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WORLD REJUVENATION.
LABOR AND LEARNING.
NEVER TOO OLD.
(By Talpa)
In a recent number of one of our .
weeklies it was Stated of Mr. H. Ford
that he said (26/9/29): "Anyone who
keeps on learning not only remains
young, but becomes constantly more
valuable." The writer of this article
keeps on learning, but as to becoming
more valuable is a question.
A great physician whose name will
live long in his profession said: "An
old man should read we new books,
and a young man the older books,"
or words to that effect. One of the
old ones the other day bought an up
to date Chemistry (Read's Text Book
of Organic Chemistry?; and, though
some who read these lines may not be
interested in chemical details, they
may like one'or two selections gleaned
from it.
"Ships and
tillage;
walls,
laws,
arms, roads, dress
and
such
like
things; all the prizes, all the elegancies,
too, of life, without
exception;
poems, pictures, and the chiselling of
fine wrought statues; all these things,
practice, together
with
the
acquired
knowledge
of
the
untiring
mind,
taught men by slow degrees, as they
advanced on the* way step by
step.
Thus time by degrees brings each several
tilings before men's eyes, and reason
raises it up into the borders of
light; for things must be brought to ^
light one after the other, and in due
order in the different arts, until these
have
reached their
highest
point of
development."—Lucretius,
first
century
B.C.
Lucretius said many wise tilings in
a charming way in the earlier half of
the century B.C.
He was a poet-philo
sopher or philosopher-poet, and much
that he said might be:o»g to our day.
as if he bridged 2000 years,
for he
died 52 B.C.
One thinks of liini as a
contemporary
of Julius Caesar, Pompey,
Brutus,
Cicero
and
Anthony;
names familiar to all of us,
if
only
through our Shakespeare's play "Julius
Caesar."
It is they who have "scorned
delights
and lived laborious days"
who
bring hidden things to light; and
my
author whilst
pursuing
his
subject
pauses from time to time to remind
us of some possessed of the "laboriou
patience of genius."
Of such was
the chemist Chevreul (foot note page
276).
Born at Angiers in 1786, his
distinguished career was of a length
unparalleled in the history of chemistry,
for he lived till 18S9.
Talking of
the weather in 1883, he remarked:—
"The severest
winter 1 ever
experienced
was that of 1793," thus recalling
a fact 90 years old.
He declared
himself still a student at the age of
99, and there is a picture of him work
ing in his laboratory in his 100th year
A writer who visited him
in
1874
stated that he is constantly at work,
allowing only 10 minutes for each of
his beals, of which he has but two a
day . . . except a small loaf at neon,
which he eats standing and by the side
of his alembics."
"I am very old,''
he said upon this
occasion, "and 1
have yet a great deal to do, so I do not
wish to lose my time tn eating!"
Another and better known chemist,
Louis P^teuf by name, in 1842,
when a youiig student of 20, wrote:
"1 attend at the Sarbonne the lectures
of' M. Dumas, a celebrated chemist.
You cannot imagine what a crowd of
people come to these lectures. The
room is immense, and is always quite
full. We have to b>-- there half an
hour before the time to get a good
place, as you "would in a theatre . . . •
there are always six or seven hundred
people." (Foot note page -U.)
About the time that Pasteur was a
student, one reads of the chemist Laurent,
who "though his means were
slender, he could yet find something
to fit up as a laboratory, a damp and
unwholesome cellar in a corner of the
mint, and energy there to utilise all
the material he could afford—his
chlorjne, his ammonia, his sulphuric
acid and potash; his -water, alcohol,
ether, and goniometer. He gave his
means, he gave his life."
In 1858 a student at Heidelburg
jnade his name known and advanced
the knowledge of chemistry. Friedrich
August Kekule "lectured on or-
' ganic chemistry; he prepared the experiments,
and also most of the lecture
specimens himself; and he often
closed his arduous day by sweeping
out.the class room in readiness for the
morrow's lecture."
These irt'eii -began to learn when
thfey were young: they kept on learning,'
audi became more and more valuable.
Chevreul was a marvel: what?
Of such men is t|ie material 'of which
Providence ' (if you believe in what
that means), make's for the benefit of
an'often too ungrateful, or thoughtless
many. They in truth labor, and
we, the general, enter into their labors.
Thanks are due to our author
for thus brightening his subject—like
adorning a class room, with flowers—
for reminding us of some, and making,
known to us others of these great
ones. , ' , .. , •
Let us close in lighter vein. Our
invaluable'Anaesthetics would not have
been available but for the; patient labors
of thftlfltemjsts. "When they were
first introduced there were many objectors
who thought that to relieve
pain was a sin.. Said one. of these seriously.aggrieved
ones, "In sorrow^.shalt
,
: , thou .bring: Lfor,th children:" Tfce,;*ttty
Scots physician countered, "The
Lord God. caused' a deep slefcp to fall
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