The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-07-20
VALUE OF RESTFUL WORK
CHANGE OF OCCUPATION Is WHAT
BUSY PEOPLE NEED.
Complete IdIeness Irksome and Wear
isOme to Those Accustomed
TO Activity.
New York Evening Post.

how untitled are those accustomed 10
eager, intense work to enjoy entire pas
sivity. II e~ngenders restlessness and irri-
tates instead Of bringing repose and re-
freshment. The mind. whose usual condi-
ton is that of close application and quick
discharge of important duties, is like a
hungry creature, it lacks it's aliment. 1t
wears upon itself.
For this reason our people are always
in search of new scenes, new sensations,
new surroundings; if taken from their or
binary sources of interest, they require
something to help them TO enjoy what they
call their leisure hours: their vacations
are consumed in constant travel or in pur-
suit of something yet unknown.
Nothing so helps TO keep a strong. Wig
orous mind in healthful equilibrium as
change of work. The tagged brain does not
need starvation, but nutrition, and it can
only receive it by fresh and satisfying food.
If the man of ~letters. the lawyer the
journalist. the whole army of toilers whose
labor is that of thought and concentrated
use of their mental faculties had an al
ternating occupation in the open air, which
required the use of their bodies. the eager
watchfulness of their perceptive faculties,
and the need of daily ingenuity, the resto-
ration of vitality and the sense of rest
would astonish them. One of the most ner-
vous, intense brainworkers l ever knew
gave himself two hours every day for eight
months of the year in his fruit garden,
and said he never required long vacations.
He did not give orders and look for the
results OF other mems labor, but early in
the morning and before sunset he worked
and and replanted and hybridized
and achieved absolute release from the
bondage of his desk and his pen. Goose
berries are ungrateful TO American soil
and climate; he beguiled them, he planted
them In sunshine and shade, he gave them
one sort Of food and another, he tried sim
pie and rich diets. At last he conquered
their affections: he discovered their sulky
desires, and no English garden ever yielded
niner fruit. II was not that gooseberries
were dear 10 his palate, but they provided
ground for individual experiment and their
perversity gave opportunity for conquest.
Many a telling paragraph owed its lumi-
nous clearness to the fact that they en-
joyed growing in trenches. and that he
alone had learned this popularity of the
u%ngenerOus fruit.
WHAT IDLENESS DOES.
Nature and our Creator have thus linked
the cultivation of the soil and devotion to
the reproduction of growing things with
healthful mental influences, and the beneh-
cent results are most visible where the
brain is at its highest point of activity and
the powers of attention most steadily in
use. A man who does not use his summer
home simply as a place to hang up a ham,
mock or to Exhibit and enjoy what other
men do to b~eautify It. but touches,
handles, works for its benefit. and thinks
for himself concerning its greenery and
its blossoms, its shade and sunshine. is be-
slowing upon himself the most perfect aid
10 recreatlng rest.
A few days Of those hours so persistently
called DlsStul, In which men and women
who have tried 10 do forty-eight hours
work In twenty-four lie on the messy earth
under green trees. or stretch themselves
morning after morning on some tempting
lounge on a shaded veranda, are enough TO
prove the fallacy of such means Of rest.
The book drops from the readers hand. the
old steadfast lines come out around the
eyes and mouth, and while the comfort
able-looking figure appears lost in idle en-
Joyment or the softly Quivering leaves of
the maple tree. the old problems are work.
ing out their solutions within. The per-
p~lexities which have been crowding each
other out at the desk are here in new
force and acquiring energy from lack OF in
corruption.
A rad for discovery with microscope or
camera, a love of pencil or brush. a work
room and turning lathe come under the
heads OF playthings, but they may be made
important adJuncts to refreshing mental
rest, these or their congeners. But the use
OF any such resource must rise I. the dig
nifty of work before they fulfill their mis-
sion. The seeker for refreShment must be
eager to get back to them and must at
tempt something worth while in order 10
realize the desired end.
By a curious and not uninteresting re-
versal OF ordinary procedure an English
gentleman living by the sale of the market
able productions of a small estate near
London, takes hard study as his rest-work
BY nature a student and devoted 70 his
pen, the money-prOducing necessities of his
agricultural and horticultural work rob
them of their charm; roses are looked upon
as worth so many shillings. and grapes are
valued at their market price. His recrea-
ton is a couple of hours of hard study or
very careful writing, and the result is ex-
cellent.
THE OUT-OF-DOOR BALM.
BY the same law of result from changed
forms of activity a teacher of children dis
covered for herself that giving her Satur-
days and Sundays to amusing and instruct
ing adults in certain refugees benefited her.
1t removed the sense of mental fatigue in
duced by the repetition needed for children,
and relieved the strain caused by constant
ly putting her mind on the child's level.
Now that external nature so allures us.
and all the workers of the world lift their
heads from their tasks. and looking sky
ward dream OF coming rest and relaxation.
it is not a little depressing to remember
that for the great majority of men and
women such blessings seem restricted to
two or three weeks. Happy are those
breadwinners who can count on a month
OF freedom in a year.
For this reason it has seemed possible
that il might be useful to incite one who
has not Yet tried the experiment of resting
! through change of occupation to think Out
some form of activity within his individual
! region Of resource. 1t is a suggestion made
from proved results.
No mother who has watched her children.
/ especially her boys, through the months of
the long vacation but has discovered how
restless they become when left to their own
resources. and how plainly they miss
school. 1t is not, as many a Jealous ma
ternal heart has felt with a sharp psng Of
disappointment, a loss of love for home.
but the incapability OF mind and spirit
! after eight months of unremitting activity
10 endure puTpOSeleSS idleness. SOmetbino
absorbing TO do has become a necessity Ia
the energetic youngsters, and they do not
find complete relaxation eniovabIe
Very often a mother, overtaSked nv her
unceasing Ound of mOnOtonous care and
the unremitting need for petty economies
Is persuaded by SOlicitOus friends To "dron
everything and so away on a Journey
which has no definite wish directing its
course or any controlling preference guild
her heart only half conserving TO The mr..
gent entreaties which give her no peace
and she returns eagerly. glad TO get hack
10 duties she knows to be imperative.
Had "A fresh interest and an element ~
variety been brought into her life she
would have needed no change 10 another
climate. a couple of hours a week. an nc.
c%asiOnal afternoon given TO the foIndino
and regulating Of a child's hospital or th9
inauguration of A playground and breath.
ing place for little ones less fortunate thar
her own would prove %singularly efRcacious