MARION HARLAND, as quoted in Good Health, gives the following excellent advice, which advocates of true education will recognize as essential to daily health and usefulness:— “Sensible people who are tolerably familiar with the benefits conferred upon their race by modern science, have ceased to hold up the ways of our forbears as examples for our imitation. Unless the exception to this rule be a barbaric blockhead, he admits that wells sunk in the heart of the city, or in the vicinity of a farmyard, or at the foot of a hillside cemetery, had much to do with the putrid fevers that walked, a devouring pestilence, in the darkness of the good old times. He appreciates that the active life led by day in the open air was needed to counteract in his great-grandfather’s system the evil effects of sleeping upon a feather bed in a low-browed room whose dormer windows were not opened all winter long. He is not ignorant of salutary dietetic restrictions and food values, although he may cling to the wretched theory that our ancestors lived longer and were stronger, even down to old age, than we, their degenerate descendants, can hope to do and to be. “Yet a majority of sensible people in this, the cycle of practical common sense, are ignorant of, or culpably negligent in, the practice of the technique of breathing. Four fifths of the race do not breathe properly once in twenty-four hours. Dogberry, oft quoted and never stale, set the pace of the average thinker. It is no more rational to opine that the right method of respiration comes by nature than that reading and writing do. In the golden by-and-by which is to confirm all that is good in our generation and to rectify the evil, breathing will be taught in the nursery, and made the first order of the day in the kindergarten. The intelligent mother will explain to the child upon her knee the use of his lungs as she now expatiates upon the propriety of washing face and hands. “How many educated mothers—though they may be college graduates—bethink themselves of the unpleasant fact that they carry about with them daily and allow to remain in their children’s lungs a quantity, more or less in volume, of foul, unchanged air? Physiologists know, and physicians will tell you—with carelessness that is strange when one considers the gravity of the circumstance—that there is always in the lungs what is known technically as ‘residuary air;’ furthermore, that seven deep, deliberate respirations are necessary to expel this residuum and to supply its place with fresh air. If plied with further questions, the man of healing divulges that most people never breathe all the way down to the bottom of the lungs; that, in consequence of this neglect, the lower lungs become inactive, sometimes atrophied, occasionally (although such cases are phenomenal) ossified.” “Reduction to intelligible English eliminates the truth that health and vigor depend largely upon the action of the lungs, and that when this important function is impaired, disease and weakness must ensue.” “A celebrated health club, to which I have had the honor and happiness to belong for some years, enjoins upon each member the duty of taking one hundred deep breaths every day, advising that these be drawn in sections of ten each, at convenient seasons. Those who practice, learn to take advantage of the freshest air to be had in the course of the day. The first ten breaths are enjoyed after leaving the morning bath. The shoulders are thrown back, the chin is level or slightly raised, the arms are held tightly at the side, the lips are firmly closed. ‘Never breathe with the mouth open,’ is an admonition which can not be too rigidly enforced.” “The ten breaths are drawn from new, live air, not that which has stagnated all night in the house. Each inspiration is slow and steady, filling the lungs to their12 there will come a time when each will be his own physician. In the degree that we live in harmony with the higher laws of our being, and so, in the degree that we become better acquainted with the power of the mind and spirit, will we give less attention to the body,—no less care, but less attention. “The bodies of thousands to-day would be much better cared for if their owners gave them less thought and attention. As a rule, those who think least of their bodies enjoy the best health. Many are kept in continual ill health by the abnormal thought and attention they give them. “Give the body the nourishment, the exercise, the fresh air, the sunlight, it requires, keep it clean, and then think of it as little as possible. In your thoughts and in your conversation never dwell upon the negative side. Don’t talk of sickness and disease. By talking of these you do yourself harm, and you do harm to those who listen to you. Talk of those things that will make people the better for listening to you. Thus you will infect them with health and strength, and not with weakness and disease.” “To dwell upon the negative side is always destructive. This is true of the body the same as it is true of all other things. The following from one whose training as a physician has been supplemented by extensive study and observation along the lines of the powers of the interior forces, are of special significance and value in this connection: ‘We can never gain health by contemplating disease, any more than we can reach perfection by dwelling upon imperfection, or harmony through discord. We should keep a high ideal of health and harmony constantly before the mind . . .’ “Never affirm or repeat about your health what you do not wish to be true. Do not dwell upon your ailments, nor study your symptoms. Never allow yourself to be convinced that you are not complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirm your superiority over bodily ills, and do not acknowledge yourself the slave of any inferior power. . . . I would teach children early to build a strong barrier between themselves and disease, by healthy habits of thought, high thinking, and purity of life. I would teach them to expel all thoughts of death, all images of disease, all discordant emotions, like hatred, malice, revenge, envy, and sensuality, as they would banish a temptation to do evil. I would teach them that bad food, bad drink, or bad air makes bad blood; that bad blood makes bad tissue, and bad flesh bad morals. I would teach them that healthy thoughts are as essential to healthy bodies as pure thoughts to a clean life. I would teach them to cultivate a strong will power, and to brace themselves against life’s enemies in every possible way. I would teach the sick to have hope, confidence, cheer. Our thoughts and imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities. No man’s success or health will ever reach beyond his own confidence; as a rule, we erect our own barriers.” “Like produces like, the universe through. Hatred, envy, malice, jealousy, and revenge all have children. Every bad thought breeds others, and each of these goes on and on, ever producing itself, until our world is peopled with their offspring. The true physician and parent of the future will not medicate the body with drugs so much as the mind with principles. The coming mother will teach her child to assuage the fever of anger, hatred, malice, with the great panacea of the world,—love. The coming physician will teach the people to cultivate cheerfulness, good-will, and noble deeds for a health tonic as well as a heart tonic; and that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” “After all, there is nothing in the world so great, so effective in service of mankind, as It is the Life That Tells.
a strong, noble, and beautiful manhood or womanhood. It is this that in the ultimate determines the influence of every man upon his fellow men. Life, character, is the greatest power in the world, and character it is that gives the power; for in all true power, along whatever line it may be, it is, after all, living the life that tells. This is a great law that13but few who would have great power and influence seem to recognize, or, at least, that but few seem to act upon. “Are you a writer? You can never write more than you yourself are. Would you write more? Then broaden, deepen, enrich the life. Are you a minister? You can never raise men higher than you have raised yourself. Your words will have exactly the sound of the life whence they come. Hollow the life? Hollow-sounding and empty will be the words, weak, ineffective, false. Would you have them go with greater power, and thus be more effective? Live the life, the power will come. Are you an orator? The power and effectiveness of your words in influencing and moving masses of men depends entirely upon the altitude from which they are spoken. Would you have them more effective, each one filled with living power? Then elevate the life, the power will come. Are you in the walks of private life? Then, wherever you move, there goes from you, even if there be no word spoken, a silent but effective influence of an elevating or a degrading nature. Is the life high, beautiful? Then the influences are inspiring, life-giving. Is it low, devoid of beauty? The influences and then are disease laden, death-dealing. The tones of your voice, the attitude of your body, the character of your face, all are determined by the life you live, all in turn influence for better or for worse all who come within your radius.” “I have seen this great principle made the foundation principle in an institution of learning. It is made not a theory merely, as I have seen it here and there, but a vital, living truth. And I wish I had time to tell of its wonderful and beautiful influence upon the life and work of that institution, and upon the lives and the work of those who go out from it. A joy indeed to be there. One can’t enter within its walls, even for a few moments, without feeling the benign influence. One can’t go out without taking it with him. I have seen purposes and lives almost or quite transformed; and life so rich, so beautiful, and so valuable opened up, such as the persons never dreamed could be, by being but a single year under these beautiful and life-giving influences.” NOTE.—These paragraphs are selected from Trine.