These brain-tools I have been speaking of are your powers of thinking correctly, creating, doing, and the absolute integrity which must be retained between the impulses of the mind and the hands which respond to these impulses. The engineer, the auto driver, the mechanic, the draughtsman, the airman, the man who works in perilous heights while constructing tall buildings or bridges, must have perfect harmony throughout all his body――brain, muscles, eyes, ears. Let any one of these senses become unconsciously dull through neglect of right living, and the awful moment comes when an engineer sends a train to wreck with its innocent passengers, a tender pulls a lever a tenth of a second too soon and lets down the derrick’s load upon his fellow workers, or a chauffeur misses the turn by a few inches and sends the auto crashing over a precipice.
It is because these little matters of keeping the brain in its best condition by attending to details of living have not been thoroughly understood, that we have so many unaccountable accidents occurring every day. The knowledge of man’s forces and how they are controlled has not kept pace with his wonderful mechanical and electrical discoveries, so we have gone along with brain, instincts and training well enough for handling the plow and side-wheel steamboat, but not for the safe control of the delicate and powerful machines of to-day.
For example: a young man who runs an auto goes one night to a dance where he breathes foul air, smokes and drinks a little beer. He returns late to his bed and rises early in the morning to take out the auto for a speedy spin. He knew the day before that he was to go with a party of children and women for an early drive. But what he did not know was that the foul air, tobacco and beer would surely make for less correct connection between his brain impulses and the response from his muscles, hands and arms.
Now all this little night’s pleasure, while harmless enough perhaps in its way and certainly harmless for a man who was to drive a hack the next morning, was injurious for one who needed every tenth of action between brain and hand under absolute control. There is coming a time when all these matters will be taught as well as the combustion parts of an engine.