There is one special advantage in self-education,--you can adapt your studies to your own particular needs better than you could in school or college. Everyone who reaches middle life without an education should first read and study along the line of his own vocation, and then broaden himself as much as possible by reading on other lines.
One can take up, alone, many studies, such as history, English literature, rhetoric, drawing, mathematics, and can also acquire by oneself, almost as effectively as with a teacher, a reading knowledge of foreign languages.
The daily storing up of valuable information for use later in life, the reading of books that will inspire and stimulate to greater endeavor, the constant effort to try to improve oneself and one"s condition in the world, are worth far more than a bank account to a youth.
How many girls there are in this country who feel crippled by the fact that they have not been able to go to college. And yet they have the time and the material close at hand for obtaining a splendid education, but they waste their talents and opportunities in frivolous amus.e.m.e.nts and things which do not count in forceful character-building.
It is not such a very great undertaking to get all the essentials of a college course at home, or at least a fair subst.i.tute for it. Every hour in which one focuses his mind vigorously upon his studies at home may be as beneficial as the same time spent in college.
Every well-ordered household ought to protect the time of those who desire to study at home. At a fixed hour every evening during the long winter there should be by common consent a quiet period for mental concentration, for what is worth while in mental discipline, a quiet hour uninterrupted by time-thief callers.
In thousands of homes where the members are devoted to each other, and should encourage and help each other along, it is made almost impossible for anyone to take up reading, studying, or any exercise for self-improvement. Perhaps someone is thoughtless and keeps interrupting the others so that they can not concentrate their minds; or those who have nothing in common with your aims or your earnest life drop in to spend an evening in idle chatter. They have no ideals outside of the bread-and-b.u.t.ter and amus.e.m.e.nt questions, and do not realize how they are hindering you.
There is constant temptation to waste one"s evenings and it takes a stout ambition and a firm resolution to separate oneself from a jolly, fun-loving, and congenial family circle, or happy-hearted youthful callers, in order to try to rise above the common herd of unambitious persons who are content to slide along, totally ignorant of everything but the requirements of their particular vocations.
A habit of forcing yourself to fix your mind steadfastly and systematically upon certain studies, even if only for periods of a few minutes at a time, is, of itself, of the greatest value. This habit helps one to utilize the odds and ends of time which are unavailable to most people because they have never been trained to concentrate the mind at regular intervals.
A good understanding of the possibilities that live in spare moments is a great success a.s.set.
The very reputation of always trying to improve yourself, of seizing every opportunity to fit yourself for something better, the reputation of being dead-in-earnest, determined to be somebody and to do something in the world, would be of untold a.s.sistance to you. People like to help those who are trying to help themselves. They will throw opportunities in their way. Such a reputation is the best kind of capital to start with.
One trouble with people who are smarting under the consciousness of deficient education is that they do not realize the immense value of utilizing spare minutes. Like many boys who will not save their pennies and small change because they can not see how a fortune could ever grow by the saving, they can not see how a little studying here and there each day will ever amount to a good subst.i.tute for a college education.
I know a young man who never even attended a high school, and yet educated himself so superbly that he has been offered a professorship in a college. Most of his knowledge was gained during his odds and ends of time, while working hard at his vocation. Spare time meant something to him.
The correspondence schools deserve very great credit for inducing hundreds of thousands of people, including clerks, mill operatives, and employees of all kinds, to take their courses, and thus save for study the odds and ends of time which otherwise would probably be thrown away. We have heard of some most remarkable instances of rapid advancement which these correspondence school students have made by reason of the improvement in their education. Many students have reaped a thousand per cent on their educational investment. It has saved them years of drudgery and has shortened wonderfully the road to their goal.
Wisdom will not open her doors to those who are not willing to pay the price in self-sacrifice, in hard work. Her jewels are too precious to scatter before the idle, the ambitionless.
The very resolution to redeem yourself from ignorance at any cost is the first great step toward gaining an education.
Charles Wagner once wrote to an American regarding his little boy, "May he know the price of the hours. G.o.d bless the rising boy who will do his best, for never losing a bit of the precious and G.o.d-given time."
There is untold wealth locked up in the long winter evenings and odd moments ahead of you. A great opportunity confronts you. What will you do with it?
CHAPTER LIII
THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
When plate-gla.s.s windows first came into use, Rogers, the poet, took a severe cold by sitting with his back to what he supposed was an open window in a dining-room but which was really plate-gla.s.s. All the time he was eating he imagined he was taking cold, but he did not dare ask to have the window closed.
We little realize how much suggestion has to do with health. In innumerable instances people have been made seriously ill, sometimes fatally so, by others telling them how badly they looked, or suggesting that they had inherited some fatal disease.
A prominent New York business man recently told me of an experiment which the friends of a robust young man made upon him. It was arranged that, beginning in the morning, each one should tell him, when he came to work, that he was not looking well, and ask him what the trouble was. They were to say it in a way that would not arouse his suspicions, and note the result. At one o"clock this vigorous young man had been so influenced by the suggestion that he quit work and went home, saying that he was sick.
There have been many interesting experiments in the Paris hospitals upon patients in a hypnotic trance, wounds being inflicted by mental suggestion. While a cold poker was laid across their limbs, for example, the subjects were told that they were being seared with a red-hot iron, and immediately the flesh would have the appearance of being severely burned.
I have known patients to collapse completely at the sight of surgical instruments in the operating room. I have heard them say that they could actually feel the cutting of the knife long before they took the anesthetic.
Patients are often put to sleep by the injection into their arms of a weak solution of salt and water, which they are led to think is morphia. Every physician of large experience knows that he can relieve or produce pain simply by suggestion.
Many a physician sends patients to some famous resort not so much for the waters or the air as for the miracle which the complete change of thought effects.
Even quacks and charlatans are able, by stimulating the hope of those who are sick, to produce marvelous cures.
The mental att.i.tude of the nurse has much to do with the recovery of a sick person. If she holds the constant suggestion that the patient will recover; if she stoutly affirms it, it will be a wonderful rallying help to the forces which make for life. If, on the other hand, she holds the conviction that he is going to die, she will communicate her belief, and this will consequently depress the patient.
We are under the influence of suggestion every moment of our waking lives. Everything we see, hear, feel, is a suggestion which produces a result corresponding to its own nature. Its subtle power seems to reach and affect the very springs of life.
The power of suggestion on expectant minds is often little less than miraculous. An invalid with a disappointed ambition, who thinks he has been robbed of his chances in life and who has suffered for years, becomes all wrought up over some new remedy which is advertised to do marvels. He is in such an expectant state of mind that he is willing to make almost any sacrifice to obtain the wonderful remedy; and when he receives it, he is in such a receptive mood that he responds quickly, and thinks it is the medicine which has worked the magic.
Faith in one"s physician is a powerful curative suggestion. Many patients, especially those who are ignorant, believe that the physician holds the keys of life and death. They have such implicit confidence in him that what he tells them has powerful influence upon them for good or ill.
The possibilities of healing power in the affirmative suggestion that the patient is going to get well are tremendous. The coming physician will constantly rea.s.sure his patient verbally, often vehemently, that he is absolutely bound to recover; he will tell him that there is an omnipotent healing power within him, and that he gets a hint of this in the power which heals a wound, and which refreshes, renews, and recreates him during sleep.
It is almost impossible for a patient to get well while people are constantly reminding him how ill he looks. His will-power together with all his physical recuperative forces could not counteract the effect of the reiteration of the sick suggestion.
Many a sick-room is made a chamber of horrors because of the depressing suggestion which pervades it. Instead of being filled with sunshine, good cheer, and encouragement, it is often darkened, G.o.d"s beautiful sunshine shut out; ventilation is poor; everybody has a sad, anxious face; medicine bottles and surgical apparatus are spread about; everything is calculated to engender disease rather than to encourage health and inspire hope. Why, there is enough depressing suggestion in such a place to make a perfectly well person ill!
What people need is encouragement, uplift, hope. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened and developed. Instead of telling a friend in trouble, despair, or suffering that you feel very sorry for him, try to pull him out of his slough of despond, to arouse the latent recuperative, restorative energies within him. Picture to him his G.o.d image, his better self, which, because it is a part of the great immortal principle, is never sick and never out of harmony, can never be discordant or suffer.
Right suggestion would prevent a great majority of our divorces. Great infatuation for another has been overcome by suggestion in numerous instances. Many women have been thus cured of a foolish love for impossible men, as in the case of girls who have become completely infatuated with the husband of a friend. Fallen women have been entirely reclaimed, have been brought to see their better, finer, diviner selves through the power of suggestion.
The suggestion which comes from a sweet, beautiful, charming character is contagious and sometimes revolutionizes a whole neighborhood. We all know how the suggestion of heroic deeds, great records, has aroused the ambitions and stirred the energies of others to do likewise. Many a life has turned upon a few moments" conversation, upon a little encouragement, upon the suggestion of an inspiring book.
Many men who have made their impress upon history, who have left civilization a little higher, accomplished what they did largely because their ambition was aroused by suggestion; some book or some individual gave them the first glimpse of their possibility and enabled them to feel for the first time a thrill of the power within them.
The suggestion of inferiority is one of the most difficult to overcome.
Who can ever estimate the damage to humanity and the lives wrecked through it! I know men whose whole careers have been practically ruined through the constant suggestion, while they were children, that they would never amount to anything.
This suggestion of inferiority has made them so timid and shy and so uncertain of themselves that they have never been able to a.s.sert their individuality.
I knew a college student whose rank in his cla.s.s ent.i.tled him to the highest recognition, whose life was nearly ruined by suggestion; he overheard some of his cla.s.smates say that he had no more dignity than a goose, and always made a very poor appearance; that under no circ.u.mstances would they think of electing him as cla.s.s orator, because he would make such an unfortunate impression upon an audience. He had unusual ability, but his extreme diffidence, timidity, shyness, made him appear awkward and sometimes almost foolish,--all of which he would undoubtedly have overgrown, had he not overheard the criticism of his cla.s.smates. He thought it meant that he was mentally inferior, and this belief kept him back ever after.
What a subtle power there is in the suggestion of the human voice!
What emotions are aroused in us by its different modulations! How we laugh and cry, become indignant, revengeful, our feelings leaping from one extreme to the other, according to the pa.s.sion-freighted or love-freighted words which reach our ear; how we sit spell-bound, with bated breath, before the great orator who is playing upon the emotions of his audience, as a musician plays upon the strings of his harp, now bringing out tears, now smiles, now pathos, now indignation! The power of his word-painting makes a wonderful impression. A thousand listeners respond to whatever he suggests.
The voice is a great betrayer of our feelings and emotions. It is tender when conveying love to our friends; cold, selfish, and without a particle of sympathy during business transactions when we are trying to get the best of a bargain.
How we are attracted by a gentle voice, and repulsed by one that is harsh! We all know how susceptible even dogs and horses are to the different modulations of the human voice. They know the tone of affection; they are rea.s.sured and respond to it. But they are stricken with fear and trembling at the profanity of the master"s rage.
Some natures are powerfully affected by certain musical strains; they are immediately lifted out of the deepest depression and despondency into ecstasy. Nothing has touched them; they have just merely felt a sensation through the auditory nerve which aroused and awakened into activity certain brain cells and changed their whole mental att.i.tude.
Music has a decided influence upon the blood pressure in the arteries, and upon the respiration. We all know how it soothes, refreshes, and rests us when jaded and worried. When its sweet harmonies fill the soul, all cares, worries, and anxieties fly away.
George Eliot, in "The Mill on the Floss," gives voice to what some of us have often, doubtless, felt, when under its magic spell. "Certain strains of music," she says, "affect me so strangely that I can never hear them without changing my whole att.i.tude of mind for a time, and if the effect would last, I might be capable of heroism."