Systematizing Mental Labor.—
As a marvelous instance of what one man may achieve by doing systematically and thoroughly whatever he undertakes we cannot do better than to consider the life of Alexander Von Humboldt. There was no part of the world he had not visited, and he had been nowhere without acquiring the most exact knowledge of the whole country, its geology, its animal life, its botany, its physical characteristics, as well as the language, habits, customs, laws, religion, and history of its people. He led this life till he was ninety years of age, and even then no fact, in any part of the world that had any bearing on scientific truth, escaped his notice. His mind was a museum, where all the knowledge that had been brought into the world was placed in order, carefully guarded, and always ready for use. We are not wrong in attributing the boundless learning and prodigious memory of this great man to his habit of systematizing his mental labor, and to his power of self-concentration, and to his belief in the wisdom of God.—Scientific American.