Much of the present civilization leads the average man and woman to a superficiality and inner hastiness which undermines sound mental life much more than the external factors. We look with a condescending smile at the old-fashioned periods in which the demands of authority and discipline controlled the education of the child and after all the education of the adult to his last days. We have substituted for it the demand of freedom with all its blessings, but instead of the blessings we too often get all its vices. A go-as-you-please method characterizes our whole society from the kindergarten to the height of life. We eulogize the principle of following the paths of own true interest and mean by that too often paths of least resistance. Study becomes play, the child learns a hundred things but does not learn the most important one, to do his duty and to do it accurately and with submission to a general purpose. The power of attention thus never becomes trained, the energy to concentrate on that which is not interesting by its own appeal is slowly lost, a flabby superficiality must set in which is moved by nothing but the personal advantage and the zigzag impulses of the chance surroundings. He who has never learned obedience can never become his own master, and whoever is not his own master through all his life lacks the mental soundness and mental balance which a harmonious life demands. Flippancy and carelessness, haphazard interests and recklessness must result, mediocrity wins the day, cheap aims pervade the social life, hasty judgments, superficial emotions, trivial problems, sensational excitements, and vulgar pleasures appeal to the masses. Yellow papers and vaudeville shows--vaudeville shows on the stage, in the courtroom, on the political platform, in the pulpit of the church--are welcome, and of all the results, one is the most immediate, the disorganization of the brain energies.