"Amuse yourself. This is the first principle of good hard work. And the second is like unto it.
"Don't work too much. It is quantity, not quality, that kills. Therefore, work only in the day-time. Night was made for sleep. And loaf on Sunday. Six days' work earns the right to go a-fishing, or to church, or to any harmless diversion, on the seventh.
"Go to work promptly, but slowly. A late, hurried start keeps you out of breath all day trying to catch up.
"When you stop work forget it. It spoils brains to simmer after a hard boil.
"Feed regularly, largely, and slowly. Lose no meal; approach it respectfully and give it gratefully. No more can be got out of a man than is put into him.
"Sleep one-third of your whole life. How I hate the moralist who croaks over time wasted in sleep. Besides, sleep is, on the whole, the most satisfactory mode of existence."
Misconceivements.—"There are a number of mistakes made even by wise people while passing through life. Prominent among them is the idea that you must labor when you are not in a fit condition to do so; to think that the more a person eats the healthier and stronger he will become; to go to bed at midnight and rise at daybreak, and imagine that every hour taken from sleep is an hour gained; to imagine that, if a little work or exercise is good, violent and prolonged exercise is better; to conclude that the smallest room in the house is large enough to sleep in; to eat as if you had only a moment to finish a meal in, or to eat without any appetite, or to continue after it has been satisfied, merely to please the taste; to believe that children can do as much work as grown people, and that the more hours they study the more they learn; to imagine that whatever remedy causes one to feel immediately better (as alcoholic stimulants) is good for the system, without regard to the after-effects; to take off proper clothing out of season because you have become heated; to sleep exposed to a direct draught; to think any nostrum or patent medicine is a specific for all the diseases flesh is heir to."
Weariness.—"A tramp knows what it is to be leg-weary, a farm laborer to be body-weary, a literary man to be brain-weary, and a sorrowing man to be soul-weary. The sick are often weary of life itself. Weariness is generally a physiological 'ebb-tide,' which time and patience will convert into a 'flow'. It is never well to whip or spur a worn-out horse, except in the direst straits. If he mends his pace in obedience to the stimulus, every step is a drop drawn from his life-blood. Idleness is not one of the faults of the present age; weariness is one of the commonest experiences. The checks that many a man draws on his physiological resources are innumerable; and, as these resources are strictly limited, like any other ordinary banking account, it is very easy to bring about a balance on the wrong side. Adequate rest is one kind of repayment to the bank, sound sleep is another, regular eating and good digestion another. One day's holiday in the week and one or two months in the year for those who work exceptionally hard usually bring the credit balance to a highly favorable condition; and thus with care and management physiological solvency is secured and maintained."
"What Produces Death.—Someone says that few men die of age. Almost all persons die of disappointment, personal, mental, or bodily toil, or accident. The passions kill men sometimes even suddenly. The common expression, 'choked with passion,' has little exaggeration in it, for even though not suddenly fatal, strong passions shorten life. Strong-bodied men often die young; weak men live longer than the strong, for the strong use their strength and the weak have none to use. The latter take care of themselves, the former do not. As it is with the body, so it is with the mind and temper. The strong are apt to break, or, like the candle, run; the weak burn out. The inferior animals, which live temperate lives, have generally their prescribed term of years. The horse lives 25 years, the ox 15 or 20, the lion about 20, the hog 10 or 12, the rabbit 8, the guinea-pig 6 or 7. The numbers all bear proportion to the time the animal takes to grow to its full size. But man, of all animals, is one that seldom comes up to the average. He ought to live a hundred years, according to the physiological law, for five times 20 are 100; but instead of that he scarcely reaches an average of four times the growing period. The reason is obvious—man is not only the most irregular and most intemperate, but the most laborious and hard-working of all animals. He is always the most irritable of all animals, and there is reason to believe, though we cannot tell what an animal secretly feels, that more than any other animal man cherishes wrath to keep it warm, and consumes himself with the fire of his own reflections."
Provided you have babies in your family go through the following and see if you can't train your child so it shall be among the last seventeen mentioned:—