It would seem a considerable departure from the study of menticulture
as advised in the author's book, "Menticulture," to jump at once to an
investigation of the physiology and psychology of nutrition of the body
and then over to the department of infant and child care and education
as pursued in the _crêche_ and in the kindergarten; but as a matter of
fact, if study of the causation of human disabilities and misfortunes
is attempted at all, the quest leads naturally into all the departments
of human interest, and first into these primary departments.
The object of this statement is to link up the different publications
of the writer into a chain of consistent suggestions intended to
make life a more simple and agreeable problem than many of us too
indifferent or otherwise inefficient and bad fellow-citizens make of it.
It is not an altogether unselfish effort on the part of the author of
the A. B. C. Life Series to publish his findings. In the consideration
of his own mental and physical happiness it is impossible to leave out
environment, and all the units of humanity who inhabit the world are
part of his and of each other's environment.
It would be rank presumption for any person, even though gifted with
the means to circulate his suggestions as widely as possible, and
armed with the power to compel the reading of his publications, to
think that any suggestions of his could influence any considerable
number of his fellow-citizens of the world, or even of his own
immediate neighbourhood, to accept or follow his advice relative to the
management of their lives and of their communal and national affairs;
but while the general and complete good of humanity should be aimed
at in all publications, one's immediate neighbours and friends come
first, and the wave of influence spreads according to the effectiveness
of the ideas suggested in doing good; that is, in altering the point
of view and conduct of people so as to make them a better sympathetic
environment.
For instance, the children of your neighbours are likely to be the
playmates of your own children, and the children of degenerate parents
in the slum district of your city will possibly be the fellow-citizen
partners of your own family. Again, when it is known that right or
wrong nutrition of the body is the most important agent in forming
character, in establishing predisposition to temperance or intemperance
of living, including the desire for intoxicating stimulants, it is
revealed to one that right nutrition of the community as a whole is an
important factor in his own environment, as is self-care in the case of
his own nourishment.
The moment a student of every-day philosophy starts the study of
problems from the A. B. C. beginning of things, and to shape his study
according to an A. B. C. sequence, each cause of inharmony is at once
traced back to its first expression in himself and then to causes
influenced by his environments.
If we find that the largest influences for good or bad originate with
the right or wrong instruction of children during the home training or
kindergarten period of their development, and that a dollar expended
for education at that time is worth more for good than whole bancs of
courts and whole armies of police to correct the effect of bad training
and bad character later in life, it is quite logical to help promote
the spread of the kindergarten or the kindergarten idea to include
all of the children born into the world, and to furnish mothers and
kindergarten teachers with knowledge relative to the right nutrition
of their wards which they can themselves understand and can teach
effectively to children.
If we also find that the influence of the kindergarten upon the parents
of the infants is more potent than any other which can be brought to
bear upon them, we see clearly that the way to secure the widest
reform in the most thorough manner is to concentrate attention upon the
kindergarten phase of education, advocate its extension to include even
the last one of the children, beginning with the most needy first, and
extending the care outward from the centre of worst neglect to finally
reach the whole.
Experience in child saving so-called, and in child education on the
kindergarten principle, has taught the cheapest and the most profitable
way to insure an environment of good neighbours and profit-earning
citizens; and investigation into the problem of human alimentation
shows that a knowledge of the elements of an economic nutrition is the
first essential of a family or school training; and also that this is
most impressive when taught during the first ten years of life.
One cannot completely succeed in the study of menticulture from its A.
B. C. beginning and in A. B. C. sequence without appreciation of the
interrelation of the physical and the mental, the personal and the
social, in attaining a complete mastery of the subject.
The author of the A. B. C. Life Series has pursued his study of the
philosophy of life in experiences which have covered a great variety
of occupations in many different parts of the world and among peoples
of many different nations and races. His first book, "Menticulture,"
dealt with purging the mind and habits of sundry weaknesses and
deterrents which have possession of people in general in some degree.
He recognised the depressing effect of anger and worry and other
phases of _fearthought_. In the book "Happiness," which followed next
in order, _fearthought_ was shown to be the unprofitable element of
forethought. The influence of environment on each individual was
revealed as an important factor of happiness, or the reverse, by means
of an accidental encounter with a neglected waif in the busy streets of
Chicago during a period of intense national excitement incident to the
war with Spain, and this led to the publication of "That Last Waif;
or, Social Quarantine." During the time that this last book was being
written, attention to the importance of right nutrition was invited by
personal disabilities, and the experiments described in "Glutton or
Epicure; or, Economic Nutrition" were begun and have continued until
now.
In the study of the latter, but most important factor in profitable
living, circumstances have greatly favoured the author, as related in
his latest book, "The A. B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition."
The almost phenomenal circulation of "Menticulture" for a book of its
kind, and a somewhat smaller interest in the books on nutrition and
the appeal for better care of the waifs of society, showed that most
persons wished, like the author, to find a short cut to happiness by
means of indifference to environment, both internal and external, while
habitually sinning against the physiological dietetic requirements of
Nature. In smothering worry and guarding against anger the psychic
assistance of digestion was stimulated and some better results were
thereby obtained, but not the best attainable results.
Living is easy and life may be made constantly happy by beginning
right; and the right beginning is none other than the careful feeding
of the body. This done there is an enormous reserve of energy, a
naturally optimistic train of thought, a charitable attitude towards
everybody, and a loving appreciation of everything that God has made.
Morbidity of temperament will disappear from an organism that is
economically and rightly nourished, and death will cease to have any
terrors for such; and as _fear_ of death is the worst depressant known,
many of the _worries_ of existence take their everlasting flight from
the atmosphere of the rightly nourished.
The wide interest now prevalent in the subjects treated in The A. B. C.
Life Series is evidenced by the scientific, military, and lay activity,
in connection with the experiments at the Sheffield Scientific School
of Yale University and elsewhere, as related in the "A. B.-Z. of Our
Own Nutrition" and in "The New Glutton or Epicure" of the series.
The general application is more fully shown, however, by the
indorsement of the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, which practically
studies all phases of the subject, from health conservation and child
saving to general missionary work in social reform.