``The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize <p 317> our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding or regretting of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right.'' <p 318> HABIT REDUCES EXHAUSTION The various acts connected with my morning toilet have been reduced to sheerest habit. I do not think of the different acts as I perform them--they seem to perform themselves. The sequence of the various acts and the manner of performing them are not particularly good, but I do not seem inclined to change them. I put on my left shoe before my right, my right sleeve before my left. I have the absurd habit of washing my teeth after I have washed my face. That my habits may execute themselves automatically, all the articles of my toilet must be in their proper places. I am thwarted in carrying out my habits unless my laundry has been properly placed, unless towels, brushes, etc., are all where they should be. If everything is in its place, I get down to breakfast refreshed and recuperated. If the toilet articles are so located that I am compelled to do consciously what I might have done subconsciously, I get down to breakfast irritated and nervously <p 319> depleted. The peace and restfulness of an orderly and systematic household are in part dependent upon the fact that it is only in such a household that we are enabled to turn over to habit the accomplishment of untold recurrent acts. The experienced accountant can add figures continuously for eight hours a day, and at the end of the day may feel no great exhaustion. The man who has not reduced to habit the necessary steps in addition cannot add continuously for two hours without a degree of exhaustion so great that it paralyzes effort. The same is true with typewriting, telegraphing, and with all forms of manipulations which may be reduced to habit.