476 Hard Study. [October, 



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Hard Study hurts nobody, but hard eating does. It Is a very 

 common thing to attribute the premature disability or death of stu- 

 dents and eminent men to close application to their studies. It has 

 now become to be a generally admitted truth, that "hard study," as 

 it is called, endangers life. It is a mischievous error that severe 

 mental application undermines health. Unthinking people will dis- 

 miss this with the exclamation of "that's all stuff," or something 

 equally conclusive. To those who search after truth in the love of 

 it, we wish to offer some suggestions. 



Many German scholars have studied for a life-time for sixteen 

 hours out of the twenty-four, and a very large number from twelve 

 to fifteen hours, lived in comparative health, and died beyond the 

 sixties. 



One of the most sterling of living minds, Prof. Silliman, the elder, 

 the past winter, traveled through the country, at the age of nearly 

 eighty years, and in good health, delivering geological lectures, liv- 

 ing mentally on the hard food of rocks, iron, iridium, and the like. 



Another strong example of the truth that health and hard study 

 are not incompatible, is found in the great Missourian, Thomas H. 

 Benton, now past the three-score and ton, and in the enjoyment of 

 vigorous health; a more severe student than he has been, and is now, 

 the American public does not know. Dr. Charles Caldwell, our hon- 

 ored preceptor, lived beyond the eighties, and with high bodily health, 

 remarkable i:)hyslcal vigor, and mental force scarcely abated ; yet for 

 a great part of his life he studied fifteen out of the twenty-four, and 

 at one time gave but five hours to sleep. John Quincy Adams, the 

 old man eloquent, is another equally strong example of our position. 

 All these men, with the venerable Dr. Nott, now more than eighty 

 years old, made the preservation of health a scientific study, and by 

 systematic temperance, neither blind nor spasmodic, secured the 

 prize for which they labored, and with It, years, usefulness and honor. 

 For the present, we content ourselves with the enumeration of the 

 gist of this article: students and professional men are not so much 

 injured by hard study, as by hard eating; nor is severe study for a 

 life-time, of Itself, incompatible with mental and bodily vigor to the 

 full age of three-score years and ten. — HalVs Journal of Health. 



