quiring of
good materials to be stored up is an important part of the work.

A mind without stored-up material of impressions and experiences would be
like a factory without material. The machinery would have nothing upon
which to work, and the shop would be idle. As Helmholtz has said,
"Apprehension by the senses supplies directly or indirectly, the material
of all human knowledge, or at least the stimulus necessary to develop
every inborn faculty of the mind." And Herbert Spencer, has this to say
of this phase of the subject, "It is almost a truism to say that in
proportion to the numerousness of the objects that can be distinguished,
and in proportion to the variety of coexistences and sequences that can
be severally responded to, must be the number and rapidity and variety of
the changes within the organism--must be the amount of vitality."

A little reflection upon this subject will show us that the greater
degree of exercise and training given the senses, the greater the degree
of mental power and capability. As we store our mental storehouse with
the materials to be manufactured into thought, so is the quality and
quantity of the fabric produced.

It therefore behooves us to awaken from our "lazy" condition of mind, and
to proceed to develop our organs of sense, and their attendant mechanism,
as by doing so we increase our capacity for thought and knowledge.

Before passing to the exercises, however, it may be well to give a hasty
passing glance at the several senses, and their peculiarities.

The sense of Touch is the simplest and primal sense. Long before the
lower forms of life had developed the higher senses, they had evidenced
the sense of Touch or Feeling. Without this sense they would have been
unable to have found their food, or to receive and respond to outside
impressions. In the early forms of life it was exercised equally by all
parts of the body, although in the higher forms this sense has become
somewhat localized, as certain parts of the body are far more sensitive
than are others. The skin is the seat of the sense of Touch, and its
nerves are distributed over the entire area of the skin. The hand, and
particularly the fingers, and their tips, are the principal organs of
this sense.

The acuteness of Touch varies materially in different parts of the body.
Experiments have shown that a pair of compasses would register
impressions as a very slight distance apart when applied to the tip of
the t