The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1916-08-30

his subject being: Ninety Years OF
Life and How to Live Them" Mr..
Barnes said:
Factories of the present day are
managed with such system that the
workers become automatic machines.
They use the nervous systems very
little. the work requires no thought.
Such persons age quickly There are
great masses of people engaged at
work requiring only reflex action,
and they are old at forty.
We hear constantly this is an age
of Young leadership, that we are con-
tinually calling on the young men
and women to do the great things.
Statistics show that this is false and
without foundation. Savages age
quickly and the peasants of Europe,
especially the women, become old at
40. The ideal of the Americans has
been to retire from active life at 6O.
Young men and women are desired IN
our industrial activities today, partly
because specialized industries stop
progressive intelligence.
Facts will show, however, that this
is an age of old leaders. No great
work has been done by young men,
because young men are not prepared.
DR.. S. Wier Mitchell wrote the sec
ond best selling novel at the age of
80. Lord Halesbury, the Tory lead
err who rescued the English parlia-
ment from a chaotic condition, did
so when he was between 80 and go.
The greatest schoolmaster in the
United States is Charles Eliot, who
retired from the presidency of Har-
ward university at 80, not because he
was too old, but because he had too
much to do. Alfred Wallace, the
scientist, became a noted socialist and
suffragist after he was 90. Men like
these are the backbone of civiliza-
ton. Not only men have accomplish
ed great works. A great many adj
mirable women have done great
things after they were 40. Fannie j..
Crosby wrote so many hymns that in
publishing books it was necessary to
use many of her hymns under differ
emit names, so that people would not
think the books the work of one wo-
man. She died at the age of 95. Mrs.
Hetty Green, the great woman finan-
cier, Mrs. Severance, the founder OF
the Woman's Clubs, and many other
noted women have done their great
est works after they were old.
One hundred and fifty years ago
the death rate was double what it is
now. BY the census of 1900 there
were 74,240 people in the United
States between the ages of 80 and
85, and there were 5,648 between 95
and 100. The older men control the
national thought.
w. A Newman Dorland made a
study of four hundred of the great
est men of genius. He found that
of these men four per cent ceased
their mental activity between 30 and
40; ten per cent between 40 and so;
20 per cent between so and so, and
that 35 per cent of the worlds great
est works was done between the ages
of so and 70 years. Only six per
cent of the greatest works have been
done by men under 40. The only
things in which men excel in youth
are pugilism and baseball and lyric
poetry. such as Shelly's. A human
being is worth what his nervous sys-
tenn is worth A man may have a
splendid skeleton and be an idiot.
or a splendid muscular development
and be Jack Johnson. The devel-
opment of the nervous system is the
thing that makes the man. And we
realize that life cannot stand still, we
advance or we retrograde. We are
placing less emphasis on the future
life and more on this, believing that
our future state will depend on the
wav we use this one.
We have considered education g
process apart from living, the mas
terry of certain information and pro-
cesses of thinking. Fifty years ago
only BOYS between the ages of SIX
and 20 were educated-17 per cent
of the people Then girls of the
same age were taught, and the num-
Der was doubled. The kindergartens
were then established, and graduate
study was begun. In many parts OF
America today one may attend free
public schools from the time he is
four wears old until he dies of ole
age Wopnen's clubs have spread over
the whole country-social clubs
study clubs. political clubs-witl
nearly a million members. Then
princinal aim is self-education. These
clubs necessarily have a great inf1u
ence on the women and on the tow
planning and local politics.
Old age depends on the spiritua
and mental age of person, not th'
chronological. When desire fails ther
death is here There should be ;
different method of compulsory edu
cation. Children from six to four
teen learn anyway; one cannot keel
them from it. We should compe
those ppopIe who are 40 so and n
to be educated people who have ceas
ed to caro-. IF Won are 80 YOU NAV
waste a few moments; if you are Al
YOU had better begin to get ready
if Won are so wears old you have go
to begin to study. Seek new expert