Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/356

342 filled by those in mature and advanced life, or (as in clerkships) by the young who have not yet reached the golden decade. The enormous stupidity, and backwardness, and red-tapeism, of all departments of governments everywhere, are partly due to the fact that they are too much controlled by age. The conservatism and inferiority of colleges are similarly explained. Some of those who control the policy of colleges—presidents and trustees—should be young and middle-aged. Journalism, on the other hand, has suffered from relative excess of youth and enthusiasm."

Before passing from the lecture of Dr. Beard, I shall venture to quote the remarks which he makes on the evidence sometimes afforded of approaching mental decay by a decline in moral sensitiveness. "Moral decline in old age," he says, "means—'Take care; for the brain is giving way.' It is very frequently accompanied or preceded by sleeplessness. Decline of the moral faculties, like the decline of other functions, may be relieved, retarded, and sometimes cured by proper medical treatment, and especially by hygiene. In youth, middle age, and even in advanced age, one may suffer for years from disorders of the nervous system that cause derangement of some one or many of the moral faculties, and perfectly recover. The symptoms should be taken early, and treated like any other physical disease. Our best asylums are now acting upon this principle, and with good success. Medical treatment is almost powerless without hygiene. Study the divine art of taking it easy. Men often die as trees die, slowly, and at the top first. As the moral and reasoning faculties are the highest, most complex, and most delicate development of human nature, they are the first to show signs of cerebral disease. When they begin to decay in advanced life, we are generally safe in predicting that, if these signs are neglected, other functions will sooner or later be impaired. When conscience is gone, the constitution is threatened. Everybody has observed that greediness, ill-temper, despondency, are often the first and only symptoms that disease is coming upon us. The moral nature is a delicate barometer, that foretells long beforehand the coming storm in the system. Moral decline, as a symptom of cerebral disease, is, to say the least, as reliable as are many of the symptoms by which physicians are accustomed to make a diagnosis of various diseases of the bodily organs. When moral is associated with mental decline in advanced life, it is almost safe to make a diagnosis of cerebral disease.... Let nothing deprive us of our sleep. Early to bed and late to rise make the modern toiler healthy and wise. The problem for the future is to work hard, and at the same time to take it easy. The more we have to do, the more we should sleep. Let it never be forgotten that death in the aged is more frequently a slow process than an event; a man may begin to die ten or fifteen years before he is buried."

When mental decay is nearing the final stage, there is a tendency