The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-10-03
SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT.
How to Overcome the Evils OF High
Pressure in American Life.

now TO overcome the Evils or High
Pressure in American Life.
There is no more cheering sign of the
desire for social improvement and of
needed relief from the burdens imposed
by our high-pressure civilization than
the eagerness with which men and
women now look forward to an increase
OF holidays, and the willingness with
which individual business firms and
great manufacturing corporations have
lessened the aggregate yearly amount of
individual labor. For many years the
Saturday half-holiday has been general
in the business centers of Europe; but
it is only of late that it has become
widely recognized here as affording a
partial solution of the great problem of
overStrained, overweight life. When
the idea was first suggested persons
who are always looking on the lower
side of human nature were ready with
arguments to show that it's operation
would lead to business generalization
and social abuses; but the result. on the
contrary, has evidenced that leisure
does not necessarily produce either lazi-
ness or inertia. In comparing the life
OF business or professional man in
Europe with that of types of the same
class in our own country marked diff
ference is observed. There is no hour
here in which men appear to be unem-
ployed. From early morn till dewy eve
there is constant rush and hustle. The
drive and excitemento of business con tinue
often far into the night. Upon leaving
his office the lawyer merely transfers
his work to the quieter surroundings of
his home: the merchant burns the mid
night oil over his day-books and ledgers,
and when half the world is asleep the
financier is planning fresh schemes or
studying the fluctuations of shares and
bonds. Even the rest and silence of
Sunday are interrupted by the necessity
for keeping pace with the quick march
of Western civilization. We travel by
lightning express, correspond by tele-
graph, talk by telephones; and if a new
universal language should be invented
1t would be one that would shorten the
time that is now wasted in oral commu-
nication. To all protests against this
mischievous pressure the answer is that
the needs of the world demand it; and
yet the people of older countries, who
move more slowly succeed in keeping
abreast of art, invention and discovery.
besides often furnishing us with new
ideas and contributing to our industrial
and intellectual forces. Nor is it alone
among brain-workers that the effects Of
this constant pressure are disclosed in
the shape of diseases and ailments
which are certain to follow an undue
waste of vital energy. The United
States census statistics of 1880 show an
excessive death rate among farmers,
laborerS and mechanics the three
classes of all others most important to
the material prosperity of a common
wealth-thus implying not only waste
of life, but concurrent waste of time
and energy. With diminished pres
sure upon the mind and body
there would be increased vitality,
and, consequently, less temptation
to forms of excess injurious to
health and happiness. This forcing
process has, unfortunately, also found
its way into our educational system. 1t
principle that education should proceed,
according to the laws of nature, in such
way as to fit the child for it's station
in life, and that nothing could be more
pernicious than the undue cultivation
which advances the mind at the expense
of the body and the natural affections.
The system in vogue in our public
schools not only tends to blunt the in
tellectual faculties, but develops an I'M
healthy emulation which ends in physi-
cal deterioration. 1t may be true that
it is easier to point out these evils than
to suggest practical remedy; yet the
application of common-sense principles
to business, industry, and education
would tend to lessen the strain. Closer
attention to the laws of hygiene, munic-
ipal watchfulness over sanitary condi-
tions, and an abandonment of the feel
ing that man has made failure when
only successful in working out moder-
ate living on the level at which he start
ed, would do much toward solving a
problem that so largely affects both in
dividual and national life-Philadel-
phia Record.