By George R. Sims

THE TIMES, London, England, Nov. 01, 1917.

On the study table of a literary friend I picked up a green-covered brochure.  It was a pocket edition of “Truth’s” Special Educational Supplement which had been devoted entirely to an investigation of the value of the course of instruction in Mind and Memory training provided by the Pelman Institute.

Reminded of the Dickens mot with regard to his stories when they were issued in monthly parts, I remarked that the Tree of Knowledge had evidently put out two new green leaves.  Then I looked at the contents of the pamphlet, at first carelessly, but presently I began to read with concentrated interest.

“The Need for Efficiency” was the first line that attracted my attention.  I have been preaching the need for efficiency all my life, and the subject appeal to me.  The statements mad by the “Truth” investigator concerning the results achieved by the Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training were so remarkable that I was first inclined to take them with the proverbial grain of salt.

If this System could really accomplish all that was claimed for it, then the Pelman Institute was something more than a successful business undertaking; it was a great National asset.

When I read the pamphlet I turned back to the front page and there found the portrait of Mr. W.J. Ennever, “The Founder and Director of the Pelman Institute.”  The features and the name were alike familiar to me.  I remembered that I had met with Mr. Ennever at a little luncheon party at the club previous to the war and that I had been introduced to him by my friend Sir William Robertson Nichol, the amiable and far-famed Editor of “The British Weekly.”

It did not take me long to improve upon this slight acquaintance with Mr. Ennever, and a few days later, taking the “Truth” pamphlet, which I surmised was issued by the Institute as part of its publicity campaign, with me, I set out to investigate the much-vaunted system of brain building in Bloomsbury on my own account.

I was perfectly frank with the Director, and he was perfectly frank with me.  “I have read your pamphlet,” I said, “and I have seen some of your advertisements in the Daily Press.  You are not spending your money—and you are evidently spending a considerable amount—in a pure spirit of altruism.  You are not merely casting your bread upon the waters that it may reach the intellectually underfed.  You expect to catch fish with it.”

The Director smiled.  “I quite appreciate your loaves and fishes view of our enterprise,” he said, “but, you see, we are not posing as philanthropists.  We are a business organization, and there is just the same commercialism about us as there is about ordinary training colleges and schools of instruction.  We employ a large staff of experts and specialists, men and women not only of high attainments, but of acknowledged position in the various professional and business occupations.  Our students pay fees for the course of instruction we give.  The larger the number of students, the larger the amount of money we are able to devote to the extension of the Institute and the establishment and maintenance of branches in various parts of the Empire.  It is only a prosperous institution that can remain what it is our aim and purpose to make our students—efficient.”

“And do you really claim that your course of its instruction will make all who follow it efficient?”

“We claim that men and women of whatever degree or calling who take the Pelman Course will be enabled to develop and strengthen the qualities which are of incalculable value in the battle of life.  The Pelman students go into that battle thoroughly trained and properly equipped, and all the world knows to-day, if it never knew before, how necessary training and equipment are, not only to achieve victory, but to avoid defeat.”

“You claim that this system develops all the qualities that make for efficiency?”

“Yes.  The Course through which our students pass must develop and strengthen such qualities as concentration, observation, energy, will-power, foresight, judgment, imagination, resourcefulness, ambition, self-control, self-confidence, organizing power, reasoning power, accuracy, and a never-failing memory.”

“If these qualities are developed and strengthened in the student who pays for a course of Pelmanism, he must certainly get value for his money.”

“Yes.  Not only in the wider outlook of life and the increased enjoyment of the opportunities in life, but in the financial and professional advancement which mental efficiency enables him to attain.

“But we are only talking.  I am giving you phrases, and you want facts.  You are listening—excuse me putting it commercially—to a man who has goods to sell.  Why not see for yourself?  Examine our System, investigate the results, see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears.  Everything is at your disposal.  Form your own unbiased opinion, and if that opinion is favourable, if you think the System can accomplish all that we claim for it and that we are doing work which is of the greatest National importance, then I may ask you as a journalist—a soldier of the pen is never past military age—to do your ‘bit’ to help a National work by making it more widely known.  The outside public have as yet very little acquaintance with the wonderful work that Pelmanism is doing.”

I had interviewed Mr. Ennever in the middle of the air raid week.  I wanted something to take my mind off bombs and basements, and I accepted his invitation to take an investigation on my own account.  I started as a sceptic.  When I finished I had become not only a believer, but a disciple.

And these articles are written with an earnest desire to help forward an enterprise resting upon a sure commercial foundation, and an enterprise which is doing important national service in training and equipping British men and women for the great day so soon to come when we shall have to take the lion’s share—in rebuilding a broken world.