The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-03-18
DIR. osLER's DICTUM.
1t Has Large Value if Rightly Re-
garded.

To the Editor: In our eagerness to
refute the part of DR.. Osler's dictum
touching rather uncomfortably upon
us older men we are losing sight Of
the great value Of that part of it which
is at once a stimulant and a warning
to younger men. Thus regarded, and
in view of the wide attention which it
has attracted, it seems to me to be one
of the most pregnant utterances of
the period.
Exactly when any given man gets
worthless through age depends of
course upon the man, upon the life
that he has lived, and upon the work
that he still must do. Nevertheless
no rejecting men can reach the me-
ridian of life or approach it without
realizing the vast import of DIR. Os-
lerss warning as to the value of the.
first fifteen or twenty years of man
hood. This period extends from about
twenty-five to about forty as the
much refuted DR.. Osler has stated.
There is no escaping the fact that to the
average man this is the golden perioo
of life. 1t is then that the harvest
must be made though it may not be
reaped till later on in life. That is
time in which labor of mind and of
body is not only more telling, but also
less wearing. This is even more appli-
cable to brain workers than to body
workers. For it is then that the mind
approaches the truest equilibrium of
faculty. Memory, Inauguration, judg-
ment all are good None invades
the province of the other to the ex-
tent which it has done in the past
and will again do in the future The
Judgment has curbed but not yet
still a servant, not as she will later
become a capricious mistress. Per
ceptiOn is yet SO keen thta the latch
string of the mental door hangs out
side. New facts are received as well
come guests not barred out as they
must be later from the crowed, jaded
mind. And then that period has be-
hind it all that splen-
did reserve of strength, of vigor, of
energy, which makes action joy and
which SENS to the young inexhaustible,
but which alas is not So The sineWS
of the mind have been strengthened
but not yet hardened by use. The
mental joints have not yet grown stiff
making action pain. Then perhaps
greatest of all, a wholesome egotism
possesses the young man. l say whole
some in that it makes self look lar
ger and the world smaller than they
really are, endeavor is not diSheart-
ened by the sense of it's own limita-
tons.
How great might be the gain if the
press instead of abusing the doctor for
his unpalatable but really wholesome
warning would use his word as a text
to impress on all those within that
golden zone the sense of it's value, of
it's preciousness and also of its mar
rowness; to the realization that it's
energizing atmosphere cannot accom-
pany them to the end; that ii is not
only in poetry but in fact the morn
ing of life, the morning with it's fresh
ness and capacity for labor; and that
the day of life must be rounded out
with an evening and that the evening
must be just the reverse from the
morning.
All these are such plain facts that
they may seem mere platitudes, but il
is the plain facts that we are apt to
be unmindful of on account of their
very plainness. So much so that 7
cannot but wish that all the wit and
eloquence that are now leveled at the
yenturesome doctor for speaking what
is largely true, could be devoted to i'm
pressing on young men the value the
potentiality Of these short unreturn-
ing years.
o. W. BLACKNALL
Kittrell, n G.