THE TEST OF AGE 



Perhaps that recreation is necessary for your health 

 even; but I do not require that kind of diversion, and 

 you will hardly claim that your evening at euchre has 

 added much to your knowledge of life or to your real 

 working efficiency. In a word, then, your hours for 

 work or study are reduced to nine a day, whereas mine 

 number seventeen, or almost twice as many. 



"I think, then, that you can see where the argument 

 lands us, even supposing that our brains are of the same 

 quality, and our working hours equally effective. A very 

 simple use of mathematics will show you that I am 

 older in hours than you are, and that hence I should 

 have a fuller mental equipment, a wider store of 

 knowledge, a more mature view of life. Q. E. D., as we 

 used to say in the geometry class. 



"Of course," he concluded smilingly, "you may 

 really be a whole lot wiser than I, for your brain may 

 be so much better than mine that you can learn 

 more in ten minutes than I do in an hour; but please 

 don't assert your wisdom again on the score of 

 mere age; for there, as you see, I have you at a dis- 

 advantage." 



I recall that I was a good deal struck with this pre- 

 sentation of the age question at the time. Being young 

 myself I naturally sided in sympathy with the counter 

 of hours, though I should not now regard his logic as 

 unassailable. I should by no means admit, for example, 

 that hours spent in familiar discourse at table, or hours 

 devoted to competitive games are to be scored over 

 unqualifiedly on the wrong side of the ledger of life- 

 experience. Yet on the whole the argument for count- 



[293] 



