Almost every man between 48 and 52 who works indoors, eats too much, exercises too little, sleeps insufficiently.
In this book I have made practical suggestions that have been tried in the furnace of experience and proven adequate. They have helped me; they will help you. They will enable you to gain pep and efficiency; they will give you a new lease on life and make life more worth living.
[Sidenote: The Simple Life.]
First, live simply; eat simply. If you have in the past, eaten rich foods, drunk fine wines, and have been what the world knows as a "good fellow," your course is clear. You must call a halt on yourself. This path leads inevitably to the graveyard. Follow the seven simple health suggestions laid down in an earlier chapter, and you will feel better, feel happier and will attack the day"s work with vim and vigor.
Avoid undue excitement. Excitement uses up nerve force. It is an energy consumer. Your mind needs repose as well as your body. When you have finished your day"s work, leave business behind you. Do not drag it into your home. In the evening, occupy yourself with a good, worth-while book. Nothing is more conducive to calm and contentment.
Let supper be your one hearty meal of the day. And after supper, play with the kids or joke with your wife; get a smile on your face. When you are home, interest yourself in home concerns. The "home men" are the men who live longest. They lead healthy, regular lives, and they keep alive the outside interests that make for peace, poise, content and happiness.
Keep a sharp look-out for tendencies to change your habits and morals.
At 50 you are walking on thin ice; look out, danger is near.
After you are 55, your habits are pretty well established. If you have lived rightly till then, you"re safe thereafter and very likely are on your way to a good ripe old age if you take reasonable care of yourself.
28.
[Sidenote: Our Sons.]
We love our own the best; maybe that"s why we indulge our own too much.
Our duty to our boys; that"s a subject as old as the hills, and it is as important as it is old. It is a subject that has come to the forefront in recent years. Mult.i.tudes of paid juvenile workers and sociological experts throughout the country are engaged in the work of keeping the youth of the nation healthily occupied and away from corrupting influences.
Modern conditions have created a "boy problem" which was unknown two generations ago. Then there were no slums reeking with vice and squalor and ugliness. The era of great manufacturing enterprises was just beginning. There were no densely populated cities numbering millions of souls. Amus.e.m.e.nts were simple. Everywhere were stretches of open country, and boys were allowed to run wild in field and woodland and stream.
[Sidenote: Times Have Changed.]
The great cities of to-day have done away with all this. The good, old-fashioned, healthful recreations have disappeared in all but rural communities. In their place has come the lurid "movie" with its tales of crime and violence and pa.s.sion. At every crowded street corner, vice beckons, and glaring signs lure the curious boy into the vicious cabaret and dance-hall.
To-day I had the boy problem forcibly presented to me. I saw in a court twenty-four boys who had been brought before the Judge charged with petty crimes. Three were sent to the penitentiary, seven to the reform school and fourteen let go temporarily on good behavior.
A friend of mine interested in criminology tells me the great bulk of hold-ups, thefts, burglaries and murders are committed by boys between 16 and 22 years of age.
These twenty-four boys I mentioned were just ordinary boys, capable of making good citizens if they had had the right kind of home treatment and surroundings. Most of them got in trouble through their a.s.sociation with the "gang" or the "bunch," or the "crowd," and this because daddy didn"t have his hand on the rein.
That boy must have companionship; he must have a confidant with whom he can share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his ambitions. If he doesn"t get this comeraderie at home, he gets it ""round the corner."
We know where the boy is when he is at school, but how few of us know the boy"s doings between times.
Pool halls tempt the boys, and these resorts are breeding places where filthy stories, criminal slang and evil practices are hatched.
Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate the boy. He sees the lights.
There is a keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted dude with cigarette in his mouth making fancy shots.
There is no one to nag him or bother him; it gets to be his "hang-out,"
and soon he drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to the red-light district.
Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It takes money to go the pace.
Crime is gilded over with slang words. Stealing is called "easy money."
Robbery is "turning a trick," and so on.
A boy becomes what he lives on mentally and physically; that"s the net of it.
It is a common saying, but a good one, that the boys of to-day are the men of to-morrow. If you train a boy with care and kindness, he will grow up to be an honest and upright citizen. But let him run a wild, undisciplined course, leave him free to explore the crime-spots and plague-pools of the city, and sooner or later his moral fibre is weakened and ultimately snaps. At best he will become an indifferent citizen; at worst a drifter or a criminal.
There is nothing better for a boy than discipline properly administered.
And that brings up the whole matter of army life.
[Sidenote: The Army: A Maker of Men.]
The army is a great maker and developer of men. Boys who were headed for perdition have found in the army a new sense of honor and respect. The rigorous training, the idea of duty, the heroic traditions of the service--all these are renewers and rekindlers of manhood. Many a lad who has wasted his health, wealth and substance on the primrose path, has "come back" gloriously in the service of the flag.
Look at the average soldier or sailor you meet. His skin is tanned by sun and wind to a deep brown. His eyes are crystal clear. There is youth and strength in his tread. There he stands, clean as a whistle. No fat, no flabbiness--just solid sinew and ruddy health. He is a living exponent of what military training can do for every boy in the country.
Hard work, strength-building exercises, sufficient sleep, regular hours, simple, wholesome food, systematic training--these are the things the army and navy offers. And these are the things that make real men.
But no training that school or church or army can give him relieves you, Dad, of your obligation to the boy. In the last a.n.a.lysis, it is _your_ influence that will either make him or break him, for it is to you that he looks for guidance and comradeship in his most impressionable years.
If you are his chum, if sister shares his amus.e.m.e.nts with him, if the family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" basis, if the boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.
[Sidenote: Be Worth Copying.]
Neglect him and he will neglect you. Love him and he will love you. Meet him half way, he"s impressionable. Show him a kindness, he will respond.
Show him a good example, he will follow. You have to be with him, or know where he is every minute.
During his period of adolescence, say from twelve or thirteen years to sixteen or seventeen, that boy is a ma.s.s of plaster of paris, easily shaped while plastic, but once set, all but impossible to recast.
That"s the time, Dad, you must be on YOUR job with your boy.
Your counsel, example, love, interest and teaching will MAKE the boy.
Think of these things, Dad, and think hard, and think hard NOW.
To-morrow may be too late.
29.
[Sidenote: Our Daughters.]
Our daughters--how much we love them! How happy we are to have their fresh, smiling faces about us! Their girlish laughter lightens our home hours and creates an atmosphere of joy. What would we not give if we could but insure their happiness! Our fondest and most cherished hopes are bound up in them as they grow up under our eyes and blossom into womanhood.