The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-15
Mental MaIlsl.tritiorl
By R. ADDlN0ToN BRUCE

In these days of emphasizing the evils of bodily malnutrition something might well be also said of the harm wrought by mental malnutrition And at the very outset it should be pointed out that, just as the bodily nal nourished often do not appreciate that they are malnourished, so do many of the men, tally malnourished fail to recognize that their troubles arg due to malnutrition of the mind.
 The troubles themselves weigh heavily upon them, though not all of them are afflicted alike.
 Some suffer mostly from inability to think to good purpose in the doing of their daily work. They perhaps work faithfully enough, but with an inefficiency that keeps promo tion out of the realm of possibility Envious- ly they regard fellow-workers who forge ahead of them, and in dumb agony they won der why they themselves do not progress at a more rapid rate.
 Others are tortured chiefly by feelings of boredom. The fact that they lag in the world of business endeavor may be of comparative or complete indifference to them. But they are keenly conscious of the fact that fife seems strangely empty, and that they find little en- joyment in anything they do.
 Oppressed by the consciousness of this fact they become inveterate sensation-hunters. They are forever in quest of the novel and the unusual. They shift from one amuse- ment to another, but always the eventual outcome is the same-boredom, disappoint- ment, poignant sense of futility.
 Then there are those whom mental nal. nutrition torments by handicapping their urge to self-expression. They are so limited in this respect as to weary any in whose company they are. The little they have to say they say badlyl Nobody welcomes their presence because they are so tedious. And, poor souls, they know it.
 Finally, yet by no means exhausting the list of the evil consequences of mental mall nutrition, many are unconsciously impelled to vice and some to crime because their minds are poorly nourished.
 Commonly those who turn to vice do so as fancied means of escape from the ennui that torments them. Criminality comes some times from the economic inefficiency that mental malnutrition promotes, sometimes more directly from the soul poisoning and starving that it engenders.
 And how is one to make sure of avoiding mental malnutrition? The answer may be given in a few words:
 By cultivating q keen interest in the so- called cultural activities. By cultivating a sympathetic interest in One's fellow-men and in the natural wonders and beauties of the world wherein one lives. By cultiyating a re- ccplNS AtercsS III EShEAOuS SeEfAcSsB SoCtaAy significant public meetings, and whatever tends to fill the mind with stimulating and ennObling ideas.
 There are many, as everybody knows, who seem to think they can dispense with all this. There are many who do not so much as read one good book from years beginning to years end. What mental food they do give them selves is either indigestible or almost entirely lacking in truly nutritive elements.
 Mental malnutrition is certain result, working some degree of injury even as bodily malnutrition invariably works injury.