1(30 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS CONSERVATION 



Much is written of the injury to general health which 

 is wrought by fear. The teaching is not so familiar that 

 there are many people who need to limit the extent to 

 which certain entirely happy expectations occupy their 

 minds. Yet this may fairly be claimed when dwelling on a 

 distant happine>s becomes a cause of discontent. The 

 homesick college student knows that to be forever reckon- 

 ing the days that remain between the present and the 

 tardily coming vacation brings more of depression than of 

 stimulation. It is better to emphasize the agreeable con- 

 ditions which can generally be discovered close at hand. 



Monotony in occupation and association must be held 

 to threaten harm to the nervous system and so to the 

 general health. We see the consequences in remote 

 country districts, where each person sees but a few others, 

 and where the round of duties to be performed is narrouly 

 fixed from day to day and from year to year. Add to the 

 wearing uniformity of circumstance the anxiety over the 

 slender income and it does not seem strange that in such 

 localities the proportion of mental derangement is high. 

 In many a weather-beaten farmhouse there are taciturn, 

 desponding, and bigoted people, cherishing bitter grudges 

 against neighbors, and making no effort to maintain 

 sociability in the family circle. Kvery such man or 

 woman is a witness to the tragic results of life without 

 wholesome variety in contacts and interests. 



A mind well stocked ought to be able to neutralize in a 

 great measure the drawbacks of such surroundings, though 

 it frequently appeal's that the man of ostensibly high 

 education is quite dependent upon external sources of 

 diversion. Not many college graduates could spend a 

 winter <>ii a poverty-stricken farm without repining, but it 

 may be asserted that the success of an academic training 

 may be measured by the capacity of the possessor to find 

 contentment independently of novel -timuli. It is too 

 much to ask that lie shall prefer such isolation; formal 

 education is naturally a preparation for further develop- 

 ment in which the environment should bear its part. 



