e. Would it not be better
to measure and assign his time, and then require him to abandon all
thought of the matter? This practice might give our people the faculty
and the habit of throwing off cares and occupations, when they leave the
scenes of them. It is a just criticism upon American character, that our
business men carry their occupations with them wherever they go. I
should put high up among the elements of worldly success the ability to
give assiduously, studiously and devotedly, the necessary time to a
subject of business, and then to throw off all thought of it. There can
be no peace of mind for the business man who does not possess this
quality; and I think it will contribute essentially to a long life and a
quiet old age. No wise man ever attempts more than one thing at a time;
and the man who attempts to do more than one thing at a time has no
security that he can do anything well. The statements of biography and
history, that Napoleon was accustomed to do several things at once, rest
upon a misconception of the operations of the human mind. His facility
for the direction and transaction of business depended upon the quality
I am now considering. He had the faculty of giving his attention,
undivided and strongly fixed, to a subject for an hour, half-hour,
minute, half-minute, or second, and then of dismissing the matter
altogether, and directing his thoughts, without loss of time, to
whatever next might be presented. One thing at a time is a law which no
finite power can violate; and ability in execution depends upon the
ability to concentrate all the powers of the mind, at a given moment,
upon the assigned topic, and then to change, without friction or loss of
time, to something else.

The institution is a high school, and the question is now agitated,
especially in the State of Connecticut, "How can the advantages of a
high school education be best secured?" This question I propose to
consider. And, first, the high school must be a public school. A _public
school_ I understand to be a school established by the
public,--supported chiefly or entirely by the public, controlled by the
public, and accessible to the public upon terms of equality without
special charge for tuition.

Private schools may be established and controlled by an individual, or
by an association of individuals, who have no corporate rights under the
government, but receive pupils upon terms agreed upon, subject to the
ordinary laws of