4. This leads me by a natural transition to the subject of _study_. You need to learn how to study, as much as you need to learn how to recite. Endeavor then to get some definite idea in your mind of what it is really to study. Mere reading is not study. Muttering the words over in a low, gurgling tone, or letting them glide in a soft, half-audible ripple upon your lips, is not study. Going over the lesson in a listless, dreamy way, one eye on the book and one eye ready for whatever is going on in other parts of the room, is not study. Study is work. Study is agony. The whole soul must be roused, its every energy put forth, with a fixed, rapt attention, like that of a man struggling with a giant. Study, worthy of the name, forgets for the time every thing else, excludes every thing else, is incapable of being diverted by any thing else, the whole internal and external man being bent upon making just one thing its own. Such study of course soon exhausts the energies. It cannot be long protracted, nor need it be protracted. Take rest in the season of rest; but, when you study, study with all your might. Throw your whole soul into it. One hour of such study accomplishes more than whole days of listless poring over books. And, remember, you cannot study in this manner by merely willing to do it. It is an art, requiring training and practice, and thorough mental discipline. You might as well, on seeing the Writing-Master executing those marvels of penmanship, or the Drawing-Teacher with deft fingers limning with ease forms of grace and beauty, resolve to go forthwith to the board and do the same thing, as expect, by a mere _sic volo_, to become a student. You are here to learn how to study, and the art will come to you only by slow progress, and after many trials.