Every student needs to understand the relation between plain living and high thinking. It rests with us individually to decide whether our lives shall be controlled by the mind or by the body. Each one makes the choice that shapes the life, and no pains should be spared to understand the forces with which we have to deal, and the influences that mold character and destiny.
Intemperance is an enemy against which all need to be guarded. The rapid increase of this terrible evil should arouse everyone to warfare against it. Instruction on temperance topics should be given in every school and in every home. Young people should understand the effect of alcohol, tobacco, and like poisons in breaking down the body, beclouding the mind, and sensualizing the soul. It should be made plain that those who use these things cannot long possess the full strength of their physical, mental, or moral faculties.
But in order to reach the root of intemperance we must go deeper than the use of alcohol or tobacco. Idleness, evil associations, or lack of aim, may be the predisposing cause. Often the cause is found at the home table, in families that consider themselves strictly temperate. Anything that disorders digestion, that creates undue mental excitement, or in any way enfeebles the system, disturbing the balance of the mental and physical powers, weakens the control of the mind over the body, and thus tends toward intemperance. The downfall of many a promising young person might be traced to unnatural appetites created by an unwholesome diet.
Tea and coffee, condiments, confectionery, and pastries, all are active causes of indigestion. Flesh food also is harmful. Its naturally stimulating effect should be a sufficient argument against its use, and the almost universally diseased condition of animals makes it doubly objectionable. It tends to irritate the nerves and excite the passions, thus giving the balance of power to the lower propensities.
Those who accustom themselves to a rich, stimulating diet, find after a time that the stomach is not satisfied with simple food. It demands that which is more and more highly seasoned, pungent, and stimulating. As the nerves become disordered and the system weakened, the will seems powerless to resist the unnatural craving. The delicate coating of the stomach becomes irritated and inflamed until the most stimulating food fails to give relief. A thirst is created that nothing but strong drink will quench.
It is the beginnings of evil that should be guarded against. In instructing the young, the effect of apparently small deviations from right should be made plain. Teach students the value of a simple, healthful diet in preventing the desire for unnatural stimulants. Establish the habit of self-control early in life. Impress the young with the thought that they are to be masters, not slaves. God has made them rulers of the kingdom within them, and they are to exercise their Heaven-appointed kingship. When such instruction is faithfully given, the results will extend far beyond the students themselves. Influences will reach out that will save thousands of men and women who are on the very brink of ruin.
Diet and Mental Development
The relation of diet to intellectual development should be given far more attention than it has received. Mental confusion and dullness are often the result of errors in diet.
It is frequently urged that appetite is a safe guide in the selection of food. If the laws of health had always been obeyed, that would be true. But through wrong habits, continued from generation to generation, appetite has become so perverted that it is constantly craving some hurtful gratification. As a guide it cannot now be trusted.
In the study of hygiene, students should be taught the nutrient value of different foods. The effect of a concentrated and stimulating diet, also of foods deficient in the elements of nutrition, should be made plain. Tea and coffee, fine-flour bread, pickles, coarse vegetables, candies, condiments, and pastries fail of supplying proper nutriment. Many a student has broken down as the result of using such foods. Many a puny child, incapable of vigorous effort of mind or body, is the victim of an impoverished diet. Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, in proper combination, contain all the elements of nutrition. When properly prepared, they constitute the diet that best promotes both physical and mental strength.
There is need to consider not only the properties of the food but its adaptation to the eater. Often food that can be eaten freely by persons engaged in physical labor must be avoided by those whose work is chiefly mental. Attention should be given also to the proper combination of foods. By brain workers and others of sedentary pursuits, only a few kinds of food should be taken at a meal.
Overeating, even of the most wholesome food, is to be guarded against. Nature can use no more than is required for building up the various organs of the body, and excess clogs the system. Many a student is supposed to have broken down from overstudy, when the real cause was overeating. If proper attention is given to the laws of health, there is little danger from mental taxation. But in many cases of so-called mental failure it is the overcrowding of the stomach that wearies the body and weakens the mind.
In most cases two meals a day are preferable to three. Supper, when taken at an early hour, interferes with the digestion of the previous meal. When taken later, it is not itself digested before bedtime. Thus the stomach does not secure proper rest. The sleep is disturbed, the brain and nerves are wearied, and the appetite for breakfast is impaired. The whole system is unrefreshed and unready for the day's duties.
The importance of regularity in the time for eating and sleeping should not be overlooked. Since the work of building up the body takes place during the hours of rest, it is essential, especially when one is young, that sleep should be regular and abundant.
So far as possible we should avoid hurried eating. The shorter the time for a meal, the less should be eaten. It is better to omit a meal than to eat without proper mastication.
Mealtime should be a relaxing and social occasion. Everything that can burden or irritate should be avoided. Let trust and kindliness and gratitude to the Giver of all good be cherished, and the conversation will be cheerful, a pleasant flow of thought that will uplift without wearying.
The observance of temperance and regularity in all things has a wonderful power. It will do more than circumstances or natural endowments to promote that sweetness and serenity of disposition which count so much in smoothing life's pathway. At the same time the power of self-control thus acquired will be most valuable for grappling successfully with the stern duties and realities that await every human being.
Wisdom's "ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Proverbs 3:17. Let every young man and woman in our land, with the possibilities before them of a destiny higher than that of crowned kings, ponder the lesson conveyed in the words of the wise man, "Blessed are you, O land, when ... your princes feast at the proper time--for strength and not for drunkenness!" Ecclesiastes 10:17.