The Forerunner Part 94

All this terror is wasted. It is not child-bearing--within reason--that the girl of to-day so dreads. It is the life-long task of child-rearing, for which she begins at last to realize she is unfit. An utterly ignorant woman has no such terror, she bears profusely, rears as she can, and buries as she must. Better one well-born and well-trained, than the incapable six survivors of the unnecessary twelve.

It is not home-life that our girls shrink from; men and women alike, we love and need a home; it is the housework, and the house management, which are no more alluring to a rational woman than to a rational man.

"I love ocean travel," says Mrs. p.o.r.ne, "but that's no reason I should wish to be either a captain or a stoker!"

Why not respect this new att.i.tude of our women; study it, try to understand it; see if there is not some reason for it--and some way to change conditions.

Suppose a young woman stands, happy and successful, in her chosen profession. Suppose a young man offers her marriage. Suppose that this meant to her all that life held before--plus Love! Plus a Home Together! Plus Children! Children they both would love, both would provide for, both would work for; but to whom neither would be a living sacrifice--and an ineffectual sacrifice at that.

Children are not improved in proportion to their mother's immolation.

The father's love, the mother's love, the sheltering care of both, and all due a.s.sociation, they need, but in the detailed services and education of their lives, they need Genius.

And the Home--that should mean to her precisely what it means to him.

Peace, comfort, joy and pride; seclusion; mutual companionship; rest, beautiful privacy and rest--not a workshop.

What we need in this matter is not noisy objurgations and adjurations on the part of men; and not the reluctant submission, or angry refusal, of women--forced to take so much needless bitter with life's sweetest joy; but a rational facing of the question by the women themselves. It is their business--as much so as the most obdurate mossback can protest--but collectively, not individually.

Let them collect then! Let them organize and specialize--the two go together. Let them develop Genius--and use it; heaven knows it is needed!

IMPROVED METHODS OF HABIT CULTURE

Most of us recognize that common force, "the power of habit." Most of us have been rigorously, often painfully, almost always annoyingly, trained into what our parents and guardians considered good habits.

Most of us know something of the insidious nature of "bad habits"--how easily they slip in, how hard they are to eject.

But few of us know the distinct pleasure of voluntary habit culture, by modern methods.

ln my youth an improving book was prepared for children concerning a Peasant and a Camel. The Peasant was depicted as having a Hut, and a Fireside, and as loafing lazily in its warm glow. Then, in the crack of the door, appeared the appealing nose of a Camel--might he warm that nose? The lazy Peasant wouldn't take the trouble to get up and shut him out. The appealing nose became an insinuating neck, then intrusive shoulders, and presently we have a whole camel lying by the fire, and the peasant, now alarmed and enraged, vainly belaboring the tough hind quarters of the huge beast which lay in his place.

I was a child of a painfully logical mind, and this story failed of its due effect on me because of certain discrepancies. A. Peasants (in my limited reading) belonged with a.s.ses and oxen--not with Camels. Camels had Arab companions--Bedouins--turbaned Blacks--not Peasants. I did not understand the intrusion of this solitary camel into a peasant country.

B. Why should the Camel want to come into the hut? Camels are not house-beasts, surely. And to lie by the fire;--cats and dogs like firesides, and crickets, but in my pictures of the Ship of the Desert I never had seen this overmastering desire to get warm. And if it was in sooth a cold country--then in the name of all nursery reasonableness, how came the camel there?

Furthermore, if he was a stray camel, a camel escaped from a circus and seeking the only human companionship he could discover,--in that case such an unusual apparition would have scared the laziest of Peasants into prompt resistance. Moreover, a Hut, to my mind, was necessarily a small building, with but a modest portal; and camels are tall bony beasts, not physically able to slink and crawl. How could the beast get in!

Beyond these criticisms I was filled with contempt at the resourcelessness of the Peasant, who found no better means of ejecting the intruder than to beat him where he felt it the least. It seemed to me a poor story on the face of it, though I did not then know how these things are made up out of whole cloth, as it were, and foisted upon children.

In later years, I found that it was sometimes desirable to catch and tame one's own camels. Certain characteristics were a.s.suredly more desirable than others, and seemed open to attainment if one but knew how. I experimented with processes, and worked out a method; simple, easy, safe and sure. Safe--unless overdone. It is not well to overdo anything, and if our young people should develop a morbid desire to acquire too many virtues at once, this method would be a strain on the nervous system! Short of such excess, there is no danger involved.

Here is the Subject; up for moral examination; as if for physical examination in a gymnasium. Self-measurements are taken--this is a wholly personal method. Many of us, indeed most of us, are willing to acquire good habits of our own choosing and by our own efforts who would strenuously object to outside management! Very well. The subject decides which Bad Habit He or She wishes to check, or, which Good Habit to develop.

I will take as an ill.u.s.trative instance a Combination effort: to check the habit of Thoughtless Speech, and subst.i.tute the habit of Conscious Control. Common indeed are the offences of the unbridled tongue; and in youth they are especially prevalent.

"Why don't you think before you speak?" demands the Irate Parent; but has not the faintest idea of the reason--patent though it be to any practical psychologist.

Here is the reason:

Reflex action is earlier established than voluntary action. In a child most activity is reflex--unconscious. It may be complex, modified by many contradictory stimuli, but whatever else modifies it, a clear personal determination seldom does.

Most of us carry this simple early state of mind through life. We speak according to present impulse, provocation, and state of mind; and afterward are sorry for it. When we are called upon to "think before we speak", a distinct psychological process is required. We have to establish a new connection between the speech center and the center of volition. To hold the knife in the right hand and carve is easy; to hold it in the left is hard, for most of us, merely because the controlling impulse has always been sent to the muscles of the right arm. To learn to cut with the left is an extra effort, but can be done if necessary. It is merely a matter of repet.i.tion of command, properly measured.

So with our Subject.

"You speak thoughtlessly, do you? You say things you wish you hadn't?

You'd like to be able to use your judgement beforehand instead of afterward when it's too late?" Very well.

First Step.--Make up your mind that you _will_ think before you speak.

This "making up one's mind," as we so lightly call it, is in itself a distinct act. Suppose you have to get up at five, and have no alarm clock nor anyone to waken you. You "make up your mind," hard, that you must wake up at five; you rouse yourself from coming sleep with the renewed intense determination to wake up at five; your last waking thought is "I must wake up at five!"--and you do wake up at five. You set an alarm inside--and it worked. After a while, the need continuing, you always wake up at five--no trouble at all--and a good deal of trouble to break the habit when you want to. When the mind is "made up"

it is apt to stay.

Second Step.--Dismiss the matter from your mind. You may not think of your determination again for a month--but at last you do.

Third Step.--When your determination reappears to you, welcome it easily. Do not scold because it was so long in coming. Do not lament its lateness. Just say, "Ah! Here you are! I knew you'd come!" Then _drive it in._ That is, make up your mind again--harder than before, and again dismiss it completely. You will remember it again in less time--say in a fortnight. Then you can welcome it more cordially, feeling already that the game is yours: and drive it in again with good will.

Presently it reappears--in a week maybe. "Hurrah!" you say, wasting never a spark of energy on lamenting the delay; this is a natural process and takes time, and once more you make up your mind. Presently you will think of it oftener and oftener, daily perhaps; the idea of control will flutter nearer and nearer to the moment of expression, but always too soon--when you are not about to say anything, or too late--after you have said it.

Do not waste energy in fretting over this delay; just renew your determination as often as it pops into your head--"I _will_ think _before_ I speak."

By and by you do so. You remember _in time._ Your brother aggravates you--your mother is swearing--your father is too severe--your girl friends tempt you to unwise confidences--but--you remember!

Then, for the first time, a new nerve connection is established. From the center of volition a little pulse of power goes down; the unruly member is checked in mid-career, and you decide what you shall or shall not say!

Very well. The miracle is wrought, you think. You have attained. Wait a bit.

Fourth Step.--_Turn off the power._ Don't think of it again that day.

But to-morrow it will come again; use it twice; next day four times, perhaps; but go slowly.

Here is the formula:

1st. Make up your mind.

2nd. Release the spring.

3rd. Remake as often as you think of it cheerfully, always releasing the spring.

4th. When you have at last established connection;

Do it as often as you think of it;--

Stop _before_ you are tired.

The last direction is the patentable secret of this process.

Always before we have been taught to strive unceasingly for our virtues; and to reproach ourselves bitterly if we "back-slide." When we learn more of our mental machinery we shall feel differently about back-sliding. When you are learning the typewriter or the bicycle or the use of skates, you do not gain by practicing day and night.

Practice--_and rest;_ that is the trick.

After you have learned your new virtue, it will not tire you to practice it; but while you are learning, go slow.

If you essay to hold your arm out straight; and hold it there till muscle and nerve are utterly exhausted, you have gone backward rather than forward in establishing the habit. But if you deliberately pour nerve force along that arm for a while, holding it out as you choose; and then withdraw the nerve force, release the pressure, discontinue the determination, drop the arm, _because you choose,_ and _before you are tired_--then you can repeatedly hold it out a little longer until you have mastered the useless art.