The Untroubled MindHall, Herbert J. (Herbert James)
Philosophy
The Untroubled Mind
Hall, Herbert J. (Herbert James)
Mental health
The rules we have wittingly or unwittingly broken are often unknown to
us, but they exist in the All-Wise Providence, and we may guess by our
own suffering how far we have overstepped them. If a man runs into a
door in the dark, we know all about that,--the case is simple,--but if
he runs overtime at his office and hastens to be rich with the result of
a nervous dyspepsia--that is a mystery. Here is a girl who "came out"
last year. She was apparently strong and her mother was ambitious for
her social progress. That meant four nights a week for several months at
dances and dinners, getting home at 3 A.M. or later. It was gay and
delightful while it lasted, but it could not last, and the girl went to
pieces suddenly; her back gave out because it was not strong enough to
stand the dancing and the long-continued physical strain. The nerves
gave out because she did not give her faculties time to rest, and
perhaps because of a love affair that supervened. The result was a year
of invalidism, and then, because the rules of recovery were not
understood, several years more of convalescence. Such common rules
should be well enough understood, but they are broken everywhere by the
wisest people.
The common case of the broken-down school teacher is more unfortunate.
This tragedy and others like it are more often, I believe, due to unwise
choice of profession in the first place. The women's colleges are
turning out hundreds of young women every year who naturally consider
teaching as the field most appropriate and available. Probably only a
very small proportion of these girls are strong enough physically or
nervously to meet the growing demands of the schools. They may do well
for a time, some of them unusually well, for it is the sensitive,
high-strung organism that is appreciative and effective. After a while
the worry and fret of the requirements and the constant nag of the
schoolroom have their effect upon those who are foredoomed to failure in
that particular field. The plight of such young women is particularly
hard, for they are usually dependent upon their work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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