Part 12

While you know there is a master to our house, yet you can not see him. He may peep through the windows, you may hear him speak, and you can talk to him. Perhaps you will love him very much, or you may dislike to be near him. You may see his work, but still you can not see him.

AMY: You must mean that the mind is master of the body, is it not, mother?

MOTHER: It surely ought to be; but I am sorry to say that in some houses the servants get the master to do as they like, and then the body-house has a bad time, for “whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.” The apostle Paul said, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection,” and this is the work given to the master of every body-house. The mind should know what is good for the body, and, though the servants may ask many times to do as they like, he should firmly say, “No,” whenever they wish to do wrong. Can you tell what the mind is?

HELEN: It is the part of me that thinks and remembers.

MOTHER: And it also wills, that is, we “make up our mind,” as we say. Why do you think our mind is in the head?

PERCY: Why, if our hands, arms, or feet were cut off, we could still think.

MOTHER: Do you remember the name of the organ inside the head with which we think?

AMY: The brain.

MOTHER: Yes; and since the brain is such an important part of the body, it is put in the strongest room of all. It sometimes becomes ill if not used right, so we should learn how to keep it well. The worst sickness in the world is mind sickness, and it is hardest to cure.

The brain has six coverings in all. The outside coverings are the hair and scalp, or skin. Then we find the strong bones, fitted closely together with saw-teeth edges. Inside the bones the brain has three coverings: first, a tough, strong skin; then a very thin covering, hardly thicker than a spider’s web; and the third is made up of many little blood-vessels, which feed the brain.

AMY: I wish we could see how the brain looks, mother.

PERCY: I have seen brains at the butcher shops. Do ours look like that?

MOTHER: Yes, quite the same. You have all seen the marrow in the bones. The brain looks some like that, too. It is made of jelly-like matter, and seems to be all crumpled up, so it is full of ridges and creases, as you see in this picture. It is said a baby’s brain is quite smooth, but the more a person thinks, the more ridges and furrows his brain will have and the deeper they are. A frog’s brain is smooth, like this.

ELMER: But I don’t see how the brain thinks.

MOTHER: That is one of the things we can never understand. God gave men life, and when we are alive we think. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being,” and to be able to think is one of the best gifts that comes with life. It is the life God gives us which makes the body-house worth more than the most costly palace in the world.

If we look carefully into the brain, we see that the outside is gray, and the inside is white. Wise men tell us this matter is made of cells, called nerve cells, or brain cells. The gray matter tells the muscles what to do, and the white part sends the orders to all parts of the body through the nerves.

ELMER: Have we more than one brain, mother?

MOTHER: I might say no, and yes. It is really one, and yet it is in several parts. One is the big brain, which is found above the ears in the top of the head. It is with this part we think and reason. Then there is a little brain, in the back part of the head under the large brain. It is about as big as a medium-sized orange. Each brain has two parts, a right and left half, so we really have two brains. It might be said we are “left brained” when we are “right handed,” for the right hand is ruled by the left half of the brain.

AMY: How large is the brain, mother?

MOTHER: That of a man weighs about three pounds. An elephant’s weighs eight or ten pounds, and that is the heaviest of any we know. The brain must be used, the same as the muscles, if we would have it do its work well. It makes it grow and does it good when we study and think. As it was made to think about something, we should give it good things to think about. If it is lazy, it will lose the power to work, just as the muscles do, and if used, it will grow stronger and can do still harder work.

HELEN: And does it ever need rest?

MOTHER: Certainly; it must rest, the same as the muscles. People sometimes hurt the brain by working it very hard and letting the muscles do nothing.

PERCY: But how can it rest? We can’t stop thinking.

MOTHER: No; we think of something all the time we are awake, so the best way to rest the brain is to take plenty of sleep. Sometimes a part of it keeps awake while the body is asleep, and then we say we had a dream. Another way to rest the mind is to set the muscles at work after we have been reading or studying. Boys and girls in school should spend part of each day working, or in some way using their muscles in the open air.

ELMER: I should think the master of the body-house would want to look outside of his little room sometimes.

MOTHER: Yes, he does; and the cupola of which we have been talking has two wonderful windows.

AMY: Oh, I know what they are! They are our eyes.

MOTHER: Yes, and through them the master looks out and sees all that is passing around him.