The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1871-10-11
Wearing Out.


as we now conduct it How common
and constant is the. sad, weary COM
plant heard on every side, ~ am worn
out!" How many thousand go to wa
tering places medicinal springs the
seaside, the mountains, and infirma-
ries, in eager pursuit of the lost vigor
they never find! In our race to reach
certain goals, real or imaginary, we
exhaust strength and destroy health
and peace of mind; and even when the
prize is won we lose the susceptibility
to it's enjoyment. How many, in
their eagerness to become rapidly rich,
are worn and torn by the excitement
of stock gambling and the fluctuations
of the market, brooding over proba-
BILE gains one day and actual losses
another. In place of obtaining true
recnperation by sleep, they spnr their
jaded frames to fresh efforts by the
free use Of alcohol stimulants until
their mental and nervous energies are
exhausted, and they find themselves
on sick bed, powe,less if not para
lytic. This intense eagerness to ac-
cumulate faster than Legitimate bnsi-
ness carried on in regular time will al
low, is not confined to those who are
engaged in financial and mercantile
operations, but seems to be epidemic
| ia all the walks of life. and brings with
it the unenviable penalties of bodily
and mental ailments. There are fixed
conditions of things in certain natural
laws which ought to govern all persons
in the division of their hours of waking
and of sleep, or labor and rest, and of
| food, &C., and which can not be neg
| lected with impunity. In the United
States we do not take into account the
peculiarities of our climate, and es-
pecially the torrid summers, which for
bid the continuous bodily or mental
work in this country that might be
easy in the moderate heat of Great
Britain, France and Germany. And
so we go on, working to excess, and
dissipating to excess, year after year,
till the finer parts of our bodies are
worn out, and the machine stops for
ever.
A great part of the fault of all this
lies in the exacting methods of doing
business which the eager thirst for
wealth impose; but may not part of
it be in another and unsupported quar-
ter? May notour system of education
be chargeable with portion of the
blame7 We have made education the
first of all requisites in life, and it,
certainly, is not to be undervalued;
but is it right to wear out the health of
our children in the effort to stuff their
yonng minds with difficult knowledge,
which they. can hardly retain till the
time comes to use it7 We recall, at
this moment, a girl of sixteen who
was preparing to graduate, and who
was accustomed to take home from
school at night six large text books,
one OF them a geometry, another a
geography of the heavens, and the
others of similar dignity and difficulty.
She was accustomed to master lesson
in each of these books every day,
which she did by dint of hard study
ing, so as to recite credibly in the re-.
citation room. She graduated with
llODors, delivered fine valedictory,
and then retired TO her home, to forget
NEARLY all she, was supposed to have
learned, and to wrestle with the con-
sumption which her school life had
engendered. (. 1t is certainly important
that the young should be educated (;
but it is a well known fact that the
confinement they are subjected to, and
the excessive tasks exacted of them,
often make them pale, nervous, dys-
peptic, and consumptive, and that the
diseases that break them down at mid
die life are contracted in the school
room. In truth, we begin to wear
ourselves out before we regrown, and
we break down entirely at an age
when we ought to be in full vigor of
our ripened powers-[St. Louis Home
Journal.
A LAWYERS PUZZLE.-A sells a lot
of land to B, and takes his note for the
purchase money. B subseqn e n ] y
| mort ra nes tho land To G the LATER of