, 1905-10-19
THE JOY OF AGE.
Misinterpretation of DR.. Osler's
Statement.

DR.. William Osler, late professor IN
John Hopkins University, Baltimore,
met with a great lea Of undeserved
notoriety because he was misunder-
stood when he said the creative faculty
disappeared usually at the age of forty
years. He did not mea to convey the
impression that mans usefulness
ceased ut that time, but that the imag-
NATIVE faculty was not as active then
as it was in earlier years, when men
are green and raw in judgment and put
forth many things that they wish To
have suppressed later on. His little
jest about chloroforming those who
lag superfluous on the stage" was
meant to apply only to teachers who
failed to move with the advanced
thought and had a special humorous
reference to himself, but the miscom-
prehension and ~exaggeration of the
press has magnifed his utterance and
given it a sweep he never intended.
Must Seek New Fields.
When the acquisition Of knowledge
is used merely as a NEAR through
which to earn bread, that is the end
of a mans career, whether he be thirty
or forty or a thousand years old. Men
who seek no new fields of exploration
nor carry forward to fulfllment any
work they attempt in early days are
mere drones in the hives of life.
DR.. Osler, who is close to the sixty
year line, has gone to England to take
a professorship of medicine in Oxford
University, which will without doubt
lead to an increase of his professional
fame, which did not come to him until
after he had passed the half century
post in his journey of life. His part
ing injunction to his medical asso-
ciates in America, at the Washington
meeting in May, vas to follow the
Golden Rule in all their actions, and to
cultivate that moderation which is said
to be the golden thread running
through all the virtues. This advice
is not new, but it cannot be repeated
too often in an age when many men
are striving to shove their neighbors
to the wall in their desire to occupy
the middle of the road themselves.
Man is naturally a selfish animal and
needs to be often reminded that he
must do unto others as he would have
them dc unto him, even If he desires
TO attain more worldly success. The
maj who has no consideration for his
laboring fellows is likely to find no con-
sideration extended to him when the
hour of misfortune comes.
Best Work Late in Life.
DR.. Osler never deprecated age,
knowing that mans best work is done
after age has mellowed his under
standing and strengthened his judg-
ment. There r numerous examples
of what virility in age can do all along
the track of history. 1t was seen in
benjamin Franklin. William p. Glad
stone, is seen in Edward Everett Hale,
Lord Kelvin, Charles H.. Haswell, en-
gineer and author, still at the g of
81 at his desk in New York, and other
names will occur by scores to general
readers.
1t is an infexible law of nature that
the being who does not progress must
retrograde. There is no place on this
fearful ascent of life where, spiritually
and intellectually, we are not forced
to go forward lest we slip back. But
it is a happy provision in nature that
even in the longest life there is no
arbitrarily fixed point of time where
expansion must cease as If by a fiat,
where there r no more heights be-
fore the soul to climb, no more views
to be obtained, no broadening and ex-
banding of the vision possible. Al
ways and forever a new bud may be
formed on the topmost bough of the
old tree, eve though the trunk be
partly hollow, and the nourishing sap
mount slowly through the bark.