Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-15
A PRECOCIOUS YOUTH
Whose Whole Life Was Ruined by In
judiciOus Early Training.
he WAS TO BE A WEBSTER OR CLAY
The Proper Regimen as it is Indicated by
Shirley Dare.
SOME SPECIFIC REMEDIES ADVISED
WRITTEN FOR THE p1srArcH.I

ignorance of the laws of bringing up clever
children. The writer was naturally a child
OF nervous, excitable, intellectual sort, very
quick to learn, praised by everyone, and.
being sensitive and fond of praise, this
sp"rred him on to greater efforts. At 4 and
D years old, he was put up to speak in
church, at Sunday school concerts, doubt
less, and always was selected when recita-
uons were to be made.
The story cannot be better told than in
words of the penciled letter, held by hand
too nervous to shape the words clearly:
Everybody said would make my mark
some day. In early youth I read the lives
OF Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Abraham
Lincoln and Garfield. These made me wild
with ambition. I resolved to become a
lawyer and great orator. NV father was a
farmer, and h ad to work very hard very
early, and at hight 1 would stay up late
and. read and study and dream of the
future. Ny father promised to send me to
college if did not want to be a farmer;
indeed, he himself thought I ought to be
something higher. But meantime had to
work as hard as possibly could"
THE NATURAL RESULT.
At 16 the face of the boy, overdone
bodily and mentally, broke out in pimples
and sores, he grew languid and tired. 'And
they all the time told me- he says, that I
was more good when Twas Younger. Still
and all the rest thought 1 was we'll, and 1
paid no attention to my health till was Is,
when 1 used to get severe pain near the
heart, when exercising, and very weak
SPELLS which the doctor said was all my
stomach. I had an enormous appetite, and
always was great coffee drinker. That
year I doctored with three physicians, but
they did not do me much good, and my
health was rapidly breaking down. be-
came very melancholy.
"The winter I was 19 was the time set.for
me to 60 to college, and though was very
poorly 1 was determined to go, hoping my
health would get better. 1 went, and my
nervous system broke down completely. I
could not sleep nor digest, and became SO
melancholy nearly despaired, and at the
end of nv first term the doctor ordered me
to go home. 1t is nearly two years
since went to college. Since then have
gone through the greatest spells of melan-
choly, at times unable to sleep, with all
sorts OF noises in my ears, and If 1 have the
least anxiety or cannot decide at once which
of two things to do it nearly throws me off
my balance.
'The blood rushes to my head, my stomach
sinks and nils with gas, and 1 cannot sleep
nor digest. The inability to decide on an oc-
cupation in such health has been a great
source of worry. 1 am extremely irritable
and the noises and din Of young child is
very poison to me. am all the time craving
something to eat or drink" and follows a
recital of the worst horrors of dyspepsia,
when neither milk, fruit or water can be
taken without fermentation, nausea and
acute distress, sleeplessness and restless
ness, all the Gehenna which poor Carlyle
suffered from the same cause and regimen.
BOTH MORAL AND PHYSICAL.
I think no one who has tried to take in
teiligeut care of youth can read this without
intense pity. 1t is the story of hundreds
and thousands who are originally the best
material of our citizens. The wrong is
partly moral and physical, and in both
cases wrong as can be. The son of work
ing farmer obliged to toll to hold his home
stead and make living; the harm began
with the canker vanity implanted in the
child, which developed into cancerous am
bition into the growing lad. 1t will be
years before the American public can be
persuaded of it, but neither moral nor mental
excellence is possible to the child put for
ward for public exhibition at any age.
The whole system of public display for
children is degradation and harm beyond
description. The few who outgrow the
strain do not begin to balance the many
injured for life who are feeble in nerves and
brain after 20, because they have done lite
work before it, wasting in the effort to do
with immature force what would have
served for good results until 30. Was there
no one in church or Sunday school to teach
the morbid boy that success in life had
different meaning from the heated pane
gyrics of biography, or to tell him what an
honest man can deny; that neither Webster,
nor Clay, nor any public men out of a
thousand could be held models of private
worth?
If Lincoln deservedly holds the place
nearest the nations heart to-day, it is not
for his oratory or his many gifts, but for an
unf1nching integrity and faithfulness to
duty Alas, where do boys find the teach
ing that character alone is the measure of
success? 1 should grieve in all my soul, re-
fusing to be comforted, if, in the end, my
son had no higher success to show than those
of the public men whose careers fired the
ambition of the Western farm lad whose
failure we are considering
NO WONDER AT ALL.
WHY was not the mother wise enough to
send the boy to bed after his hard days
work instead of letting him sit up late read
ing, brooding, dreaming? City dissipation
does not ruin a lads health more surely
than overwork, ambition and sitting up late
to study and dream. What wonder that
the nerve force deserted the stomach when
the time of natural development came, and
the strain of body and brain was not re-
laxed.
The diet of coffee, pork, hot biscuit, fried
eggs and pie usual in farmers families was
not suited to growing boy, and the blotches
on the face were a natural result. The over
sensitive nervous fiber and the digestive Or
ganS sympathized The result is, the stu
dlous, dreaming bov has been subject to a
condition verging on nervous insanity, not
uncommon in youth. 1t is, however, not
difhcult of cure, if strict care is kept up.
The condition of health and usefulness the
rest of his life must be this strict regimen
In all personal habits. He should not work
like full grown man.
Ten hours day of moderate exertion is
a limit he should never exceed. To those
who know how farmers often work, IA
hours day, this advice is not superfuous.
ANY idea Of college or profession should be
gwen up for two years to come. 1t will
not be time lost. The outdoor work, the
gain in health, the general information
gained by reading an hour at time, even .
more, will quite balance any extorted gain
in study. A quiet mind, laying its am
bitions aside, sure of gain in experience in
the end, will do much for health.
EARLY TO BED.
No late hours should be tolerated, and the
sleeping room should be ventilated by a
wide-open window. For the dyspepsia