The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1874-08-06
Early Rising.

HERE should he reason IN all things,
and we believe that six o'clock the year
round is as near the proper hour for
rising, all things considered, as an earlier
on. There are farmers, and their name
is legion, who 60 to bed with the chickens
and get up in the morning long before
these systematic fowls have thought of
starting from their dreams; men who
gauge the capacity of their neighbors by
the time they leave their beds, and flatter
themselves that the principal part of
labor consists in arousing their wives
and children before the sun has lighted
up the earth, and eating their breakfast
by candle light Now we have great
admiration for system, but we wish to be
allowed our choice among the various
ones in vogue, and we have no good
reason for believing that there is any
particular merit in making ourselves and
those about us very uncomfortable by
reducing the hours of natural rest early
to bed and early to RISE" etc, maybe
carried to an extreme never anticipated
by the learned Franklin when he enunci-
ated the theory; and if we admit that
going to bed at six and getting up at
three is meritorious act in itself, we
must carry the idea further and acknowl-
edge that he who sleeps half the day and
prowls about half the night is deserving
of the praise of all men. How often
have we seen these extremely early
risers making everybody uncomfortable
about them for several hours before
dawn, only to get on their horses and
repair to the nearest village to spin
yarns and trade horses at the corner
grocery for the rest Of the day. We
have a theory about rising as well
as our neighbors. We assert in the
first place that early rising is not in
itself any evidence of industry or
thrift. We assert, moreover, that
the steadiest and Understanding men it
has been our lot to meet were not early
risers in the sense of being extremists
that early rising in nine cases out of ten
is as much habit as chewing tobacco,
and those men who announce to you
that they "can't sleep" after such and
such an hour do not deserve any partic-
ular credit for "getting up" It is, we
believe, determined that average human
nature requires about eight hours sleep
in the twenty-four, and proper and in
telligent arrangement of the remaining
sixteen hours for work and leisure has
more to do with the condition of mind
and body than odd saws" and doctors.
4 Let the farmer rise at six as above
suggested, feed, or see that the stock are
fed, and take look about the premises
while breakfast is being prepared; and
if he remains at home and attends to his |
business during the day he will accom-
plish quite as much as if he had turned
night into day at an earlier hour and
made his wife and children parties to his
own discomfort. When the days wo. k
is done let the family gather in the gen.
eral sitting-room and divert the mind
with appropriate reading either from the
papers or some good book, orwith games
atsonce amusing and instructive-retir-
ing at ten to rise again at six. Farmers
must read and think, and the quiet of
evening when the mind Il 1t rest and the
outer world SIN 4 tn best time to give
the thoughts play. II you subtract two
from the eight hours Of rest which M
ture Graves IN the morning you must add
them in the evening, and this is exactly