Year: 1861

John 81 Hart Esq, in an address at
Pennsylvania College, imparts the following
wholesome advice to students. Our young
professional friends should not fail to read
it. ....l..


My first advice, then, TO young men pur-
suing or completing a course Of liberal
studies is, take care of your bodily health,
Without this your intellectual attainments
will be shorn of half their value. dwell
upon this point, and emphasize it, because
on every side Of me, in professional life, and
especially in the clerical profession, see
90 many helpless, hopeless wrecks. Verify
there is some grevious mistake among us in
this matter Whether it be our climate or
habits of student-life, or our social and do
mestic habits, l am not prepared TO say.
But Of the fact ! make no doubt. Our edu-
Gated men do not achieve half that they
might achieve for the want Of the necessary
physical vigor. 1t is painful to see the dys-
peptic, ore-throated, attenuated oadAver-
GUS specimens Of humanity that student-life
so often produces among us-men afraid Of
puff Of air, afraid of the heat, afraid of
the cold, afraid to eat piece Of pie or good
roast beef-men obliged to live on stale
bread and molasses, who take cold if they
get wet, who must make reconnaissance
of a room to see thatthey can secure place
out of draft before they dare to take a
seat-men who by dint Of coaxing and
nursing and pampering drag out q feeble
existence.for few short years, and then
drop into. q premature grave--martyrs to
intellectual exertiOnl


do not recommend the fox-hunting ca
rousals of the old time English clergy. We
need not go back to the material apotheosis
of the classical ages. But verify we have
something to learn in this matter. We have
to learn that high mental exertion taxes
most severely the life-force We have to
learn that the man of superior intellect,
who puts forth his power with resolute
vigor, requires more bodily health and force
to sustain the strain than an ordinary la-
boring man does. Instead Of being pale,
delicate, feeble and sickly, the student
needs to be stalwart and hardy. He should
have tougher thews and stronger sinews,
and more vigorous pulse than the man
who merely ploWs the soil. He need
not have the Drawn and bone of the athlete
and the gladiator. lie need not be Spar
tacus or Heenan. But he should be a
man of good, sound, working bodily,
health .'


He then passes to the Importance of the
habit of being be forehand in whatever you
undertake, to the necessity of holding on
to the calling one chooses, to the value of
some fresh intellectual acquisitions every
day, to the beneficial effects of a varied and
liberal culture apart from ones speciality,
and the propriety of cultivating the art of
conversation. On the latter head he says
truly:


"Excuse my dwelling little on this point.
There is among our best educated men, l am
sorry to say, large amount of vis iner69
in regard to this matter of conversation.
Very many persons are disposed to rely
for their success and their position in So
ciety solely upon their professional skill
and industry. General conversation is o
bore to them. They have never duly con-
sidered the advantages it might bring them.
They are disposed to leave that to those of
more ambitious distinction. When they are
in company, they speak, indeed, if appealed
to, or if it comes entirely in their way to do
SO, but they feel no responsibility for keep
ing conversation ahoat. Allow me to say,
gentlemen, this is all wrong Indepen-
IDENTIFY of all considerations of interest and
policy, there is a clear duty in this matter.
Every man who mingles in the society of
his fellows is bound to contribute his quota
to the common entertainment, just as much
as in joint excursion of any kind he would
be bound to pay his share of the reckoning
Educated men, beyond all others, should
settle it as clear duty how to talk we'll in
company. Conversation is an art; but it
is an art which can be acquired, and de-
pend upon it no acquisition gives surer
or more ample return for the amount of eff
fort needed" ft I'd. t