The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-04-23
How People are Taught to Throw Youth
Away.

There is too much education into old
age. We don't recognize it as such, yet
the young of both sexes, on arriving "of
age" are virtually taught to become old.
A girl, on leaving off short frocks, is soon
taught that it is unladylike or improper
to romp. She must cease the impetuous
run of childhood and walk in dignifed
manner.
Custom gives her every encouragement
to become sluggish. Her dress is FASH
ionable system of lettering the body.
When she marries, the restrictions neces-
sary for the cultivation Of old age are
still more strictly enforced. She must
then associate only with married women.
She is received in full membership with
the female married clan. It is undigni-
fed longer to associate with young girls,
if she so disposed. She may do SO for
few years, but the unwritten laws and
social mandates of the period are more
subtle and powerful in their working.
A hundred unforeseen influences force
her in the conventional path. Friends
and relatives reprove, advise, censure or
ridicule any habit of an unconventional
character She finds herself in a thicket,
where, to do aught save advance in the
narrow path trodden by conventionality,
is to encounter q myriad of thorns. So
she is doomed to the company and asso-
citation of those Eho have involuntarily
made it the business of their lives to
grow old, and she grows old with them;
cultivates sluggishness. walks as little as
possible, and gets the liver complaint.
Age is developed in many ways. Through
weight of domestic cares and duties.
Through dress, which imprisons and fet-
ters. Through life fve-sixths spent in
@1x@ ov,1 xrvy,n ~ fl,a h,r1
shopping at the store. Through culti
waiting the habit of looking on the dark
side of everything. Though grown-up
dignity which can never unbend into q
| run or romp. Through constant re-
preston of the playfulness which was
checked when she donned the dress of
the grown-up woman. People who play
| and who are not afraid to stmake fools of
themselves" retain their youth much
longer than Mr.. Practical Sobersides.
The habitudes of the mind influence the
condition, and go far toward shaping the
body.
The difference between the face of the
man who laughs and the man who smiles
proves this. Probably a corresponding
i difference could be found in their lungs
and ivers, were those organs examined
after death.
| huCS auO STOOVcS Ol OCCupAGlOu pro-
mote old age. The man of fifty who has
spent his life in travel, and has lived in
many places, and whose associations and
societies have been constantly changing,
will, presuming he has taken ordinary
care of himself, show less signs of age
| than the man chained for similar
period to desk, who moves pendulum
like from house to Office, day by day, and
who has made scarcely a dozen new &C
quaintances.
Contrast the hod-carrier of forty-five
with the man of like age who has exer-
cised moderately, lived generously but
temperately, whose mind is active, broad
full of ideas and plans, and who is con-
stantly on the move about the world.
The first shows marked signs of prema-
ture age; the second is in his prime. full
of blood, vigor and vitality. Breadth of
mentality, fullness and activity of ideas,
frequent change of place and association,
added to temperate habits of body, are
preservatives of matured vigor. It was
said of old: s'Man shall not live by
bread alone" Every new thought,
every fresh idea in balanced brain
brings with it certain healthy stimulus,
which imparts new life. Philosophers,
scientists and writer's are longer-ived
than those engaged in purely mechanical
| occupations. The cause of this goes be-
| yond that limited range of deduction and
conclusion called reason. But statistics
will verify the substance of the asser-
| tions here made. It is not, then, reasona-
BILE to suppose that as the range of hu-
man knowledge widens, and minds be-
come more and more quickened with the
living fire of thought, that existence up
to the point Of three-score and ten, and
even later, may become an experience
fuller of life, light and happiness than
ever?-N. Y. Graphic.
The DaDers are denOuncino the gem