Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1882 — Training Off. [ARTICLE]

Training Off.

In the present eager struggle for existence, still more in the ambitious race for pre-eminence, overwork is manifesting itself on all sides, and in all positions in life. Overstudy is telling upon our students in this crazy age of examinations, when every person has to be a perambulating encyclopedia, no matter what the state of the physique when the educational course has terminated. The number of cases of self-destruction from anxiety and nervousness among young men preparing for modern examinations is appalling. Of old the young man who “overstudied" was a weakminded youth, whose brain broke down before an ordinary, common-place educational course, easily surmounted by an average intellect. Now it is no uncommon thing to know young men who complain that they no longer feel an interest in their work, and that they can not remember what they read; that their sleep is broken, and that they no longer possess the power of self-eontrol they once enjoyed. When such loss of self-control is found along with periods of deep depression, then the temptation to suicide may become irresistible. Such break-downs after a more or less brilliant schoolastic career are, unfortunately, now no uncommon event. Indeed, it may be laid down as a broad rule for the guidance of youthful students that so soon as the interest in their studies flags, or the memory is becoming less retentive, they are distinctly overworking. In athletics the terms used are to “train on,” and to “train off.” To “train on” indicates growing power and increasing fitness sor 1 exertion; in other words, “improvement.” To “train off ” signifies waning power, or “falling off ” in capacity. So long, then, as study carries with it waning capacity it is" “work;” when, on the other hand, the student feels “training off,” then the boundary has been passed and the domain of “overwork” entered. Still more urgent does the case become when,, along with a sense of waning power, the sleep is broken and unrefreshing or the digestion is upset. The danger signals have been run through, in railway phraseology, when these things are experienced. Such are the usual phenomena of overwork, manifested along with symptoms peculiar to each case.— Good Words.