, hears
good music. lecture, the m:nstrels for a
laugh rests, recreates and so re-creates
ms mental excursions enable HIM to return
10 nus proIession with renewed visor, clearer
vision. broader ideas. and his contact with
new people and new thought actually gives
him greater capacities for usefulness not
only to- the world, but to his patients them
Selves
Mrs. Havens followed Mrs Goodwin. She
said: Concentration must lead to narrow
ness in the individual person who bends
All energies in one direction ignores or un-
derrates all other interests. The astrono-
mer lives among the stars. He is not an in
teresting person to know. You cannot land
him on the ground. To him all human inter-
ests dwindle before the geocentric parallax.
but what OF his work? 1t is of the best and
most valuable. His concentration alone
made knowledge of his science possible to the
world. No broad and diffusive interest in
humanity ever made navigation safe or
discovered America. And because America
is less and less worth discovering detracts
nothing from the fame of Columbus, who fol-
lowed his one idea across a pathless ocean
to a new world. In brief concentration mar
rows the individual and broadens the
chance. the hope, the knowledge and the hap
piness of all other humanity"
Miss Helen Holmes said: Concentration
is strength; narrowness is weakness. And
In that antagoElStlc relation the words must
always stand to each other
Miss Huddleson thought concentrate did
not lead to narrowness. In pursuit of some
great object, the individual becomes obliv-
ious to all else. but never narrow. A life
time is too short to see all there is to see and
know all there is to know. The tendency of
ing Importance is accomplished without abb
Solute concentration"
Miss Livings said: Concentration pays
the man of genius or of great talent. but not
field but must do that which his hand find
eth to do for the time, with all his might I"
Miss Slater thought it true wisdom to
learn great manySthings. all one possibly
accommodating mental wealth; then, in later
life. to Gull with care the most important
and to these bend all the energies.
Miss Williams said: Concentration i'm
force to give to anything. All noted his
torians and explorers, all great men, have
devoted their lives to single ideas"
Miss Durham: The more effort one con-
centrates on one subject, the more power he
acquires to apprehend all subjects"
Miss Edwards: THE faculty of concentra-
ton is closely allied to talent AMI is one
of the most valuable, but, like any other. If
Miss English said: "One cannot have too
much power of concentration; but one who
uses this power along one line becomes so
narrow as to be little more than a mono
maniac"
Miss Garst said: 1.-THE greater opportunity
which the concentration of Individuals gives
to the world far outbalanceS the narro%ness
of those WHO are gifted for single work.
Undoubtedly, the people who push the world
along are disagreeable people to live with.
But if we analyze history, We can see that
the life of the individual has never counted
for much. AS Tennyson expresses it, God
is careless of the individual. but careful of
the type
Miss Gillette said: people with unusual
subject are 'cranks.' Crankiness is not the
is the result of crankiness. To find a COM
with this remarkable concentration, go to
turn Herod's attention from his design to
Talk to Napoleon for week, and he will
with which to escape from st. Helena to the
throne of France. Yet concentration, like
insanity, is a co-symptom of genius. All
have had an abnormal gift of concentration.
ject at will and to follow one subject after
another with the same single eye is i'm
mense power, and, next to love, the great
est thing in the world "