FAITH
The relation of environment to man's efficiency is a vital
consideration: how far it is responsible for his character, his views,
and his health; what special elements in the environment are most
potent and what are the most readily controlled, provided sufficient
knowledge can be gained of the forces and conditions to be used.
To this end home life--in its relations to the child, the adult, and
the community--is considered in connection with the effect on the home
of the influences outside it, and the reaction of each on the other.
These relations and influences are partly physical and material,
partly ethical and psychical.
The right of the child is protection, and it is the responsibility of
the adult--parent, teacher, or state officer--to secure this
protection.
The knowledge that investigators are gaining in the laboratory and are
trying to give to the community must be accepted and applied by the
individual. How is the individual, discouraged by sickness and
hardship, to know that things are awry or that they can be set more
nearly straight? How can he know that he is responsible for his
limitations? Why should he suppose that he need not be eternally a
slave to environment? How can he realize that "health promotes
efficiency by producing more energy and leaving it all free for useful
purposes?" A few enlightened souls recognize the tendency of
environment to kick the man that is down; to be subservient to the man
of bodily and mental vigor, of keen understanding and human insight,
but the majority must be led to believe these scientific principles.
Again and again scientists and humanitarians must return to the
attack, for individual carelessness becomes community menace, and
"line upon line and precept upon precept" they must present their
knowledge in language that shall attract and hold the attention and
fancy. So the work and discoveries of Metchnikoff have gained
credence because the disciple who described them had the ability to
impress on his audience in a convincing fashion the one fact that made
a strong appeal--the possibility of long life. If those who are
zealous for any movement would study the psychology of advertising and
speak as forcefully as the legitimate advertiser, they would be more
persuasive and successful.
When an idea has won in a certain circle, it quickly spreads to the
other members, thence to active communities. So the universal law of
imitation may be the greatest help in the spread of ideas. The
individual eats a certain food because his neighbor does. Boston
determines to make an effort for a better city because Chicago has
felt the stirrings of civic pride.
A gifted individual with a deep sense of the need of his community
sees an ideal condition, which by his thought becomes a possibility.
These beliefs he shares with a few choice spirits till the circle has
widened. The new ideas come to the notice of the city or the town
officials, new means are adopted of educating the whole community,
and, if necessary, legal measures are passed. But the new means to
betterment must be applied by the individual. Beginning with the
exceptional individual and ending with the average individual, the
perfect circle is rounded out.
The leaders must show convincingly that the laws which they have
discovered may be applied to daily life, but the _individual himself_
must adopt them. When he has been saturated with knowledge, his
inertia will break down, his hopelessness give way to its very
antithesis, a strong hope for a better future. Every known method must
be used by the laboratory to develop this hope into a belief wide
enough to reach all members of every section of the community and deep
enough to become a vital working principle. Only through a belief
strong enough to ride over unbelief and inertia, a belief in the value
of science for personal life strong enough to make a wise choice
possible, can the will to obtain a better environment be developed.
The belief in better things must be thoroughly impressed on the
individual mind. Each individual must understand that it does affect
_him_, that it is _his_ concern, that _he_ must give heed to his
environment. Then he may have the will and make the effort to combat
dangers to body and mind.
Today, belief is much more difficult than ever before because the
dangers are unseen and insidious, and our enemies do not generally
make an appeal through the senses of sight and hearing. But the
dangers to modern life are no less than in the days of the pioneers,
when a stockade was built as a defense from the Indians. We have no
standards for safety. Our enemies are no longer Indians and wild
animals. Those were the days of big things. Today is the day of the
infinitely little. To see our cruelest enemies, we must use the
microscope. Of all our dangers, that of uncleanness leads--uncleanness
of food and water and air--uncleanness due to unsanitary production
and storage, to exposure to street dust, or to cooking and serving of
food in unclean vessels. Such conditions result not only in actual
disease, but in lowered vitality and lessened work power.
Lack of knowledge on the part of some, heedlessness on the part of
others who should be intelligent enough to interpret such conditions,
are responsible for their continuance. A few timely suggestions will
accomplish more in remedying many evils than any amount of attempted
legal enforcement. The very fact of a law makes many persons defy it.
They feel justified in showing their wit by outwitting the law's
representatives. Many of our newer citizens have come to us from the
protection (?) of a personal authority that they can see and feel. In
this country of ours, we have taken away that binding regard for
authority, and we must as far as possible lead rather than compel.
It is, after all, what a man determines for himself and for his family
that affects both his views of life and his wish to secure for himself
and for them that which he believes to be best. It is not what some
other man believes for him that affects his life.
Evolution from within, not a dragging from outside, even if it is in
the right direction, is the method of human development.
Nevertheless, if the bale of hay is skillfully hung in front of the
donkey's nose it will often serve to start the wheels on an easy road.
Evidence of the value of concerted effort by individuals and of the
power of suggestion was given by a woman's club in a small town. The
members became aware of the dangers in exposed food, and on
investigation found their own market to be very low in standards of
cleanness. At a certain meeting they agreed to ask the proprietor why
he did not protect this and cover that article. Certain members were
told off for the duty and the days agreed upon. Mrs. A., making her
usual purchases, casually asked why such an article was not covered.
"I never thought about it," was the answer. Mrs. B., the next day,
asked why such an article was left out for the flies. "I never thought
about the flies." Mrs. C. asked the same question on the third day.
The proprietor said: "You're the third woman who has asked me that. No
one ever suggested it before, but it would be a good idea." Before the
end of two weeks the provisions and groceries were covered. The end
had been gained without resort to coercion.
We know that our capacity for mental and bodily work depends on our
supply of food. Proper food is necessary as a source of power for the
work of the body as well as to furnish material for growth and repair
of the losses of the body. Taking food is the most interesting of the
vital processes. It appeals to all the senses (except hearing).
Professor Dawson calls attention to the fact that the richest food
areas in the world have provided the most powerful stocks of men of
which we have any record, and it has been pointed out by many that
improper food is closely connected with mental and moral defects.
Strong men and women are not the product of improper food. Dr. Stanley
Hall says: "The necessity of judicious, wholesome food is
paramount.... You can educate a long time by externals and not
accomplish as much as good feeding will accomplish by itself. Children
must be supplied with plenty of nutritious food if they are to develop
healthily either in mind or body."
Mr. Robert Hunter says: "All that we are, either as individuals or as
a complexly constituted society of men, is made possible by the food
supply.... Perhaps more than any other condition of life it lies at
the door of most of the social and mental inequalities among men."
In these days of irresponsibility there is probably more harm done to
the health by ignoring physical law in the matter of eating than in
any other one thing.
It is in the study of food substances and their possibilities in
relation to better sanitary conditions that the widest field is open
to housekeepers, and the subject should be especially fascinating to
women of education and ability. All the skill and knowledge of the
best educated women should be enlisted in the cause of better food for
the people. Certainly no subject, except that of pure air, can have a
closer bearing on the health than right diet. Much sound teaching will
be needed before bad habits of eating and drinking will be conquered.
A strong, well man whose work is muscular and carried on in the open
air, as is that of the farmer and of the fisherman, will have the
power to assimilate almost anything, and can maintain abundant health
on the coarsest food poorly prepared, provided, only, that it is
abundant and composed of the chemical constituents that the body
requires.
Only a small proportion of our people, however, engage in work of this
sort. The majority are compelled by occupation, age, or health to
remain indoors. For them nutritious, readily digested food is a
requisite. The farmer or the fisherman can digest, even thrive upon,
food which would be deadly for a woman working in a factory.
In the fourth report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health
(1873), Dr. Derby, the secretary, holds that "we have good reason to
believe that the many forms of dyspepsia which are so commonly met
with among all classes in Massachusetts, in country quite as much as
in town, are but too often the danger signal that Nature gives us to
show that the food, either in its quality, or its preparation, or its
variety, is unsuited to maintain the vital processes. If this warning
is rejected, the result of malnutrition is frequently chronic disease
of the so-called major class."
Sanitation in relation to food deals first with wholesome and clean
materials--meat from animals free from disease; fruit and vegetables
free from decay; milk, butter, etc., free from harmful bacteria. The
dangers are the transference to the human body of encysted organisms
like trichina; of the absorption of poisonous substances as toxins or
ptomaines; of the lodgment of germs of disease along with dust on
berries, rough peach skins, crushed-open fruits; of dirt clinging to
lettuce, celery, and such vegetables as are eaten raw.
For the next class of dangers we turn to the handling of foods with
unclean hands.
In countless ways disease is spread mysteriously, all due to unclean
habits. It is a safe precaution to patronize only those restaurants in
which the waiters are evidently trained to handle the food and vessels
with care. It will pay well to take care of one's hands and learn
sanitary habits when one is young; then one will do right without
effort. Whatever change of ideas may come with increase of knowledge,
these habits will not need to be unlearned. Without knowing the
reasons for them, they have been proclaimed in civilized lands.
It should be the part of the physicians to take pains to advise, for
most of our people are accessible to ideas; yet from these can come no
improvement until the people are convinced that it is needed. Just as
soon as the individual fully realizes that he himself is to blame for
his suffering or his poverty in human energy, he will apply his
intelligence to the bettering of his condition. If he can, in a short
time, make as good a showing as public effort has made in the case of
water supplies, he will accomplish much for the race.
Of equal importance to food, in the proper care of the human machine,
comes the air we breathe.
Many of man's present physical troubles are due to the roof over his
head confining the warmed, used-up air, which would escape freely if
there were an opening provided. The first law of sanitation requires
the quick removal of all wastes. Once-breathed air is as much a waste
as once-used water, and should be allowed to escape. Sewers are built
for draining away used water. Flues are just as important to serve as
sewers for used air. Air is lighter than water, and out-breathed air
being warmed is lighter than that at room temperature. It rises to the
ceiling, where it will escape if it is allowed to do so before it
cools sufficiently to fall.
The roof also keeps out sunlight, and some late investigations
indicate that glass cuts off some of the most vitally important light
rays. The "glame" of the Ralstonites--"air in motion with the sunlight
on it"--may have a scientific basis.
It will at once be retorted, "But we cannot heat all out-of-doors."
A partial reply is: Do not try to make your house a tropical jungle.
Travelers assure us that such an atmosphere is not conducive to work
or to health.
All great nations have lived in a temperate climate, where physical
and mental activity was possible for many hours a day. Science is
more and more clearly giving reasons for the cooler temperature in
certain physiological laws. The habits of life in regard to air and
food are largely under individual, or at least under family control,
and should be studied as personal hygiene.
The lessons being so clearly taught in the treatment of tuberculosis
should be heeded in forming the general living habits of the people.
If loss of life can be lessened and working power increased by man's
effort, why does he not make the effort? Why are men and women so
apathetic over the prevalence of disease? Why do they not devote their
energies to stamping it out? For no other reason than their disbelief
in the teachings of science, coupled with a lingering superstition
that, after all, it is fate, not will power, which rules the destinies
of mankind.
Perhaps it is too much to expect that a sturdy plant of belief should
have grown since the days of Edwin Chadwick and Benjamin Ward
Richardson (1830-50), less than a century ago, when there were
perhaps not a dozen men and women who believed that man had any
appreciable control over his own health.
This early school of sanitarians endeavored to "get behind fate, to
the causes of sickness." The modern socionomist is, by a study of the
mental conditions of communities, endeavoring to get behind the causes
of poverty and consequent suffering to the reasons for _fatal
indifference to dirt_.
It is well recognized that in severe sicknesses of many kinds the will
to get well is more powerful than drugs, that something which we call
nerve force acting upon the physical machine sends a vital current
through the arteries, coerces the heart to renewed pumping action, and
life comes again to the blanched cheek and glazing eye. This more
often happens by a mental stimulus than by any medicine. In like
manner the improvement of the body's shell, the home, like that of the
soul's shell, the body, comes more often from an inward impulse than
from outward coercion.
Appeal to the loving but listless parent will reach the heart quickest
through love for the child. Therefore stress should be laid on the
child, its habits, its surroundings, its ideals. By ideals is meant
the very real stimulus to action coming from within. Action must come
through the material things which ideals control and through which
they express themselves.
Certain notions which have crept into popular currency need to be
corrected before the individual can free himself from bondage
sufficiently to attempt constructive advance and improvement.
Only a small percentage of adults obtain the full efficiency from the
human machine--the only means they have of living, working, enjoying.
They permit themselves to stand and walk badly, they breathe with only
a portion of their lungs, and so fail to furnish the blood stream with
oxygen. They dress unhygienically. They eat wrongly. They exercise
little. In short, they subject their bodies to abusive treatment which
would ruin any machine. Because retribution does not instantly follow
infraction of Nature's laws, they become callous and unbelieving.
Economy and efficiency in human time and strength is one of the
lessons to be taught the young people, so that they may not waste
their patrimony.
The youth feels as rich in his fifty years to come as he does with a
legacy of $50,000 in the bank. The years, however, can yield only
small variations from the established rate of interest. The human
machine can manufacture only a limited amount of energy. It remains to
utilize that quantity to the best advantage. This can be done only by
having a purpose in life strong enough to resist alluring temptations
to fritter away both time and strength.
One of the world's busy workers found that the distractions of urban
life were breaking in upon his working time and making inroads upon
his physical vitality. He recognized that work for the body and work
for the mind must be balanced, and he evolved an acrostic to be
followed as a rule of life, the fulfillment of which has meant
prolonged years of efficient work and has kept the freshness of middle
life with the advancing years. Taking the six days of the week as a
unit, the acrostic is as follows:
_The Feast of Life_
F Food One-tenth the time
E Exercise One-tenth the time
A Amusement One-tenth the time
S Sleep Three-tenths the time
T Task Four-tenths the time
The first and last are nearly fixed quantities, the other three may
vary within certain limits as to amount of time given and intensity of
effort. Amusement and exercise may be taken together; exercise and
sleep may be somewhat interchangeable.
The task, or daily work, is a necessity for mental and physical
health. It should be accepted as a part of human life and the will and
energy should be directed to doing it well. It may be a pure delight,
the most entertaining thing that happens; _it should be interesting_.
It is astonishing how interesting a dull piece of work may become if
one sets one's self to doing it well. That which one subconsciously
knows one is doing badly is drudgery. The real pleasure in life comes
not from so-called amusements--things done by other people to make
one laugh; to "take one's mind off"--but from seeing the work of one's
own hand and brain prosper. The work of creation, of transformation to
desirable result, is the purest joy the human mind can experience.
Fourteen hours a day is not too much for this kind of task. The
difficulty is to gain skill of hand and eye, or training of mind, to
this end. A fallacy, a canker at the heart of our social fabric today,
is that the daily task is something to be rid of.
The psychology of doing is clearly illustrated in the character of
Fool Billy, as drawn by the author of "Priscilla of the Good Intent."
"Is there nought ye like better than idleness?" asked the blacksmith.
"Think now, Billy--just ponder over it."
"Well, now," answered the other, after a silence, "there's
playing--what ye might call playing at a right good game. Could ye
think of some likely pastime, David?"
"Ay, could I; blowing bellows is the grandest frolic ever I came
across." ...
"I doubt 'tis work, David.... I shouldn't like to be trapped into
work. 'Twould scare me when I woke o' nights and thought of it."
"See ye then, Billy"--blowing the bellows gently--"is it work to make
yon sparks go, blue and green and red, as fast as ever ye like to
drive 'em?"
"Te-he, 'tis just a bit o' sport--I hadn't thought of it in that
light." And soon he was blowing steadily.
Later, when David the smith was going to America and wished to leave
his forge with the half-witted Billy, he proposed the smith's work as
play.
"Te-he," laughed Billy, "am I to play wi' all your fine tools, David?"
"Ay, just that. I've taught ye the way o' them and Dan Foster's lad
from Brow Farm shall come and blow the bellows for you."
"Will that be work for Dan Foster's lad, or play?"
"Hard work, Billy--grievous hard work, while you are just playing at
making horseshoes, fence railings, and what not."
"And I'm to play at making horseshoes," went on Fool Billy, "while Dan
Foster's lad's sweating hard at bellows-blowing."