OLD AGE. 435 



two table-spoonfuls of it with a small tea-cupful of cold water, till it is of uniform 

 consistence. Then pour in a pint of boiling water, and keep boiling and stirring it 

 for forty minutes. It is then fit to eat, but may be kept simmering till wanted if 

 a little more water be added as the other steams away. It should be served in a 

 soup-plate quite hot, and cold milk added to reduce it to an eatable temperature." 

 With these means at our disposal no difficulty should be experienced with the 

 bowels. 



Of course the fact will be at once recognised that the number of years a man 

 happens to have lived in this world is no guide to his real age. Some people are 

 still young at sixty ; others are old at forty. We do not all live at the same rate, 

 some live slowly and quietly, suffering but little wear and tear ; others live fast, and 

 soon find that the pace tells. Nowadays we live faster than we did a century or 

 two ago. If one of our ancestors were suddenly resuscitated and made to undergo 

 the toil and mental labour we do, he would soon give in. The life of an intelligent 

 man, who would keep on a level with his compeers of the present day, is equivalent 

 to at least a dozen lives of a former age. What is expected of mere boys in this 

 competitive age was not required of wise, full-grown men of old. Take the example 

 of a senior wrangler. Even Newton ignored the scope of mathematical science which 

 a senior wrangler must now possess, and how hard such men must work and over- 

 work themselves is evident from the small number who are ever heard of again, or 

 succeed in the real battle of life. They are " played out " before they are thirty, 

 and one feels inclined to agree with the common remark that a senior wrangler is 

 generally one of the worst educated men in England. Few of the successful men of 

 this or any other age rest upon the laurels gained in their early years, and under the 

 exhaustive modern system few or none, after success in examinations, have energy 

 enough left to begin the real work of life. Most of them are content with the 

 honours they have gained, and sink back breathless with the effort. There can be 

 no doubt that at present society is following a course which must inflict irretrievable 

 damage upon our children, and those who are to come after them. Health and 

 education do not go, as they ought to go, hand in hand. " The whole head is sick, and 

 the heart faint ; " for as the frantic passion for over-instruction affects the body it 

 reacts upon the mind. The child who has been a victim to excessive education during 

 the period of immaturity is never intellectually strong,, and is generally feeble in 

 physique, in adolescence, and early manhood. In these days there is a strain after 

 knowledge, a frenzy of emulation in acquirement, such as the world never saw before. 

 The world has produced great men in abundance in every generation, in every sphere 

 of activity, in every combination of circumstance. But always, hitherto, the one 

 indispensable condition was present, the condition of unfettered development. The 

 appearance of the great men of the past in literature, art, and science, was natural, 

 because nature in their case was free and untrammelled ; but the appearance of such 

 men in similar greatness under the present educational system is well-nigh impossible. 

 The theory, or at any rate the practice, of modern education is to supply an unlimited 

 quantity of knowledge in early life, when both the mental and the physical powers 

 are immature. It is like trying to improve the healthy action of the stomach by a 

 system of over-eating. 



