The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-07-30
SUMMER VACATION AND REST.

L.
The vacation season is now in full tide.
and from this time for month yet will
be at its flood. But how many in this
period really rest? They may secure
change of scene, but that is only partial
relief. If there is radical change, or no
change of habit, very little benefit will
flow from summer rest. The American
stomach is the seat and source of nine
tenths of the ills of body of which Ameri-
cans complain. Hence it viii do vacation
people no good to go to mountain or sea-
shore, if they persist in the habit of nasty
feeding, commanding and perpendicular
drinking, all which are bad enough at
home, but greatly worse when we are out
OF the groove of business and daily duty.
So, too, the summer rest will do no
good to him or her who overtaxes the
frame by muscular exercise and extra
ordinary demands upon the system.
Take men or women of 90, who have
for ten years in home life been accus-
toned to rise at a given hour and break
fast at specific time. When they 90 to
the mountain resort or the seaside and
attempt a complete revolution of habit
by rising an hour or two earlier than
usual and breakfasting at time foreign
to their custom; bathing, perhaps, under
conditions wholly abnormal to their
in,
such as mountain climbing, long beach
walks, hard rowing and the like which
they never attempt at home, they abso-
4utely invite ills and expose their bodies
to serious dangers, as any courageous
physician viii tell them.
The evil of the summer vacation is the
mistaken idea with which many enter
upon it, that they can accomplish in a
few weeks a complete revolution of their
hvesi that the wear and tear and waste
of year of hard labor, or late hours. or
exhausting mental toll, or the worry of
business and the fret and exactions of
society, are to be corrected by twenty or
thirty days of change of scene, water and
habit.
The rest of the vacation period should
be not merely change of scene and air,
or of habit as to sleep. or mental employ
ment, or physical exercise; not absolute
inaction, which is worse than no change.
nor yet such tax in the form of exercise
as will make demands upon the body to
which 1t is not prepared to respond. To
profit fully by vacation rest, the person
must neither be hurried nor YEARLY idle;
he must not exact of his system the I'M
usual. nor relieve it of the exercise that
is essential to its vigor. He must not cut
SO absolutely free from mental activity as
to make return to duty strain and an
exacting effort.
If he Seeks quiet it need not be that of
absolute forgetfulness and silence; if he
prefers the social hustle of the crowded
watering-place he should not permit it to
absorb his time or tax his vigor. If he
goes into camp and "roughs it." he must
not expect that he can escape injury if
he at once adopts the habits and toll of
the experienced camper, for his whole
system is unused to camp life and its
duties, which must be put on gradually
and in most cases not at all, save by the
young and hardy.
II the vacation season is to be one of
absolute ''do nothing" it were better not
NAc -, l,
usually result in i'll; they are so far from
being restful that they are absolutely
wearisome, and long continued unfit one
for return to duty.
The truth is that there can be no arbi-
trary rule for vacation habit. Each must
adapt to himself the place and the mental
and physical engagement that result
every hour in perceptible gain in the way
OF sound appetite, good digestion, a rest
full sense, the mental glow, refreshing
sleep and non-exhausting activity, which
make one feel that his being is respon-
siye to his desire TO rest sensibly.
Without enforcement wholly from
touch with business. the vacation taker
may still keep his wits enough employed
with affairs at home to make mis- return
easy and his Encouragement no shock.
and yet forbid such business intrusion
upon his vacation as to disturb his whole
some rest. Every sensible person can
be his own philosopher and guide in
vacation season. Ii he sets out with a
determination to rest, and yet to keep in
touch somewhat with the world, we APP
prehend that he will fare better than if
he puts everything behind him and
worries over the ever-present question,
s.Are all things well at homer" If he
adheres to his home habits, with such
notifications in reason as are pleasant
and restful, he will fare better than if he
starts out with the idea that during his