From what has already been said, it is evident that there are at least three fundamental principles to be observed by all parents who would give their children a good start in life. Care must be taken to set the little ones a really good parental example; they must be surrounded from the dawn of consciousness by a favourable environment; and the effort should be made by direct instruction to develop in them habits of right thinking and acting before wrong habits have time to get formed. To these three principles a fourth must now be added: the exercise of constant vigilance to detect and correct any physical disabilities, no matter how trivial they may seem to be.

As was noted when discussing the case of the boy who “goes wrong,” even comparatively slight physical defects, by causing neural stress, may contribute directly to the making of the juvenile delinquent. So, too, mental development may be hampered by unfavourable conditions of bodily health. This, of course, has long been recognised in a general way. But in essential details it still is a fact far too little appreciated by the majority of parents. Nay, it is ignored or misunderstood even by some scientific students of the nature of man, as is shown, for example, by the varying views held to-day regarding that widespread human frailty, laziness.

Only a short time ago, looking through some scientific works bearing on a complicated educational problem, I was greatly struck by two pronouncements concerning laziness. On the one hand I found an eminent physiologist declaring unreservedly, “The love of work and activity is an acquired characteristic rather than a natural one; for the human tendency is toward the line of least effort.” And opposed to this another authority asserted with equal emphasis, “There never was a child born into this world who was born into it lazy.”

To reconcile these statements is a manifest impossibility. Yet it is certain that each of them finds in facts of everyday observation a strong body of evidence to support it. The average child of tender years, as every parent knows, is supremely active and energetic. He is always in motion, always busying himself about something, his mind alert and inquiring, his hands ceaselessly occupied in testing, exploring, putting together, and taking to pieces. Left to himself, he often will display an amazing tenacity of purpose and vigour of performance.

Of one child, less than a year old, a close observer has recorded, “He would over and over again seem to be trying to solve the problem of the hinge to his nursery door, patiently and with riveted attention opening and shutting the door. Day after day saw him at his self-appointed task.” Another, fourteen months old, while playing with a tin can, was seen to put the cover on and off “not less than seventy-nine times without stopping for a moment.” The incessant questioning with which children bombard their parents is another impressive indication of their exuberant, irrepressible activity and energy. But, for that matter, the whole life of the average child goes to corroborate the dictum that the people of this world come into it free from the taint of laziness.

When, however, we look at the same child grown to manhood, or even a few years removed from early youth, more often than not his behaviour seems to bear out the contrary view that man is naturally lazy and acquires love of work, if at all, only under strong compulsion. “To get results from my boys, to induce them to apply themselves to their books and their studies,” many a despairing school-teacher has lamented, “I have to be forever watching and driving them.” In college, office, factory, workshop, and store, one hears the same complaint. There is perpetual waste of time, dawdling, loitering, gossiping—a seeming passion for the ways of slothful ease and aversion from sustained endeavour. To a large extent, too, the history even of those who have won distinction as leaders of thought and action seemingly justifies the doctrine that mankind is naturally prone to idleness rather than to productive activity, and that any tendency in the latter direction is invariably a characteristic acquired in the course of individual development.

Thus Charles Darwin, world-famous for his splendid contributions to the advance of science, was so lazy in boyhood that his father predicted he would turn out a ne’er-do-well and a disgrace to the family. His great contemporary, Sir Charles Lyell, similarly had as a boy a profound dislike for work of any sort. Heinrich Heine, on his own confession, idled away his time in school, and was “horribly bored” by the instruction given him at GÖttingen. According to an American psychologist, Edgar James Swift, who has made an extensive study of the boyhood of great men, Wordsworth up to the age of seventeen was so lazy as to be “wholly incapable of continued application to prescribed work.” Of Patrick Henry it is recorded by an early biographer that in boyhood “he was too idle to gain any solid advantage from the opportunities which were thrown in his way.” And, after his schooling was done, indolence caused him to fail dismally in several business ventures before he took up the study of law.

When James Russell Lowell was a boy his relatives were greatly distressed by his laziness, and he was suspended by the authorities of Harvard University “on account of continual neglect of his college duties.” A boyhood friend who had unusual facilities for observation is credited with having repeatedly declared that “there never was so idle a dog as young Humphry,” afterward Sir Humphry Davy of scientific renown. “My master,” Samuel Johnson once remarked, in speaking of his school-boy days, “whipped me very hard. Without that, sir, I should have done nothing.” Balzac, who wrote so many novels, yet did not let one appear until it had undergone repeated revision, confessed that not only in boyhood but throughout the years of his literary labours he was tormented by longings for an existence of pleasure-seeking leisure. Through the lips of his famous character, Raphael de Valentin, here is what he says of himself:

“Since the age of reason until the day when I had finished my task, I observed, read, wrote without ceasing, and my life was like a long imposition; an effeminate lover of oriental indolence, enamoured of my dreams, sensual, I have always worked, refusing to allow myself to taste the joys of Parisian life; gourmand, I have been temperate; enjoying movement and sea voyages, longing to visit other countries, still finding pleasure, like a child, in making ducks and drakes on the water, I remained constantly seated, pen in hand.”

Taking into consideration facts like these, the evidence would certainly seem to be in favour of the view that, in yielding to a desire for idleness, men are, after all, only following the dictate of Nature. But, recalling the intense activity, the abounding energy of childhood, recalling also the demonstrable truth that in most cases even the laziest of school-boys has had a past characterised by the reverse of laziness, just as he may have, like Darwin, Lyell, and the rest, a future of marvellous accomplishment, the mind must once more incline to the opposite belief.

It may be, and, as will be shown, it undoubtedly is, somewhat of an exaggeration to say that there never has been a congenitally lazy man. But to say this is far nearer the truth than to regard laziness as something rooted in the constitution of our being, and love of activity as merely an acquired characteristic. On the contrary, the sharp contrast between the activity and energy of the average child and the idling propensities of the average man, points unmistakably to the development of laziness as a parasitic growth interfering with the normal processes and tendencies of nature. Laziness, in other words, must be looked upon as essentially a pathological condition.

Instead, therefore, of condemning the lazy man, as the moralists would, it is the part of wisdom to view him as a victim of disease and as standing in need of careful treatment. Nature intended him to be vigorous, forceful, a being of achievement; circumstances have made him listless, inert, responsive but in feeble measure to the spur of honour, ambition, pride, love, or necessity. Sometimes, to be sure, he is contented with his laziness, and would almost resent an attempt to rescue him from it; more frequently he writhes in secret over a defect which he realises exposes him to the contempt and ridicule of his more virile fellow-men, and renders his life an empty, profitless existence. As one unhappy victim confessed in a moment of extraordinary self-revelation:

“I begin, but do not finish. When I conceive a work, a feverish impatience seizes me to reach the desired aim; I should like to attain it at once. But to accomplish something, patient and continuous efforts are required. I never accomplish anything.... One dull day, in one of the suburbs, I saw a large piece of waste land, more covered with fragments of earthenware than with grass. Three or four houses had been commenced, charming little dwellings of red brick and white stone; the walls had been there for two or three years, but the floors and ceilings were lacking, the roofs had never been tiled, and one could see across the ever wide-open windows. My mind is in a similar condition—a rough plain with several pretty houses, the roofs of which will never be finished.” (The Fortnightly Review, vol. lxix, p. 763.)

What, then, is the cause of laziness? How should one proceed in the attempt to cure it? Still more important in this complex and severely competitive age, with its incessant demand for vigour and effectiveness of performance, what are the preventive measures that may be taken in the interest alike of the individual and society?

Only a few years ago it would have been impossible to answer these questions in any but the vaguest and most general way. It might have been said—indeed, it was said—that laziness is essentially an infirmity of the will. No statement could be more correct, but also none could be more futile in the absence of any clear appreciation of the factors determining the weakness or strength of one’s will-power. For, as somebody has truly said, the will is not an isolated entity, absolutely independent of, and superior to, the organism through which it operates. Having a controlling force, it still is, to a large extent, itself controlled by material as well as by psychical circumstances, by bodily states and by the impressions the mind absorbs from the environment. Consequently the solution of the problem of laziness depends at bottom on the ascertainment of the factors hurtful to efficient willing.

This task quite recently has been essayed with remarkable success, and, especially by a little group of French investigators, with immediate reference to the problem presented by the lazy man. Laziness in all its phases has been studied with the resourcefulness and painstaking precision characteristic of the new school of medical psychologists, to whom we are already so heavily indebted for a better understanding of the mind of man both in its normal and its abnormal aspects. And with respect to laziness they have likewise made some interesting and important discoveries.

What, in particular, they have found is that it is usually associated with a peculiarly debilitated condition of the nervous system—an “asthenia” marked by a slow heart-beat, low arterial pressure, and poor circulation. The consequence of this is, to quote ThÉodule Ribot, one of the leaders in the scientific study of laziness, that “the brain shows not so much an indisposition as a real incapacity for concentrating attention, and soon, owing to the fact that its nourishment is at the vanishing-point, becomes exhausted.” A whole series of idlers, tested scientifically, were shown to be suffering from this asthenic condition, which led them instinctively to husband their feeble resources by the simple expedient of exerting themselves no more than was absolutely necessary. Yet not a few of them were to all appearance healthy enough, and, until the medical examination had been made, it was difficult to credit their well-grounded complaint that they really felt “too tired to work,” and at best could do so “only by fits and starts.”

This is not to say that they were all of them “born tired.” Congenitally weak many of them may have been; but the more the investigators familiarised themselves with the asthenia of the lazy, the more they found reason for the belief that, as a rule, it was an acquired and functional rather than an inborn and organic weakness, although often initiated by local troubles organic in nature. Thus, studying laziness in children attending school, it was discovered that quite frequently their inertia is connected with the presence of adenoid, or abnormal tissue, growths, in the cavity back of the nose. These growths, by making it extremely hard for the child to breathe properly, deplete his vitality so that he remains undersized and is quickly fatigued by intellectual or muscular effort. The natural consequence is that he becomes more or less of an idler, bringing upon himself the reproaches and punishments of parents and teachers. What he actually needs is not scoldings or whippings but a slight surgical operation.

Often a surprising development of both mental and physical power follows the removal of the adenoids. In one case, reported by Professor Swift, a girl of fourteen grew three inches taller within six months after an operation for adenoids, and at the same time showed an improvement in her school-work that contrasted strikingly with the apathy and dulness that had preceded it. Another, three years younger, grew six inches in about four months, and from being a sad idler was transformed into an unexpectedly attractive and bright pupil. A boy of twelve, backward both mentally and physically, likewise lost his dulness and laziness within an astonishingly short time after the impediment to his breathing had been removed.

Dental defects also contribute materially to the development of laziness and mental retardation. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in individual cases, and at least one psychologist—Professor J. E. Wallace Wallin, of St. Louis—has demonstrated it in the case of a group of children.

These children, twenty-seven in number, were pupils in a Cleveland public school; they were afflicted with tooth-decay to a varying extent, and they were mentally backward, being from one to four years retarded in their school-work. At Professor Wallin’s direction their teeth and gums were treated, they were taught to use a tooth-brush properly, and to chew their food thoroughly. Before the dental treatment began they were twice given five psychological tests, to ascertain their memory-power, attention-power, etc.; the same tests were twice given to them while the treatment was under way; and, six months after its termination, or just before the close of the school-year 1910–1911, the tests were again given twice.

Comparing the results of the different testings, a progressive and remarkable improvement was found. In ability to memorise, the average improvement for the group was 19 per cent.; in attention power, 60 per cent.; in adding, 35 per cent.; in ability to associate words having an opposite meaning, 129 per cent.; and in general association ability, 42 per cent. More than this, and testifying incontrovertibly to the direct influence of the dental treatment in promoting vigour of thought, only one of the children failed of promotion, six completed thirty-eight weeks of school-work in twenty-four weeks, and one boy did two years’ work in one year. Yet all of these children, remember, had formerly been quite unable to keep up with the work of their grades.

How explain this great improvement? Only on the theory that, by repairing their teeth and drilling them in the rudiments of mouth hygiene, a stop had been put to a disease-process which involved both nervous strain and—through the swallowing of the toxic products of tooth-decay—a poisoning of the supply of blood to the brain, with consequent lessening of the brain’s ability to function properly.

Eye trouble, particularly in the way of hypermetropia, or far-sightedness, is another frequent cause of laziness in school-children, and the correction of the defective vision often is followed by a marked access of vigour and alertness. In such cases, however, the laziness is usually manifest only in the school-room, the child being active enough at play, when no strain is put on the eyes comparable with that occasioned by reading.

To cite a single instance, a little boy of ten was reported as being so inattentive at school and so uninterested in his work as to yawn and become sleepy when required to read. As no amount of scolding sufficed to turn him from his idle ways, and as he began to complain of headaches and nervousness, he was finally taken to an oculist. To the surprise of his parents, who had always believed his vision normal, he was found to be suffering from latent hypermetropia; and, on being provided with the proper eye-glasses, he soon demonstrated, by the rapidity with which he improved in his studies and the interest he now showed in them, that his laziness had been determined by the condition of his eyesight.

In fact, any bodily defect that is of such a character as to impose an excessive strain on the nervous system tends to produce an asthenic condition, with accompanying apathy and indolence. And, even when the local trouble is only temporary, its disappearance is not necessarily followed, as it was in the instances just narrated, by a return to energetic, effective activity. For, in the meantime, the idler may have acquired an unconscious—or, to be more precise, a subconscious—belief that sustained exertion is and always must be beyond his powers. Thus a vicious circle is established, the belief in his incapacity causing him to act in such a way as to intensify the asthenic state, and the resultant increased feeling of debility operating, in its turn, to confirm and strengthen his erroneous belief. In other words, he is now suffering chiefly from a “fixed idea,” and his condition is that of any psycho-neurotic patient.

On this point all who have made a scientific study of laziness are in substantial agreement. We must, flatly affirms the pioneer investigator Doctor Maurice de Fleury, “take the indolent for what they nearly always are—neuropaths; and neurosis for what it always is—bad habits of cerebral activity.” The longer a man has been an idler, the more deeply rooted, of course, will be his subconscious conviction that exertion is impossible to him; but, according to de Fleury and other investigators, once this conviction is broken down, he will find that he can work, and work to good purpose.

The effecting of a cure, needless to say, is not always easy. It requires co-operation on the part of the patient, and on the physician’s part intelligent and sympathetic use of both physiological and psychological methods of treatment. Hygienic measures must be adopted to tone up the nervous system, to improve the circulation, the digestion, the nutrition—to develop, as far as possible, a general feeling of well-being. The idler must gradually be trained to occupy himself usefully—not, perhaps, for many hours at a time, but for regular stated periods, however short. And to this end, the effort has to be made, from the outset, to awaken in him an absorbing interest in the attainment of some one specific aim in life, thereby replacing his baneful fixed idea of incapacity for work with the opposed and beneficial obsession of something that he must and can accomplish.

Here we come to what is by far the most important factor in the cure of laziness—the dynamic, regenerative power of some special interest.2 Even your idler, enfeebled by positive organic weakness, may rise superior to himself and achieve marvels, if only his enthusiasm be sufficiently aroused to a definite end. It was thus, for example, with Charles Darwin.

When he was a boy, as was said above, Darwin was colossally lazy. He neglected his books, and spent his days roaming through the fields, gun in hand. “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family,” was his father’s bitter reproof. As he grew older, his propensity for idling seemed only to increase. In spite of this, hoping against hope that he would yet settle down to serious things, his father entered him at the University of Glasgow, with the idea of fitting him for the practice of medicine. “It is no use,” the boy frankly avowed, after a few months at Glasgow; “I hate the work here, and I cannot possibly be a physician.” So earnest were his protests that he was transferred to Cambridge University, on the understanding that he would study to be a clergyman.

At Cambridge, as good fortune would have it, he entered the natural history class of an eminent and enlightened scholar, Professor Henslow, who sent him into the woods and fields to make collections of plants and insects. Free again to roam under the clear blue skies, but this time with a lofty purpose set before his mind, a passion for achievement took possession of him. The boy whom other teachers had found dull and lazy proved himself, under Professor Henslow’s inspiring guidance, a marvel of industry and mental vigour. There was no longer any thought of the “last resort” plan of putting him into the ministry. He would, he told his delighted father, become a naturalist, and he would work hard.

And he did work hard. Though his health was permanently impaired by the hardships of a voyage of exploration, so that “for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men,” and “every day succumbed to the exhaustion brought on by the slightest effort,” he nevertheless found a way to work with an effectiveness few men of normal health have equalled.

The establishment of regular hours for work—thus gradually forming a work habit which itself constituted a sort of fixed idea contrary to the idea of indolence, and the reinforcement of this work habit by enthusiastic pre-occupation with an inspiring theme—such was the secret of Charles Darwin’s mastery over ills more serious than those which have made countless men lifelong idlers. What he did is precisely what the medical psychologist of to-day prescribes as fundamental in the successful treatment of laziness. Listen to the wise Doctor de Fleury:

“Let it be known that it is often possible in the practice of life to replace an absurd idea by a good fixed one, and to form excellent habits in the place of deplorable manias. It is precisely in doing this that the psychological treatment of indolence consists; it is this patient work that the doctor of misguided minds ought to undertake.

“To induce [a lazy person] to become possessed of a good fixed idea, is not a superhuman work for those who know how to set about it. In fact, the means to be employed remind one of a woman who wishes to make herself loved.

“Let us consider for a moment the means dictated to her by her infallible instinct concerning love affairs. First of all, she dresses herself with care, so as to show off her charms to the full; then she finds opportunities for constantly being seen, increases the number of meetings; her presence must become habitual—in fact, necessary; he must suffer when she is no longer near. She kindles the flame of jealousy, to make it understood that she is an incomparable treasure, and that another will grasp her if he does not stretch forth his arm in time.

“Imitate her, you who wish to learn the marvellous art of reclaiming the indolent. Help your patient to choose a work really suited to his abilities; embellish the idea [of it] with all the hope that it is possible to raise—self-content, worldly importance, glory, and fortune to be conquered. Talk about it without ceasing; like a Wagnerian motive, repeat it again and again, and soon you will find that the brain seizes the idea, and can no longer exist without this good obsession. Finally, when the idea becomes cherished, when the brain loves it as one loves and desires a woman, make it to be understood that it belongs to all, that it is in the air, that another, braver and more manly, may step in and carry it off....

“Naturally, it is necessary to vary one’s advice according to the character and profession of each patient. I have had the opportunity of treating—for nervous affections and at the same time for indolence—men occupying the most varied social positions: students, composers, military officers, men of letters, lawyers, financiers, politicians, poor workmen, and idle, rich people. For each one of them it was necessary to choose a ruling idea, suited to his occupation and in proportion to his strength.”

Treatment by suggestion, then, plus careful preliminary physiological, and if necessary medical, treatment to ameliorate the asthenic condition common to idlers—that is the proper course to pursue in dealing with all cases of laziness. And it is also the course to pursue in the more important matter of prevention, a matter which, as the case of Charles Darwin strikingly suggests, rests chiefly with fathers and mothers.

Everybody knows that, as things now stand, young men and women choose vocations in a haphazard way, and too often choose vocations for which Nature has not intended them. What it is equally important to recognise is that even when they do happen to hit on a vocation fitted to them, it is only the exceptional man or woman who works anywhere near the limit of his or her capacity. The great majority fritter away much of their time, and may justly be accused of idleness.

The surprising thing about this is that, as has already been pointed out, it is seldom one sees anything like real laziness in early childhood. What causes the sharp contrast between the activity of childhood and the frequent apathy of later years? Unfavourable physical conditions cannot be held wholly responsible, especially when it is observed that there always are some people who, like Darwin, contrive to work effectively despite serious physical shortcomings. One must look a little deeper, and, looking deeper, one finds, as medical psychologists have lately found, that the trouble lies mostly with the parental attitude in childhood and youth.

Too many parents discourage the ceaseless questioning of their children, and thereby deaden that great stimulus to effort—curiosity. Too many fail to direct their children’s thoughts into really worth while channels. Too many daily give them an example, not of industrious activity, but of half-hearted endeavour. All this goes to create in the child habits inimical to real work; and in proportion as he is afterward, by parent or teacher, forced to work, he finds work burdensome and exhausting. Under this condition, whether or no he is suffering from adenoids, eye trouble, or any other physical cause of nervous strain, he is likely to develop the asthenic state of the true idler, with the result of soon or late feeling that sustained effort is beyond him.

On parents, therefore, ultimately rests the blame for the prevalence of laziness; and for its prevention we must likewise look to parents. As a friend, a prominent American medical psychologist, once said to me emphatically:

“There would be far fewer lazy men in the world if parents only appreciated the possibility of so influencing their children in early youth as to confirm them in the tendencies to energetic action and fruitful thinking which they usually display in the first years of life. Instead of neglecting or repressing these tendencies, as so many parents unfortunately do, they should encourage their children in the active use of their minds, should train them in habits of systematic and effective thinking, and especially, by observing just what aptitudes they most clearly show, should take pains to cultivate in them an abiding interest in the subjects for which they seem to have greatest talent.

“If they would only do this, and would at the same time keep a close watch for any symptoms of nerve-strain due to organic or functional disturbances, correcting these at the earliest possible moment, we should hear much less than we do now of the indolence of the average child of school age; and we certainly should be taking a great forward step in the lessening of laziness among grown men and women. For, obviously, a child habituated from infancy to the fullest and freest use of his natural powers, will be likely to continue thinking and acting energetically in later life. In this, as in everything else, the law is the same—as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”