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.
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