MENTAL EXERCISE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2443, 20 June 1922, Page 2

MENTAL EXERCISE.

THERE are probably more persons who stand in need of mental exercise than physical says the medical correspondent to the London Times. While it is easy' to persuade a man that his body requires activity for its proper functioning, it is exceedingly difficult to inculcate a similar lesson in connection with his mind. Yet everything which is true of the body is true of the mind. A healthy mind is an exercised mind, a mind obtaining its full share of generalised as opposed to particular effort. He who has no enthusiasm save for his work will soon have no ability for that work. Our hold on life is purely physical. A man, indeed, is as old as his enthusiasms rather than his arteries. And these can only lie nourished and invigorated by contact with reality. When that has been said it may be allowed that, the form of the mental exercise chosen is capable of wide variation. Yet there is a strong case for the arts against the sciences. The latter exercises the intellect, the former the intellect, and emotion and will. The assurance of the old Biblical writer that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine” is profoundly true in the modern science sense. It follows that, the laughter-makers are amongst the great physicians of their time. Their “fees” measured in the benefit they confer arc small indeed. A merry book or a merry play has always been, and always will be, one of the avenues of fitness which no'wise man will leave unexplored. In these times especially we need laughter as we need light, food and air. Those who are starving themselves by the healing draught are robbing their work of its rightful energy. They are, too, failing to improve their bodily health, and so proving themselves unworthy disciples of the gospel of fitness.