nitary
education. It is, as I have said, a matter of the most vital importance
that we should acquire in youth the knowledge and the habits that lead
to a healthy life. The main articles of the sanitary creed are few and
simple. Moderation and self-restraint in all things--an abundance of
exercise, of fresh air, and of cold water--a sufficiency of steady work
not carried to excess--occasional change of habits and abstinence from a
few things which are manifestly injurious to health, are the cardinal
rules to be observed. In the great lottery of life, men who have
observed them all may be doomed to illness, weak vitality, and early
death, but they at least add enormously to the chances of a strong and
full life. The parent will need further knowledge for the care of his
children, but for self-guidance little more is required, and with early
habits an observance of the rules of health becomes almost instinctive
and unconscious. But while no kind of education is more transcendently
important than this, it is not unfrequently carried to an extreme which
defeats its own purpose. The habit that so often grows upon men with
slight chronic maladies, or feeble temperament, or idle lives, of making
their own health and their own ailments the constant subject of their
thoughts soon becomes a disease very fatal to happiness and positively
injurious to health. It is well known how in an epidemic the
panic-stricken are most liable to the contagion, and the life of the
habitual valetudinarian tends promptly to depress the nerve energy which
provides the true stamina of health. In the words of an eminent
physician, 'It is not by being anxious in an inordinate or unduly fussy
fashion that men can hope to live long and well. The best way to live
well is to work well. Good work is the daily test and safeguard of
personal health.... The practical aim should be to live an orderly and
natural life. We were not intended to pick our way through the world
trembling at every step.... It is worse than vain, for it encourages and
increases the evil it attempts to relieve.... I firmly believe one half
of the confirmed invalids of the day could be cured of their maladies if
they were compelled to live busy and active lives and had no time to
fret over their miseries.... One of the most seductive and mischievous
of errors in self-management is the practice of giving way to inertia,
weakness and depression.... Those who desire to live should settle this