MIND CULTURE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18891, 5 January 1927, Page 8

MIND CULTURE.

PROFESSOR WOOD'S LECTURE. VALUE OF MENTAL HOBBIES. Ideas for simple mind culture, and methods whereby one could concentrate and assemble one's thoughts were imparted by Professor Ernest Wood in a lecture in the Theosophical Hall last evening. The speaker took for his subject: "The Mind: How to Cultivate and Preserve its Powers in Daily Life."

The majority of people used about one-tenth of their mental powers, said the speaker, and, in fact, most people were injuring their minds day by day instead of making them grow stronger awl more useful. By a very simple means it was possible for anyone to enjoy much larger intellectual powers. The association of ideas was well known to everybody; how one's mind drifted from subject to subject as each cropped up. This was following the line ot least resistance. More effort was required to think, because the ideas had to be kept on one line and on one subject. Thinking made the mind more brilliant, and to think there had to be concentration. Little success would be achieved unless it was realised that concentration of mind, not of body, was required. "Where there was cpncentration of body as well as of mind injury to the brain would be the result. This result was noticed when a student crammed for an examination more knowledge than he had time to assimilate. A man with a bad memory was one who could not find 'his way about bis' own mind; a man with a good memory was one who had a well-ordered mind. It was often found that people of little education had better minds, mora alert minds, than those who had had greater opportunity. This was because the* ideas they had were better digested. Every man, continued Professor Wood, should have a mental hobby just as most had a physical hobby. In connexion with this hobby everyone should read the best and the latest books on the subject and in perhaps ten years, or twenty years, or even thirty years he would know as much about that subject, as anyone else in the world. He would be master of the subject and that would give him an impulse in life—he would be of the world's elect in that direction. Aa an example, the * Professor mentioned Gladstone, .a man of mental hobbies, whose mind was wonderfully alert even in his very old age. One should read for correction, not for ideas, said Professor Wood. There were three manners of reading. Just reading was one, and the others were to read for twenty minutes and think for ten minutes of what one had read, and to think for twenty minutes before one commenced to read. He would glean the most benefit from his reading who had his ideas on the subject first and corrected them by his reading. There was a good attendance in the hall, and a solo was sung by Mrs Yates.