The record-union., 1891-08-07
HOW DO WE REsTs

HOW DO WE RESIs
DR.. William A. Hammond, retired Sur
geon-General of the United States army,
has in the North american ReUieW for
August thoughtful, practical and lucid
paper on the art of resting, which is so
full of vigorous truth that it ought to be
read by all men.
Some of the positions assumed by the
doctor this journal has on several occa-
sions set out, but others are new. That
Americans in business require more rest
than do people anywhere else in the
world is true, as the doctor asserts, be-
cause with us there is so great expendi-
ture of nervous energy, living as we do
in the atmospheric altitude of push, rush
and hustle, and because, aside from our
designations, our occupations are very
largely of an exciting character. When,
at the end of eight months of such life,
we talk of a period of relaxation and re-
pose, we reflect only the demand of ma
ture.
But, and here the apparent newness of
DR.. Hammond's idea develops, mere
change of air and scene and engagement
in new exercises is not necessarily rest;
the great majority of us have however,
been thinking that it is. Change of air
not to less salubrious-is good thing, to
be sure, but the healthiest people in the
world, the Scotch Highlanders and the
Swiss, never experience it, except such
change as comes in the winds that blow
over their mountains
One whose occupation is mainly brain
use experiences benefit by change to
physical labor. Some of us make this
change daily and attribute our maintained
vigor to the practice. The body does not
require absolute rest, it really never gets
it. So if the brain-worker flees to the
woods or the sea shore, lolling in inaction
there will not rest him, and he will ex-
perience no such benefit as if he reads
some, or rows and hunts more. But we
wish that at this point the distinguished
physician had dwelt upon the fact that
there is not only no rest, but absolute in
jury to the soft muscled man of the town,
who goes into a country retreat and ex-
ercises beyond his usual strength, crowds
into a few weeks exertion that noun
taineers and rural residents only are
equal to after years of dwelling in the
al ind fha oil
that very large number of people who
retire from the town for few weeks in
summer come back weaker and less
capacitated for taking up the daily rou-
tine, because they undertook too much
in their few days of liberty from busi-
ness.
On the other hand, as Dr. Hammond
declares, if one works hard with brain
and muscle for nine or ten months and
then retires to some secluded spot and
passes his time in comparative mental
and physical inaction, reads trashy liter
ature, talks trash with trashy people,
goes to bed early and rises late, he will
take absolute harm. He may gain in
flesh, but he will really be enfeebled. He
cannot get into the traces again without
damaging effort, His mental faculties
are dulled and his labor will lack the
motive power of vigor
Ii the business man takes his vacation,
and at the same time maintains daily
touch with his business, keeps MP with
the demands of society, attends dinners
and balls, dresses to fashion and conducts
himself as if still in the fashionable whirl
at home, he receives no benefit. Indeed.
he is not resting in any sense, but is ex-
pending vigor more lavishly than if he
had remained at home and engaged in
business labor. Men and women who
pursue such course in vacation-a strain
ofbusiness care and ceaseless round of
dissipation, or call it fashionable con-
formance and social whirl, grow nerv-
Gus, hysterical, haggard and worn, and
drop out' long before the three score
and ten year mark appears in distant
view.
DR.. Hammond thinks that the errors of
the Americans life are his dislike of
privacy, his disinclination to entertain
himself, his love of excitement and glare,
his ambition to be all the time Sin the
SWIM" These inclinations initiate
against real rest in summer vacation to
the man with responsibility upon his
shoulders. The employees are better stu
ated They can leave their work behind
them. They can abandon markets and
exchanges wholly for the time, and upon
them the demand to maintain the social
whirl is less exacting.
With women, in what may be called
the higher walks oflife, the case is worse,
according to the essayist, than with men,