political opponent, to take advantage of his weakness, oust him from his exalted seat, and sit down there himself in triumph!

SINGLENESS OF AIM.

But with these few exceptions, made by minds essentially creative and phenomenally great, most of the great historic names are identified with some single achievement to which they gave their lives. When you read of James Watt, his name stands associated with improvements in the steam-engine. This was his great and only lifework. Sir Richard Arkwright's work was the invention and improvement of machinery for spinning cotton. Dr. Wm. Harvey is distinguished for the discovery of the circulation of the blood, and for that alone. Professor Morse only succeeded in working out one thing, and that the electric telegraph. Count Cavour gave his life to the unification of his beloved country, Italy, and Bismarck has accomplished the same political results for Germany. Commodore Macdonough, the hero of Lake Champlain, won his memorable naval victory by pointing all his guns at the "big ship" of the enemy, until her fire was silenced. Rufus Choate,

the great lawyer, was wont to so concentrate his energies upon a case in hand, after once espousing it, that he could not sleep. His mind, as he himself said, took up the cause involved like a great ship, and bore it on night and day till a verdict was reached ; and he was generally so exhausted that several days elapsed before he dared to take up a new case.

Another marvelous career was that of William Pitt.

the celebrated English statesmen. "If there was any'

thing divine in this man, whom his cotemporaries called a heaven-born statesman, it was the marvelous gift of concentrating his powers. Whatever he did he did with all his might. Ever master of himself, he converged all the rays of his mind, as into a focus, upon the object in hand, worked like a horse, and did nothing by halves. Hence with him there was no half vision, no sleepy eyes, no dawning sense. All his life he had his wits about him so intensely directed to the point required, that, it is said, he seemed never to learn, but only to recollect. He gave men an answer before they knew there was a riddle; he had formed a decision before they had heard of a difficulty. His lightning had struck and done its work, before they had heard the thunder-clap which announced it. Is it strange that such a man went straightway from college into the House of Commons, and in two years to the Prime Ministership of Great Britain, reigned for nearly a quarter of a century, virtual king, and carried his measures in spite of the opposition of some of the greatest men England ever produced? The simple secret of his success was, that his whole soul was swallowed up in the one passion for political power. So we see him neglecting everything else, careless of friends, careless of expenditures, so that with an income of fifty thousand dollars yearly, and no family, he died hopelessly in debt; tearing up by the roots from his heart a love most. deep and tender, because it ran counter to his ambition; totally indifferent to posthumous fame, so that he did not take the pains to transmit to posterity a single one of his speeches; utterly insensible to the claims of art, literature, and belles-lettres; living and

working terribly for the one sole purpose of wielding the governing power of the nation."

One of Ignatius Loyola's maxims was, "He who does well one work at a time, does more than all." By spreading our efforts over too large a surface we inevitably weaken our force, hinder our progress, and acquire a habit of fitfulness and ineffective working. Whatever a youth undertakes to learn, he should not be suffered to leave until he can reach his arms round it and clench his hands on the other side. Thus he will learn the habit of thoroughness. Lord St. Leonards once communicated to Sir Fowell Buxton the mode in which he had conducted his studies, and thus explained the secret of his success. "I resolved," said he, "when beginning to read law, to make everything I acquired perfectly my own, and never to go to a second thing till I had entirely accomplished the first. Many of my competitors read as much in a day as I read in a week; but, at the end of twelve months, my knowledge was as fresh as the day it was acquired, while theirs had glided away from recollection." Sir E. B. Lytton, once explaining how it was that, whilst so fully engaged in active life, he had written so many books, observed, "I contrived to do so much by never doing too much at a time. As a general rule, I have devoted to study not more than three hours a day; and, when Parliament is sitting, not always that. But, during those hours, I have given my whole attention to what I was about."

POWER OF ATTENTION.

It is not the quantity of study that one gets through that makes a wise man, but the appositeness

of the study to the purpose for which it is pursued ; the concentration of mind, for the time being, upon the subject under consideration, and the habitual discipline by which the whole system of mental application is regulated. Abernethy was even of opinion that there was a point of saturation in his own mind, and that if he took into it something more than it could hold, it only had the effect of pushing something else out. And every brain-worker knows by experience that this opinion is founded on fact. One of the qualities which early distinguished John C. Calhoun was his power of attention. A gentleman who in his youth was wont to accompany Mr. Calhoun in his strolls, states that the latter endeavored to impress upon his friend the importance of cultivating this faculty; "and to encourage me in my efforts," says the writer, "he stated that to this end he had early subjected his mind to such a rigid course of discipline, and had persisted without faltering until he had early acquired a perfect control over it, that he could now confine it to any subject as long as he pleased, without wandering, even for a moment; that it was his uniform habit, when he set out alone to walk or ride, to select a subject for reflection, and that he never suffered his attention to wander from it until he was satisfied with its examination." It has been remarked by Sir William Hamilton, that "the difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of Newton consists principally in this, that the one is capable of a more continuous attention than the other; that a Newton is able, without fatigue, to connect inference with inference in one long series toward a determined end; while the man of inferior

capacity is soon obliged to break or let fall the thread which he has begun to spin."

Some people are always complaining that they cannot keep their thoughts from wandering whenever they sit down to write, read, or work; in other words, they have no power to concentrate their minds on any given point or theme, to the exclusion of others. But such people have never really learned to think. They lack mental discipline and culture. They need to cultivate strength of will. Napoleon said of himself that his mind resembled a bureau. He could pull out one drawer, examine its contents to the exclusion of all others, shut it up when he had finished, and then pull out another. That is, he was able to take up one subject after another, concentrate the whole power of his mind upon it while under examination, then dismiss it at once and completely, like the shutting up of a drawer in a bureau, and so proceed until the entire range of topics in his mind had been passed upon. Such power is a very valuable acquisition; in fact, there can be little progress in mental growth without it. If a man cannot first control his thoughts in some measure, how can he control his acts? And if not able to control either thought or act, he is like a balloon in the air, or a ship on the ocean without a rudder, the sport of wind and wave. The power which he may possess will drive him ahead, but it will not drive him straight toward the goal of his ambition.

HARMONIous deveLOPMENT.

We would not deny, however, but there is an injurious and even an offensive sense in which a man