sit down in a quiet spot, with your back to the door, so you will not be tempted to look up as people enter the room.  Do not sit near a group of gossipers or near a creaking door.  Having made the external conditions favorable for study, you should next address yourself to the task of eliminating bodily distractions.  The most disturbing of these in study are sensations of fatigue, for, contrary to the opinion of many people, study is very fatiguing work and involves continual strain upon the muscles in holding the body still, particularly those of the back, neck, arms, hands and, above all, the eyes.  How many movements are made by your eyes in the course of an hour’s study!  They sweep back and forth across the page incessantly, being moved by six muscles which are bound to become fatigued.  Still more fatigue comes from the contractions of delicate muscles within the eyeball, where adjustments are made for far and near vision and for varying amounts of light.  The eyes, then, give rise to much fatigue, and, altogether, are the source of a great many bodily distractions in study.

Other distractions may consist of sensations from the clothing.  We are always vaguely aware of pressure of our clothing.  Usually it is not sufficiently noticeable to cause much annoyance, but occasionally it is, as is demonstrated at night when we take off a shoe with such a sigh of relief that we realize in retrospect it had been vaguely troubling us all day.

In trying to create conditions for efficient study, many bodily distractions can be eliminated.  The study chair should be easy to sit in so as to reduce fatigue of the muscles supporting the body; the book-rest should be arranged so as to require little effort to hold the book; the light should come over the left shoulder.  This is especially necessary in writing, so that the writing hand will not cast a shadow upon the work.  The muscles of the eyes will be rested and fatigue will be retarded if you close the eyes occasionally.  Then in order to lessen the general fatigue of the body, you may find it advantageous to rise and walk about occasionally.  Lastly, the clothing should be loose and unconfining; especially should there be plenty of room for circulation.

In the overcoming of distractions, we have seen that much may be done by way of eliminating distractions, and we have pointed out the way to accomplish this to a certain extent.  But in spite of our most careful provisions, there will still be distractions that cannot be eliminated.  You cannot, for example, chloroform the vocalist in the neighboring apartment, nor stop the street-cars while you study; you cannot rule out fatigue sensations entirely, and you cannot build a fence around the focus of your mind so as to keep out unwelcome and irrelevant ideas.  The only thing to do then is to accept as inevitable the presence of some distractions, and to realise that to pay attention, it is necessary to habituate yourself to the ignoring of distractions.