[Sidenote: Do Good Here At Home.]
I believe in helping those near where I am rather than sending money to
Siam. Poverty and destitution, unhappily, are familiar spectres at home,
as elsewhere. He who seeks to do good will not need to range afar. He
can find opportunity close at home, near by, where all of us can find it
if we only look.
It may be a pleasurable sensation for you to contribute fifty dollars to
a missionary scheme in Siam, and get the Missionary report of the budget
made up by the committee for the foreign missionary fund.
I know that a bucket of coal in an empty stove, a basket of bread and a
liberal hunk of round steak to the starving family around the corner
brings the donor a better sensation.
Take a trip to the hospitals, learn about the homes of the suffering
patients in the charity ward, and you will resolve it's a better act to
send flour to the poor than flowers to the rich.
Little Spencer Nelson had the right idea of charity: definite,
immediate help to those he could reach right where he was, rather than
sending money to sufferers far, far away.
Let your gifts be principally flour and beef; they help those who need
help. Flowers are all right in their place, but there are more places
where flour can be used to better purpose.
I'm keener for filling the coffee can of my suffering neighbor than
filling the coffers of the big charity five thousand miles away.
I try to help both ways, but the home help pays the bigger dividends.
What do you think about it?
26.
You have found a friend who has been so much help and comfort to you. I
have such a friend too. To-night I am in the mood to think of that
friend and write him a letter like this:
[Sidenote: What I Think of You.]
This is to You. It is for You. It is about You. You I have in mind and
the good influence you have had on me. It is a happiness and
satisfaction to know you, and to bask in the sunshine of you.
The world is better because of you. You have helped to raise the
average.
You and your goodness--you do not appreciate what that means. You are so
modest, so loath to think of yourself, so thoughtful of others, so
unselfish that I must tell you of you and about you.
You have a warm heart that throbs for others' woes and holds sympathy.
The great world is cold, selfish, and cares little for others. But you
are different; you are a great pillow of rest on which I and others who
love you may lay our tired, weary heads, and you wrap your arms of
friendship and goodness about us and feel our very heartbeats.
[Sidenote: What I Love in You.]
You with your great goodness, your quiet, sympathetic understanding--you
soothe our troubled spirits and make us glad of you and glad we have the
precious privilege of knowing you.
Even now, as I am telling you how I love you, you are trying to wave me
aside and stop me, but I am in the mood and I want to express myself.
You know that it is a great sin of omission to refrain from expressing
our gratitude for goodness extended to us.
I want to express my gratitude. I do not want to be guilty of the sin of
omission.
So here, then, is this little message for you, to tell you that I
appreciate you and love you, and these words will last after you are
gone and after I am gone, to tell those of to-morrow about you and what
those of to-day thought about you.
Your life, your goodness, is an everlasting plant that will flourish in
many hearts. Your influence will last beyond the calendar of time; it is
indestructible. You have a great credit in the universal bank of good
deeds, where you have deposited worth-while acts, deeds, kindnesses,
cheer, help, friendship, sympathy, courage, gratitude, and all the most
precious jewels of humanity.
I am happy the very moment I think of you. I try to express myself but
the feelings and emotions I would describe have not words or sentences
to express them. You understand. You are so big in heart, so sensitive
in fabric of feeling, so wise in understanding, that I want you to think
and feel all the genuine, noble, lovable, appreciative thoughts you can
gather together about the one you can most appreciate.
Think hard, sincerely, deeply, about that one, with all your resources
of beautiful thought. Think hard that way, and now you will begin to
understand my feelings about you, and how I appreciate you.
You, my inspiration, who are so sensitized to feeling, so delicately
adjusted to read heart vibrations--you must feel this within me that I
am trying to express. Not the love between sweethearts, not the love of
kin, not the love of friends, but a great universal love I have for
you--a love which all who are fortunate enough to know you have for you.
It is a love you cannot return to me in equal measure, because you have
not the object in me that can merit such love. That you should love me
in the way I love you even in the smallest measure is satisfaction
supreme.
It is glorious to know you. You water the good impulses I have; you
encourage all that is noble, elevating, and bettering, in me. I shall
try to be like you--that is, so far as I can. You are my model; there is
but one _You_. Many may copy you, none may equal you. You my comfort,
you my joy. A great glorious _You_ that a little _I_ am trying to paint
a picture of.
How futile my efforts. I might as well try to improve the deep beautiful
colors of the morning-glory, or try to retint the lily with a more
beautiful white.
And so I bid you good-bye, happy that there is such a one as you in the
world--more happy that I know you, and most happy that I know how to
appreciate you.
The sum of all good things I can say is, "I love you," and the word
"love" I use in its greatest, broadest sense, which covers all the good
adjectives.
This is what I think of YOU.
27.
There is a time in the business man's life, between the age of 48 and
52, when he undergoes a pronounced change.
More big men are cut off at 50 than at any other age between 45 and 60.
From 48 to 52 most men change vitally in their physical and mental
make-up.
[Sidenote: Dangers of Middle Life.]
Many men--hitherto straight, moral men--go to the bad at this time, and
per contra, many men quit their immoral and health-hurting habits and
change to moral men. This danger period is when the newly-rich find
fault with the wives who have helped them to their success. They grow
tired of their wives and seek the companionship of younger women.
The divorce courts give most interesting figures on this point.
At this danger period, men who have been high livers, voracious eaters
and heavy drinkers find themselves victims of diabetes, Bright's disease
or other forms of kidney trouble. The country is full of prematurely
broken-down men who have failed to heed the danger signals along their
way. To persist in self-indulgence is to invite disaster. You must
deliberately set about to change your mode of living if you would avoid
these shoals on which so many men of middle age have foundered.
Almost every man between 48 and 52 who works indoors, eats too much,
exercises too little, sleeps insufficiently.
In this book I have made practical suggestions that have been tried in
the furnace of experience and proven adequate. They have helped me; they
will help you. They will enable you to gain pep and efficiency; they
will give you a new lease on life and make life more worth living.
[Sidenote: The Simple Life.]
First, live simply; eat simply. If you have in the past, eaten rich
foods, drunk fine wines, and have been what the world knows as a "good
fellow," your course is clear. You must call a halt on yourself. This
path leads inevitably to the graveyard. Follow the seven simple health
suggestions laid down in an earlier chapter, and you will feel better,
feel happier and will attack the day's work with vim and vigor.
Avoid undue excitement. Excitement uses up nerve force. It is an energy
consumer. Your mind needs repose as well as your body. When you have
finished your day's work, leave business behind you. Do not drag it into
your home. In the evening, occupy yourself with a good, worth-while
book. Nothing is more conducive to calm and contentment.
Let supper be your one hearty meal of the day. And after supper, play
with the kids or joke with your wife; get a smile on your face. When you
are home, interest yourself in home concerns. The "home men" are the men
who live longest. They lead healthy, regular lives, and they keep alive
the outside interests that make for peace, poise, content and happiness.
Keep a sharp look-out for tendencies to change your habits and morals.
At 50 you are walking on thin ice; look out, danger is near.
After you are 55, your habits are pretty well established. If you have
lived rightly till then, you're safe thereafter and very likely are on
your way to a good ripe old age if you take reasonable care of
yourself.
28.
[Sidenote: Our Sons.]
We love our own the best; maybe that's why we indulge our own too much.
Our duty to our boys; that's a subject as old as the hills, and it is as
important as it is old. It is a subject that has come to the forefront
in recent years. Multitudes of paid juvenile workers and sociological
experts throughout the country are engaged in the work of keeping the
youth of the nation healthily occupied and away from corrupting
influences.
Modern conditions have created a "boy problem" which was unknown two
generations ago. Then there were no slums reeking with vice and squalor
and ugliness. The era of great manufacturing enterprises was just
beginning. There were no densely populated cities numbering millions of
souls. Amusements were simple. Everywhere were stretches of open
country, and boys were allowed to run wild in field and woodland and
stream.
[Sidenote: Times Have Changed.]
The great cities of to-day have done away with all this. The good,
old-fashioned, healthful recreations have disappeared in all but rural
communities. In their place has come the lurid "movie" with its tales of
crime and violence and passion. At every crowded street corner, vice
beckons, and glaring signs lure the curious boy into the vicious cabaret
and dance-hall.
To-day I had the boy problem forcibly presented to me. I saw in a court
twenty-four boys who had been brought before the Judge charged with
petty crimes. Three were sent to the penitentiary, seven to the reform
school and fourteen let go temporarily on good behavior.
A friend of mine interested in criminology tells me the great bulk of
hold-ups, thefts, burglaries and murders are committed by boys between
16 and 22 years of age.
These twenty-four boys I mentioned were just ordinary boys, capable of
making good citizens if they had had the right kind of home treatment
and surroundings. Most of them got in trouble through their association
with the "gang" or the "bunch," or the "crowd," and this because daddy
didn't have his hand on the rein.
That boy must have companionship; he must have a confidant with whom he
can share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his ambitions. If he
doesn't get this comeraderie at home, he gets it "'round the corner."
We know where the boy is when he is at school, but how few of us know
the boy's doings between times.
Pool halls tempt the boys, and these resorts are breeding places where
filthy stories, criminal slang and evil practices are hatched.
Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate the boy. He sees the lights.
There is a keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted dude with
cigarette in his mouth making fancy shots.
There is no one to nag him or bother him; it gets to be his "hang-out,"
and soon he drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to the red-light
district.
Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It takes money to go the pace.
Crime is gilded over with slang words. Stealing is called "easy money."
Robbery is "turning a trick," and so on.
A boy becomes what he lives on mentally and physically; that's the net
of it.
It is a common saying, but a good one, that the boys of to-day are the
men of to-morrow. If you train a boy with care and kindness, he will
grow up to be an honest and upright citizen. But let him run a wild,
undisciplined course, leave him free to explore the crime-spots and
plague-pools of the city, and sooner or later his moral fibre is
weakened and ultimately snaps. At best he will become an indifferent
citizen; at worst a drifter or a criminal.
There is nothing better for a boy than discipline properly administered.
And that brings up the whole matter of army life.
[Sidenote: The Army: A Maker of Men.]
The army is a great maker and developer of men. Boys who were headed for
perdition have found in the army a new sense of honor and respect. The
rigorous training, the idea of duty, the heroic traditions of the
service--all these are renewers and rekindlers of manhood. Many a lad
who has wasted his health, wealth and substance on the primrose path,
has "come back" gloriously in the service of the flag.
Look at the average soldier or sailor you meet. His skin is tanned by
sun and wind to a deep brown. His eyes are crystal clear. There is youth
and strength in his tread. There he stands, clean as a whistle. No fat,
no flabbiness--just solid sinew and ruddy health. He is a living
exponent of what military training can do for every boy in the country.
Hard work, strength-building exercises, sufficient sleep, regular
hours, simple, wholesome food, systematic training--these are the things
the army and navy offers. And these are the things that make real men.
But no training that school or church or army can give him relieves you,
Dad, of your obligation to the boy. In the last analysis, it is _your_
influence that will either make him or break him, for it is to you that
he looks for guidance and comradeship in his most impressionable years.
If you are his chum, if sister shares his amusements with him, if the
family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" basis, if the
boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.
[Sidenote: Be Worth Copying.]
Neglect him and he will neglect you. Love him and he will love you. Meet
him half way, he's impressionable. Show him a kindness, he will respond.
Show him a good example, he will follow. You have to be with him, or
know where he is every minute.
During his period of adolescence, say from twelve or thirteen years to
sixteen or seventeen, that boy is a mass of plaster of paris, easily
shaped while plastic, but once set, all but impossible to recast.
That's the time, Dad, you must be on YOUR job with your boy.
Your counsel, example, love, interest and teaching will MAKE the boy.
Think of these things, Dad, and think hard, and think hard NOW.
To-morrow may be too late.
29.
[Sidenote: Our Daughters.]
Our daughters--how much we love them! How happy we are to have their
fresh, smiling faces about us! Their girlish laughter lightens our home
hours and creates an atmosphere of joy. What would we not give if we
could but insure their happiness! Our fondest and most cherished hopes
are bound up in them as they grow up under our eyes and blossom into
womanhood.
Girl, what a wonderful creature you can be. What a glorious success you
can make of your life if you get the right start, find the right hands
to help you, the right hearts to love you, and the right eyes to watch
you, the right thoughts to make you, and the right ideals to guide you.
There are so many influences to spoil you--so much convention, so much
artificiality, so much snobbery, so much caste, so much foolish
frivolity.
Then there are the wrong examples, the wrong grooming, the wrong
environments, the wrong influences surrounding you. Really, it is not
to be wondered at why so many girls lose their heads and make a fizzle
of their young lives.
The fizzle is generally made because daddy and mama have a lot of
foolish notions about bringing up girls. Especially is this so if the
parents are wealthy.
[Sidenote: The Wrong Way.]
Here is the history of many a rich girl: She is born without welcome,
fed on a bottle, reared by a nurse, grows up in a nursery, becomes
estranged from her mother; later on, she is sent away to school, mixes
with a lot of other rich girls, gets lots of foolish notions, false
estimates, and prejudiced views. She graduates and comes home, and then,
to commemorate the event, there are a lot of "doings" which she attends.
Following this is the show-off, which is called a debut.
She is exhibited like a filly at the horse show, and some high-collared
young man wins her head, although she thinks it's her heart. She
believes it is the proper time for her to marry, and he is such "a swell
fellow," he is such "good company," and he "dances so well"--these
qualities win her head.
So the girl marries and has children; the husband goes broke, and the
girl awakens to the necessity of coming down from her pedestal, facing
stern necessity, and raising her children as her mother should have
raised her.
That's the picture of the poor rich girl whose parents are to blame for
the nonsense she crammed into her head.
But, you, Girl--you are going to learn your cooking on a gas range
instead of a chafing dish; you'll learn to bake bread before fudge;
you'll learn how to cook solids before you learn to make salads.
You will combine simplicity, sentiment, sense sereneness, sweetness,
rather than envy, frills, feathers and foolishness.
God's noblest calling for woman is the raising of children and the
founding of a home.
[Sidenote: Cooking and Sewing.]
To cook and sew is a higher duty and better occupation than bridge
parties and society. Not that you must cook and sew, my dear, but that
you should be able to in case the need should arise. With the ability to
cook and sew, you can properly direct the cook or seamstress, and they
will respect you for your education.
I want you to be golden girls--girls who love home and children; girls
who love simple things, natural things. I want you to be sweet rather
than pretty, lovable rather than popular.
Do not look upon matrimony as a means to provide food and finery for
yourself.
Do not be ashamed of an old-fashioned mother. Do not be a "good fellow."
Do not be afraid to say, "I can't afford it."
Help the family. Be part of it, and not apart from it.
When you are old enough to have a beau, do not be afraid to bring him
into your home, no matter how humble it is.
Do not esteem your boy friends for the amount of money they spend on
your entertainment. Happiness does not consist of lobster-suppers and
taxi-rides to the theatre. Ten cents will bring just as much real
happiness as ten dollars spent for mere display.
Be modest, girls; it is your greatest asset.
Don't gossip or belittle other girls. Find the good you can say of
others; that quality makes you more attractive.
Watch out for candied words and flattery; these things mark the
hypocrite, and a hypocrite is an abomination. Flattery is a practiced
deceit--a dishonorable bait to catch affections.
Do not allow any young man to relate a story in your presence that has
the slightest risque turn to it.
Show by your words and your actions that such presumption is an insult.
Be square with yourself; be square to the man who is after your heart.
Put yourself mentally in the place of a wife when a man gets serious.
[Sidenote: The Right Man.]
Don't hurry, girls; don't judge the man by his money prospects but by
his character and ambition. Have nothing to do with any young suitor who
isn't always kind, considerate and attentive to his mother. And when
real love comes to you and you decide to marry, marry a man of character
who courts you in the sweet, simple, old way.
If a young man spends money extravagantly before marriage, hard times
will always be around during his married life.
The most precious possessions in the world are happiness and love, and
these come from simple things, genuineness, and usefulness.
The painted, powdered, tinsel, fluff, feathers and furbelow girl may be
a dashing creature now, and you may envy her, but you, with your quiet,
sweet, simple, sensible ways--you will win real love, real respect, real
affection, real pleasures, real satisfaction, in all the days to come;
you will make a success of your life.
Frills and feathers may have an attraction for the girl who makes a
fizzle of her life, but sweetness and simplicity, sentiment and sense,
are precious jewels that will endure for all time.
[Sidenote: The Road to Unhappiness.]
The world is full of new-fashioned, slangy, dancy, fancy, foolish girls
who marry for style, stunts and society, and their married life is
failure, worry and regret. They do not realize, poor things, until it is
too late, that money and luxury are not enough to bring happiness. When
this truth comes home to them, there is nothing left but disillusion,
heartache and sorrow.
Be the golden, pure, old-fashioned, sweet, simple, quiet, modest girl
who knows things, rather than one who is a show-off girl.
When the right young man comes along, he will recognize the kind of girl
you are when he meets you. He will see in you a girl of pure gold; a
sweet, natural, sensible girl, who will be a helpmate to him and not a
drawback.
So then, here is the hope that you, girl, will start right, keep right,
and end right. I want you to think of sense, sentiment, and simplicity
rather than dances, dollars, duds and doings.
I want your life to be one of poise, happiness and serenity instead of
noise, worry and nerves.
This little message is all for you--GIRL.
30.
Many churches to-day are running to extremes in one way or another.
On the one hand, they are conducted along the lines of form, ceremony
and ritualism; the other extreme results in excitement, ecstasy and
fanaticism.
The church of forms, rituals and ceremonies attracts the passive who are
willing to let the priest or pastor or prelate take charge of the
religious work while they, the attendants or worshippers, sit quietly by
and say "amen" and join in the responses.
[Sidenote: Real Religion.]
Paul said, "Away with those forms." Christ, in ministering to humanity,
gave no forms and made no set sentences for his followers. The Lord's
Prayer was given with the admonition, "After this manner pray ye," and
certainly not with the command, "Pray ye with these words."
Form, ceremony and ritual are much like most associated charities--a
sort of convention. Forms cannot express the deep emotions, the natural
longings, or the human desires; they are echoes, hollow and
unsatisfying.
For those who do not feel, for those who do not act, for those who
belong to churches because of convention, or for social reasons, forms
and frills fill the bill.
Form is an exterior religion, an outward show. Form doesn't touch the
heart or awaken the soul. Form in religion is like a formal dinner. It
is a gaudy display rather than a plan to satisfy human heart hunger.
[Sidenote: "Scare-You-to-Death" Method.]
Opposite to formal religion is the frenzied "scare-you-to-death"
excitement method, which relies upon mental intoxication to stir the
people. Like other forms of intoxication, the effect soon wears off.
I have little patience or sympathy for the business men who hire
professional evangelists to come to town to start revivals. The
sensational revivalists have too acute an appreciation of the dollar to
convince me of their sincerity in their work.
A laborer is worthy of his hire, and a preacher, teacher or benefactor
of any sort should be well paid. But when I see these big guns taking
away from ten to one hundred thousand dollars in cold cash for a three
weeks' campaign converting the poor suffering people, the thought comes
to me that if the evangelist were sincere, he would buy a lot of bread,
coal and underwear, and hire a lot of trained nurses with a big part of
that money.
Christ and his Apostles were of the people; they worked with and among
the people; they had no committees, no guarantees and no business men's
subscription lists.
It's mighty hard to read about these sensational evangelists taking in
thousands of dollars for a couple of weeks' revival meetings, and
harmonize that religion with the religion of Christ, the carpenter, and
his Apostles, who were fishermen and workmen.
[Sidenote: How They Do It.]
The exciting, intoxicating, frenzied revival method is pretty much the
same in its working wherever it is practised. The evangelist starts in
with the song, "Where is My Wandering Boy To-night;" then follows the
picture of mother, which is painted with sobs of blood. Then follows
mother's death-bed scene until the audience is in tears. Gesticulation,
mimicry, acting, sensationalism, slang and weepy stories follow, until
the ferment of excitement is developed to a high pitch, and droves flock
down the sawdust trail to be made over on the instant into sanctified
beings.
The evangelist stays until his engagement is up, and then departs with a
pocket full of nice fat bank drafts.
[Sidenote: An Old-Time Method.]
But there is nothing new about this method. It is as old as humanity. It
is the same method that is practised in the more remote and uncivilized
portions of the world to-day, where garishly painted savages congregate
and render homage to their gods in an orgy of yelling, whooping and
beating of the tom-tom.
It is a sad commentary on the established profession of the ministry
that sensational professionals are called in and paid fabulous prices to
convert the people in their community.
I do not take much stock in either the frigid form-and-ceremonial method
with its frills, or the frenzied fire-and-brimstone, scare-you-to-it
extreme.
Somewhere between these extremes is the rational, natural, sane road to
travel--the religion of brotherly love; of cheers, not tears; of hope,
not fear; of courage, not weakness; of joy, not sorrow; of help, not
hindrance.
[Sidenote: The Religion of Love.]
The religion that makes us love one another here--not the kind that says
we shall know each other there; the religion that has to do with human
passions, human trials, human needs, instead of the frigid form or the
fevered frenzy; the religion that avoids the extremes of heat and
cold--that's the kind the world needs most.
Christ taught love, kindness, charity. He spoke not of beautiful
churches and opera-singing choirs. He spoke not of robes, vestments,
forms or rituals.
One of the most beautiful things in the Bible is the story of the good
Samaritan with his simple, unostentatious aid to a wounded man--a man
whom the Samaritan knew as an enemy of his people, but who was none the
less a brother. And you will remember how the priest of the temple--the
man who taught charity and love--drew up his skirts and passed the
wounded man by.
31.
[Sidenote: Love of Country.]
Patriotism--one's love for one's country--is a natural and a beautiful
sentiment. With the spirit of idealism behind it, it becomes one of the
noblest sentiments that has been developed in the course of humanity's
long upward march to civilization.
To-day, on Europe's battlefields, millions of men are hazarding their
lives. They do so gladly, willingly, with a firm and reasoned conviction
in the justice of the cause for which they fight. That is intelligent
patriotism--the kind of patriotism that is based on understanding and
knowledge.
But the world to-day is conscious that there is another kind of
patriotism--a false patriotism that is fostered and fomented by
ambitious governments for purposes of aggression and aggrandizement.
This false patriotism is not a free or voluntary thing. It is the blind,
instinctive feeling of sheep-like men who have been bred beneath the
yoke of servility and obedience and are like clay in the hands of their
overlords. They know not why they fight, but through fear or
intimidation or force, they slavishly submit to the will of their Kaiser
or Emperor and his minions.
This great war, and most every great war of the past, was made possible
by a distorted understanding of patriotism. This false patriotism is one
of the narrowest and most cruel forces in the world, and when linked
with militarism, it becomes the most dangerous. It causes wars, waste
and desolation. It creates jealousies, inspires jingoism and
braggadocio, keeps alive the fight spirit, and menaces the peace and
security of nations.
[Sidenote: Militarism.]
Militaristic rulers, fired by selfish egotism, know full well what a
powerful force patriotism is, and they nurse the babes with fatherland
stuff and give them tin soldiers to play with and tin helmets to wear.
Patriotism, when it reflects love of the place of one's nativity, when
it is based on home ties and associations, is a beautiful and touching
thing. But when unscrupulous autocrats utilize this sentiment for their
own aggressive purposes, it becomes a menace that must be put down if
other nations are to enjoy the blessings of peace and liberty.
[Sidenote: False Patriotism a Menace.]
To keep this false patriotism alive, wars must be made, so that human
blood can be secured to keep the monster from famishing. And so, on
slight pretexts, or no pretexts at all, the war lords and imperial
autocrats rattle their swords in their scabbards and let loose the
avalanche of war on the world.
Such patriotism is failure and worse than failure. It is a reversion to
the brute age of mankind. It flings a moral challenge to the world that
the world must either accept or perish.
So much for this monstrous perversion of Right and Reason that has
turned Europe into a shambles, and has banded the civilized nations of
the world together in a mighty struggle for freedom and democracy.
True patriotism is one of the world's constructive forces. It overleaps
national frontiers, and is inspired by the ideals of international
peace, good-will and amity. It looks forward to the time when national
barriers will be let down, and the brotherhood of man will be recognized
the world over.
Such patriotism is the patriotism of Right Makes Might--not Might Makes
Right. It is the kind of patriotism that prevails only among the free,
democratic, peace-loving peoples of the world who are fighting to-day
for the preservation of free institutions and the rights of humanity.
The opposite sort of patriotism is the autocratic, militaristic kind
that has furnished the world with an example of savage ferocity and
vindictive cruelty that it will not soon forget.
In this great struggle, we see Democracy ranged against Autocracy, Right
against Might, True Patriotism against False Patriotism. The Right will
triumph, as it always has, when pitted against the forces of hate, greed
and reaction.
32.
[Sidenote: The Happy Medium.]
Danger lies in extremes. Too much of anything is bad for the human
being's health. There is a certain comfortable proportion of exercise
and rest which, when mixed together, will give bodily efficiency. Too
much exercise is bad, too little is bad.
Until recent years, our vocations and the habit of going to or from our
places of business gave us a well-balanced amount of exercise, rest,
work and pleasure, and all went well.
Lately, we hear much about worry, neurasthenia, nervous prostration and
the like. There are several contributing causes to the mental and
physical ills which are caused by "nerves."
First of all, we have an epidemic of labor-saving devices. The principal
argument used by the manufacturer of a labor-saving device is, "It makes
money and saves work." Making money and getting soft snaps seem to be
the objectives of most human beings.
The labor-saving devices take away exercise. The machine does the work.
The artisan simply feeds the hopper, puts in a new roll, or drops in
the material. He sits down and watches the wheels go around, likely
smoking a cigarette in the meanwhile, and more than likely reading the
sporting sheet of a yellow newspaper.
[Sidenote: Changed Conditions of Work.]
Possibly few of my readers have given the matter serious thought, and
they will be astounded at the changed conditions of work which have come
into our modern life. It will be interesting to note here some of these
changes.
Men used to live within walking distance of their work. Now the electric
street railway and the speedy automobile have eliminated the necessity
for much walking.
Men used to climb stairs. The elevator has now so accustomed us to the
conveniences that stairs are taboo.
Machines have replaced muscles. The old printer walked from case to case
and got exercise. To-day he sits in an easy backed chair and uses a
linotype.