The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-09-02


DURING the prevalence of the summer
heat many hard working denizens Of our
cities take a brief respite from office, shop
or desk for rural rcpose and recreation.
This Is not only right but quite essential
to the maintenance Of that healthtul bal
ance between brain and body which is
necessary to efficient successful activity.
1t is great mistake for a man whose
brain is kept entiTely occupied when at
home to think that because he remains
vigorous, Notwithstanding the July heat,
he can labor on assiduously and "come
out all right" in the end. No matter what
his strength, his mind and body crave ot-
casional relief from the monotOny of one
constant routine, and, if denied the former
will ere long commence to lose vigor and
grip, 4 writer iii ah exchange views the
subject from The right point Of view,
physiologically and phrenologicaliy, as
follows:
Multitudes Of earths toiling millions
have died while striving TO make enough
to retire from busiiiess, ard in q beautiful
cottage on their farm to spend the remnant
of their days in rest, having nothing IN
particular to do. Perhaps one in million
Of the horers does make money enough
to enable him to retire to his country seat,
and, for year or two, while he is fixing
it up tJ his notion, oil goes on Charmins-
ly, but when everything is completed to
his mind, and he has nothing more to
take up his attention, he eats and sleeps
and lounges around for d few months
longer, falls into disease and dies; or, II
he has unusual force Of character andpOW-
er Of Ohservntion4 he notices that both
health and happiness are pass'rg from
him, and, tracing this to the true cause Of
an inactive body and an unoccupied mind,
he resolves to sell out" and plunge again
into the vortex of business.
Recently an old acknowledgement
graduating in the same class thirty yscren
years agO-writcs that "bo.h body and
mind are worn out; the slightest physical
labor eXhausts him, " and "any effort to
think, study, or even read, 80 wearies the
brain that life is felt as a burden He
Withdrew from his professional duties
which he had performed in the place for
twenty-five years with honor to himself,
having secured the love, confidence and
respect of all who knew him. He gave
up his calling for the purpose of obtaining
rest as a means of health.
The number of families is increasing
every day who give up housekeeping as
means of rest from family cares, and re-
sort to that miserable and most un-
wise mode of life, boarding at a hotel or
in some private family, to get more dis
satisfied than ever in Il few months, mean
while falling into bad health and bad hab-
its of various kinds.
All these classes Ofpersons fail, miscra-
bly, fail, in their object because they mis-
take the physiological meaning of the
word crest" Neither body nor brain Is
safely, truly and happily rested by doing
nothing. The only healthful rest, as long
as our physical and mental constitution
remains as it is, is to be busy. Men of
force and industry will everywhere tell
you: " 1t is the hardest thing in the world
to do nothing" No mortal man was ever
made to be a loafer, to be Il miserable
drone. The true idea of rest is recreation,
Il making over again, return to our ac-
custOmed vigor; and this is accomplished
not by allowing the machine to come to
stand-still, for inactivity is rust and ruin
to all mechanical COntrivances, and death
to all physiological structures. The true
object of rest is recuperatiOn, and that
is best brought about as to the body
by exercising Il different set of
muscles; and as to the brain by
calling into requisition a different set of
organs or powers, causing the mind to act
upon new objects. A better plan is not to
ret into the unheaIthful conditions named,
and they are avoidable by giving two
hours daily to the exercise of Il different
class of muscles, or to the investigation
and study of objects of comparatively
trivial importance and of wholly differ
cnt nature The student should ride on
horseback, or cultivate fruits and flowers;
the merchant should employ his mind in
liberal studies, in active personal and cle-
waiting charities while the over-taXed and
worried wife should pay visit daily to
some prudent friend, some CHEEKY neigh
Dor Or suffering sister or child-the main
idea of all cases being to spend two or
three hours daily in open-air activities
wholly different from the ordinary busi-
ncss.-PhrenoIogicay Journal.