The Russellville Democrat., 1884-08-21
LECTURE ON HYGIENE
At the Teachers Institute In
Hampton, Calhoun County,
Ark, July 18th, 1884.
BY n. FELLOWS. AM.

Of the Teachers Institute:
By invitation of your efficient
County and State Superintendents
or Public Instruction, throw my
self on your indulgence with few
remarks on Hygiene, or the theory
and art of preserving health "a sub
ect on which | have reason to feel
VERY deeply and strongly, though my
feelings on this occasion | know will
find but feeble expression. Cursed
in the very beginning of life with a
feeble and sickly con nstitutlon, have
had a hard struggle-a sort of run
ming fight with disease and death
ever since. | presume, therefore,
that am the worst possible exam
plar of the benefits of Hygiene.
But have heard of a certain tenn
perance lecturer who always took his
brother along with him, who was a
notorious drunkard. 1t seems that
.on one occasion the inebriate was
~mistaken for the lecturer, and some
one said to him: "Are you not
ashamed to be seen in such maud
lin state? You, a public lecturer on
imtempersncew "Me? I'm no pub
lie lecturer; my brother delivers lee
lures on the evil effects of hard
drinking, and | go about with him as
horrible example," Mr.. President,
| feel that | am horrible example
of many of the Ills resulting from a
IF tho Ia Of haalth both
on my on part and on the part of my
sparents and teachers; for, as Rufus
Choa:e once said of himself, my con-
stitution perished long ago, and ]
have lately been living on the by
laws.
In the summer of 1859, having
been ordered by the best medical
men in Charleston, S. C., To take a
voyage on the Atlantic Cor my health.
landed in Boston, and wended my
way TO its famous Music Hall'' to
hear Ralph Waldo Emerson speak
on the death Of his friend Theodore
Parker, who had just breaLhed his
last in Florence, Italy. The audience
numbered 5000, it was said, but the
!. theme Of the great essaylst seemed
to be, young man, get health" |
wandered westward To Cincinnati,
and heard the eloquent Archbishop
Purcell address great audience in
the Catholic Cathedral, but all that |
now remember Of his discourse was:
"The world is a hospitalr From
nature to Rome, and from Rome back
to nature, all great thinkers are a
unit in their appreciation Of Hy-
gene. Dean Swift declares health
and wealth to be the only two things
really worth having in this world.
Herbert Spencer has come to be the
great authority on education, and he
says that as health, and its accom-
spanying cheerful spirits, are more
to be desired than any other blessing
whatsoever, so "Hygiene, or the
science and art Of preserving health,
yields in importance to no other sub
ject whatsoever
believe it was my old preceptor,
under whom was permitted TO
graduate in 1857, that illus:rious
educator, Horace Mann, who founded
the first Normal school in America,
and who first made Hygiene regu-
lar study in the free public schools
Of this country. In one Of his world
famous Reports as superintendent
Of public instruction for his native
Ttate, he attempts to popula-ize the
subject BY describing, IN his own
most graphic and peculiar style, "the
sculpture like outline of the human
body; its gradual and symmetrical
expansion from infancy to manhood,
every day another, and yet the same
!. the carving and growing of all the
bones and joints; the weaving of the
muscles into compact and elastic
fabric, and their self Indicating pow
er, by which, though pressed togeth
er In the closest order, and crossing
each other In all directions, they yet
play their respective parts without
perceptible friction: the winding up
o the heart so that it will beat the
seconds OF three score years and ten
without repair or alteration; the
channeing out Of the blood vessels,
more numerous than all the rivers Of
continent, and so thoroughly per
meatng every part that there is no
desert or waste spot left where their
iertlllzing currents do not flow; the
triple layer of the skin, with its in
Unite reticulations; the culling and
exact depositing of the material Of
that most devinely wrought organ,
lhe BRAIN, 70: whose exquisite work
enanship it would seem as if light,
heart and electricity had all been
sllted and winnowed, and their finest
PARTICLES selected for its composition ;
and finally the power we have of
converting the coarse crude, dead
materials of our food into sentient
tissues, and miraculously enduing
them with the properties of life, -
over all whose various processes OF
isrmation and growth The will has
10 dlreci control--they will not be
fashioned, or cease TO be fashioned,
~ our bidding. 1t was in this sense
mat the question was put. (Which
o' you by taking thought can add