The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-03-11
Cultivation Of Old Age.


age. We don't recognize it as such,
vet the young of both sexes on arriving
"of age" are virtually taught to
become old. The 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 dignified man.
ner.
Custom gives her every encourage
ment to become sluggish. Her dress is
a fashionable system of lettering the
body. When she marries, the restric-
tons necessary for the cultivation of old
age are still more strictly enforced.
She must then associate only with mar
ried women. She is received in full
membership with the female married
clan. 1t is undignified longer to
associate with young girls, if she be 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 workings. A
hundred unforeseen influences force her
in the conventional path. Friends and
relatives reproye, advise, censure or
ridieule any habit of an unconventional
character. She finds herself in thicket,
where, to do aught save advance in the
narrow path trodden by conventionality
is to encounter a myriad of thorns. So
she Is doomed to the company and asso-
citation of those who have involuntariiy
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 i'm
prisons and letters. Through life five
sixths spent in the house, and when not
in the house shopping at the store.
Through cultivating the habit of look
ing on the darkest side of every thing.
Through grown-up dignity which can
never unbend into run or romp.
Through constant repression 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 s'make 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 corresponding
difference could be found in their lungs
and livers were those organs examined
after death.
Ruts and grooves of occupation 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 SINH
lar period to a desk, who moves pendu-
lum-like from house to office, day by
dav, and who has made scarcely dozen
new acquaintance.
Contrast the hod-carrier of forty-five
with. the man of like age who has exer-
! cised moderately, lived generously but
temporarily whose mind is active,
broad, full of ideas and plans, and who
is constantly ON the move about the
werld. The first shows marked signs
OF premature age; the second is in his
prime. full of blood, vigor and vitality
Breadth of mentality, fullness and &C.
stivity of idea, frequent change of place
and association, added to temperate
habits of body. are preservatives of ma
tured vigor 1t was said of old: "Man
shall not live by bread alone" Every
new thought, every fresh idea in bal
anced brain, brings with it q certain
healthy stimulus, which imparts new
life. Philosophers, scientists and writers
are longer-hved than those engaged in
purely mechanical occupations The
cause of this goes beyond that limited
range of deduction and conclusion
called reason. But statistics will verify
the substance of the assertions here
made. Is it not, then, reasonable to
suppose that, as the range of human
knowledge widens, and minds become
more and more quickened with the liv-
ing fire of thought, existence, up to the
point of three-score-and-ten, and even
later, may become an experience fuller
Of life, light and happiness than everP-
~. y. Graphic.