of success in life is so to
regulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution and
natural inclinations to good account than to endeavor to counteract the
one or oppose the other.--BULWER.

He that hath a trade hath an estate.--FRANKLIN.

Nature fits all her children with something to do.--LOWELL.

As occupations and professions have a powerful influence upon the
length of human life, the youth should first ascertain whether the
vocation he thinks of choosing is a healthy one. Statesmen, judges,
and clergymen are noted for their longevity. They are not swept into
the great business vortex, where the friction and raspings of sharp
competition whittle life away at a fearful rate. Astronomers, who
contemplate vast systems, moving through enormous distances, are
exceptionally long lived,--as Herschel and Humboldt. Philosophers,
scientists, and mathematicians, as Galileo, Bacon, Newton, Euler,
Dalton, in fact, those who have dwelt upon the exact sciences, seem to
have escaped many of the ills from which humanity suffers. Great
students of natural history have also, as a rule, lived long and happy
lives. Of fourteen members of a noted historical society in England,
who died in 1870, two were over ninety, five over eighty, and two over
seventy.

The occupation of the mind has a great influence upon the health of the
body.

There is no employment so dangerous and destructive to life but plenty
of human beings can be found to engage in it. Of all the instances
that can be given of recklessness of life, there is none which exceeds
that of the workmen employed in what is called dry-pointing--the
grinding of needles and of table forks. The fine steel dust which they
breathe brings on a painful disease, of which they are almost sure to
die before they are forty. Yet not only are men tempted by high wages
to engage in this employment, but they resist to the utmost all
contrivances devised for diminishing the danger, through fear that such
things would cause more workmen to offer themselves and thus lower
wages. Many physicians have investigated the effects of work in the
numerous match factories in France upon the health of the employees,
and all agree that rapid destruction of the teeth, decay or necrosis of
the jawbone, bronchitis, and other diseases result.

We will probably find more old men on farms than elsewhere. There are
many reasons why farmers should live longer than persons residing in
ci