The brain, like the physical body, can only be developed through usage; as every part must be exercised if one would have a natural, healthy body, so every part of the human brain needs exercise or it will lose its vital power. A reasoning judicial brain will retain its plasticity; but if external opinions are habitually accepted as one's own and are not presented to the tribunal of one's mind, the brain becomes a mere grooved and hardened substance, recording soullessly and mechanically the opinions of others, with the result that one's mental life becomes more and more submerged in the deep ruts of thoughtlessness and automatism.

Man is naturally an intelligent, social and spiritual being. Education should be the process of development to the full realization of oneself. When men grow to be what they were ordained to be and what they have the power within themselves to become, the evils of the world will disappear. The consort of all vice and error is ignorance, while wisdom, truth, love and happiness are synonymous terms, which can only be realized through completeness. To glimpse the ideal, one must develop one's faculties-all of one's faculties to the utmost.

There is no uniformity in nature, the law of variability is supreme. There can, therefore, be no such thing as uniform crowd education. Each must grow in harmony with his nature to the realization of his peculiar individuality. The work of the world must be performed in multifarious channels, and legions of men with the most variable mental endowments are created to fittingly perform this diversified work. True education is not the

Academical forcing of child minds into one authoritatively-decreed, pedagogical mold, but it is the growth and development to power of diversities, the encouragement of initiative, the fertilizing of differences in human endowment; and only through individuality intensified by social purpose can the world progress.

Never in the history of the human family were there more glaring facts to substantiate the need of the individual to realize his innate power for creative good. The one ray of hope for this battlescarred world is universal education in the truth that alone can make men free. It is time that the world ceased to reverence the Napoleons and Alexanders of history, the enemies and destroyers of freedom, democracy and lasting progress. Our children must be taught the attributes of true manhood and the dimensions of real heroes. Their receptive minds should by truth be kept free from prejudice, so that they will spontaneously respond to the Apostles of Beauty and Love, to the world's sages who are the real creative builders of human happiness and well-being, and thus will they grow in harmony with the great Cosmic Plan of Evolution toward perfection.

The author hopes to publish during the coming year a separate volume of essays on this same general subject, dealing more directly with education and the mental development and freedom of the young.

Great Barrington, Mass.

October 28, 1917.

W. A. F.

I

HE average man has depths of possibilities that are never reached, inherent capabilities

THE

that are never utilized and valuable potentialities that forever lie dormant, undeveloped and even undiscovered in the substratum of his personality. Few, even, of our so-called successful men could be truthfully termed "efficient" when the exercise of all their innate powers and their actual achievements are compared with the great possibilities afforded by their wonderful and often diversified mental equipment, endowed for utilization and service in the world. On every hand there are men of five talents using but one and that indifferently or aimlessly. The human mind is composed of many attributes or talents that, instead of being brought forth for use and service, are carefully wrapped in napkins and are hidden away in the archives of cerebral oblivion.

"He that made us with such large discourse
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and God-like reason
To fust in us unused."

There is a waste in the world today far greater than that which can be determined by any economic statistics, and is infinitely more serious than the most reckless extravagance occasioned by man's prodigality of nature's materialistic resources. The

greatest waste in the world, handicapping progress and marring happiness, is the waste of men's minds. Bacon said that man is of kin to the beasts, by his body, and if he be not of kin to the great Cosmic spirit by his mind and soul, "he is a base and ignoble creature." The human mind is the harp upon which the soul sends forth its message and its energized vibrations to the world. How many strings has our harp, how many of these strings are attuned and pitched to send forth true notes and how many strings are being actually used as we play in the great Orchestra of Life?

The

Man instinctively expresses those mental attributes that are exhibited by the most intelligent forms of lower animal life, but much of the remainder of his wonderfully created and peculiarly human brain, instead of functioning as a world force, is atrophied by an "indolent vacuity of thought," with the possible exception of certain well-worn grooves of habitual and so-called higher mental processes, which have been proven necessary for survival and his economic success in life. ordinary human brain is like a vast stretch of land with the greater part lying fallow and uncultivated; that which is neglected has neither seed time nor harvest. Moreover, most of the dominion of the brain is a great uncharted country whose wealth and possibilities are undreamed of. Like muscles of the body, mental powers must be exercised if they are to be brought to and maintained in a state of healthful vigor. Thought and feeling are to the brain what bodily exercise is to the muscles; they put it into activity, stimulate the circulation of blood

and cause an augmented elaboration of nervous energy.

There is a fundamental law of nature that use develops and lack of use atrophies. Lamarck's theory of evolution, which can be absorbed in the larger and broader theory of natural selection, was based upon the principle of appetency plus the basic fact that use follows desire and disuse follows apathy or indifference;-by constant use living parts grow and by disuse they atrophy. This can be further described as the Law of Habit,—the function prompts the growth of the organ, and the development of organs and their force of action are constantly in ratio to the employment of these organs. To increase the strength and energy of any organ and function, it is necessary to exercise them regularly and judiciously according to the laws of their constitution. Talents utilized bring forth interest which compounds itself and tends to make the small grow to large; but talents ignored, corrode and disappear and men of possible greatness degenerate into mediocrity solely because of neglect of inherent forces and the drifting into mental sluggishness.

Life is thought and it is the mind alone that can make the body truly live. Thoughts are supreme and when in harmony with Cosmic truth, they synchronize with the great potent forces which rule the world. Strength of mind is the fruit of mental exercise; it is acquired by activity, not by rest. Idleness is emptiness. "The tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless."

A devastated city is a fearful sight. The ruins of