The Brain !

Reading "A Father to His Freshman Son" by Edward S. Martin reminded me of some of my experiences with students.
I've quoted part of the article below:
                          Your mind, like your body, is a thing whereof the
                           powers are developed by effort. That is a principal
                          use, as I see it, of hard work in studies. Unless you
                          train your body you can't be an athlete, and unless
                          you train your mind you can't be much of a scholar.
                         The four miles an oarsman covers at top speed is in
                         itself nothing to the good, but the physical capacity to
                         hold out over the course is thought to be of some
                         worth. So a good part of what you learn by hard
                         study may not be permanently retained, and may not
                         seem to be of much final value, but your mind is a
                         better and more powerful instrument because you
                         have learned it.
                         Knowledge is power,' but still more the 
                         faculty of acquiring and using knowledge is power.
                         If you have a trained and powerful mind, you are
                         bound to have stored it with something, but its value
                         is more in what it can do, what it can grasp and use,
                         than in what it contains; and if it were possible, as it
                         is not, to come out of college with a trained and
                        disciplined
                         mind and nothing useful in it, you would still
                         be ahead, and still, in a manner, educated. Think of
                         your mind as a muscle to be developed; think of it as
                         a searchlight that is to reveal the truth to you, and
                         don't cheat it or neglect it.

The underlining is mine.
These are important points to all those students who cannot see the "value" in studying history, or geography, or the parts of a cell in science, or algebra, etc.
How often I have heard this refrain: "I'll never use this in my real life." 
Sometimes it is enunciated as a challenge: "When will I ever need to know this?"
           It is not so important that you become a massive "container" of information.  (Ever less important with today's technology.)  Rather the brain's stimulation strengthens it and your ability to work with material - sometimes new and challenging - sometimes review.
You become a better person. 
Of course, this is not only for young people.  New discoveries seem to indicate that exercising the brain helps stave off Alzheimer's. 
So keep learning and exercising your brain power!