Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1871-01-28
.to,rl oj ASHTABULA OHIO SATURDAY JANUARY 28 1871

some occupations are necessarily injurious 10
health but the proper application 10 study is
not one Of them know IL is thought by some
that fondness for books and study, is a bad
omen, pointing TO premature death. And ma
ny instances may be mentioned which would
seem to strengthen this opinion. "Lucretia
h. Davidson wrote verses at four years, and
died upon completing her seventeenth year,
leaving over two hundred separate pieces Of
poetic composition. Her sister Margaret be-
gan TO write poetry at six, and at ten acted in
a passionate drama in New York city, and
died at fourteen" Perhaps the most noted
case of this kind, and the one oftenest referred
TO, is that of the lam, MED Henry Kirke
White. "The picture OF Kirke White" says
a popular writer, "dying at the age of 81, Of
nocturnal study, wet towels round heated tenn
pies want OF sleep, want of air, want; gf ey-
ry thing which Nature intended for the body,
is not only melancholy because it is connected
with an early desth,'it is also melancholy on
account of the certain effects which would
have followed such a course unchecked If he
had lived" So too would the picture oG q
farmers hoy be melancholy, could one be
found persisting in like course of applica-
tiOn TO his business Kirke White was put to
school at three years of age, wrote "tales" at
seven pulslTippea his school fellows in arith-
metic and French at eleven, could read Greek
Latin, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, had
made considerable progress In, electricity,
astronomy, music, drawing, practical mechan-
les and extempore speaking at fifteen ,%pub-
lished volume of verses at eighteen, and he
renewed his legal studies with such severe ap-
plication, as rarely TO allow himself more than
two or three hours sleep during the night, and
often not going TO bed at all. As an instance
of how he used to coin time, it is related that
he committed TO memory q whole tragedy of
Euripides, during his walks. No wonder he
died at 81 .s...
On the other hand instances are abundant
OF those, whose Geademlc studies were com
pIeted at an early age, and whose lives were
devoted to active, energetic literary pursuits,
attaining to more than score years. Edmund
Burke graduated at 49, Sir Robert Peel and
DR.. Paley at 90, Lord Mansfield at 23 Add-
son entered college at Is, Gibbon at IS, Wes-
ley at II, Byron at H. Multtudes of like cases
might be given. These men must haNe..de
voted much of their time to close study, and
yet they lived to old age. The average age of
the deceased Presidents of Yale College is 60
years During the whole of the eighteenth
century, the average age of deceased gradu-
ates of Yale, was nearly g." OF individual
cases may he mentioned the three Adamscs,
Noah and Daniel Webster, Rev. Albert
Barnes, Irving, VIM. Cullen Bryant, Presidents
Johnson, Day and Mott, and many others
whose average age is over 80. In view of such
eviednce, it would seem that study of itself is
not injurious 70 hfsalth, Dr., Humphrey, who
died at 81, after serving % years as President
of Amherst, says: II have yet to see the man
who died from the effects of study" Bart
says, intellectual pursuits tends to prolong
life" And what striking. Illustration do we
lind in the life and attainments of the Learn
ed Blacksmith" Eihu Burreit, whose aulc-
graph in fifty-two different languages may be
seen in the Antiquarian Hall in Worcester,
Mass
We must trace the sickness among our pu-
pills to some Other cause. Nor need we delay
long in our search. The fruitful source of all
the restlessness, languor, irratibllity, head
ache, running down." and sickness among
our pupils, and teachers too, is the want Of
pare air in our school rooms. Dr. Hutchinson
of Brooklyn, estimates that two parts of car
bonic acid in thousand of air, constantly
breathed, will produce i'll health and that
school rooms churches SC, tdirly ventilated,
contain 12 to l2.5 parts to the thousand
On the last day of tue term,.I made an anal
yss of the air in the End intermediate room
The air was much less oppressive than usual,
and yet found it TO contain oDer sLr parts of
carbqnfi,c acid t9 the thousand. AT the time
the analysis was made-aUout the middle of
the atternoOn-one OF the windows on the
North side was down from the top about 20
inches, the other ~ inches, and these had
been SO all the afternoon. One on the West
side was down some fifteen sAHhfip9qtes, little
while before the analysis was made, a stiff
West wind blowing at the time. Both doors
were frequently open by pupils passing in and
out the stoves were in "full blast" and the
"ventilators" too, were wide open all the time.
The air was taken from the middle of the
room at about the heghth of the pupils heads
when sitting, where it was, perhaps, an aver.
age of all the air in the room. In all our
rooms, when the windows and doors are clos
ed, as they usually must be in the morning,
the air in less that 80 minutes becomes perfect
ly stiiaipg to one going in from the pure air
outside. A vessel of lime-water placed any
where in the room becomes almost instantly
coated with carbonate of lime, anf soon be-
eemes quite "milky" from the carbonlc acid
in the air. Our only relief then is to throw
open the windows hnd doors, and expose our
selves to strong currents of cold air, which are
little less dangerous than the impure air, as
our pupils have frequent occasion 10 know.
These facts show how utterly insufficient are
our means of ventilation. The ventlators as
they now are even in the new building, are
utterly worthless,
1t has been suggested that certain appliances
attached to our stoves would remedy the evil.
While these, no doubt. would help US, ] am
convinced that no such means ,Yll preve ef-
feetual In order that the air in room may
remain pure, it must all be replaced by pure
air ac coon nc n hos haen nnna hraathad iThio