The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-18

bearing on all phases of American life; on health,s intelligence, spiritual attitude, the death rate.
 Various suggestions for remedy are brought forth, such as study of the capability of the individual worker. production at the most effective notch, physical and moral control for traffic, revision of school precepts, that the coming generations may be more easy-g going; and the advance ment of new attitude in economic life.
 Aim at the next generations" is the advice of Professor G. l.. -Meylan of Columbia, who, as a teacher of physical education, including com munity work, hygiene and the physio- logy of exercise has had opportunity to observe special aspects of the problem. The effects of speeding up should and do receive thoughtful attention" he said. They are a topic when teachers get together. There Is not enough rest and vegitation to- day. Perhaps it would be well if we could exchange some of our rush for a little restfulness Of the East h. dian.
 There Is truth in the statements attributed to MT. Hughes. The need now is for balance. 1 think the ten dency he describes is general. Con- sider the changes in working hours and vacations within twenty-five e years. Many big men in business now work only three or four or five days q week, and their office hours are half what they were a quarter of century ago; the week end has be- come an institution in that period and has heightened until it often in cludes Friday or onday. This is a response to the needs of experience. The man with heavy responsibilities gives less time to work simply in or der that he may keep up with the pace.
 Mechanical inve-itions to a con- siderable extent compensate for the conditions they produce. business man can do twice as much work. four times as much, as he could without them. But there is a definite rate of speed for each individual, beyond which it is injurious for him to go. It is a law of physiology that each individual has a miximum load. He does his best work at his own best speed. That Is the desirable happy medium. Many individuals are pushed beyond their capacity. The results are breakdowns, mistakes, a lower output. Speeding up takes 1t out of tho individual, and the community as WHOle pays TOT IL.
 Speed is reaching into all fields It is even pushing children into col lege Nowadays there are freshmen 12 years old; not so long ago one of 14 was unusual.
 ITO drive hard is to wear out. A man can push his automobile and wear 1t out in a few months. where with proper use 1t would last sew eral years.
 You can't teach an old dog new tricks, however. It is with children that the most can be accomplished in inculcating new standard. But use should be made of those who have it in their power to regulate speed and the agencies of publicity should be enlisted also. It should be recognized that speed does not pay beyond cer- tain limit. Perhaps not much can be done immediately, but 1t Is a good thing to put out a danger signal"
 Secretary Hughes gave special con- sideration to the effect of speed con ditions on thought. Sound doctrine,r = was the comment of Prof John titled, How to Think" Even more emphatic are the words of pr. Louis I. Dublin, statistician of the Metro politan Life Insurance company, and chairman of committee which has just completed a study of accidents for the National Safety council.
 O'O O
 Danger shown In Accident Rate.
 "A public disgrace. a national ca lamity," said Dr. Dublin, who finds a relationship between the speed ideal and the accident rates in traffic, in industry and in other fields. Our accident rate" he said, "is more than twice AS high as England's. It is not a question of speed in thinking, but of speed im living. The man in an automobile, for example, no longer gets feeling of exhilaration unless the speedometer shows 35 or 40 miles an hour.
 There is the concrete transfer of the speed desire into terms of mo- tion. There Is the other side of it also. the internal need. Call 1t the soul, That mas plenty of manifesto tions, too.
 ''The problem Is hard to measure except in the accident rates. There may be more commitments to insane asylums for instance, but that means inn " 1,of