Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 140, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1914 — AWAY WITH AGE LIMIT [ARTICLE]

AWAY WITH AGE LIMIT

THEORY HAS BEEN PROVED TO BE AN ABSURDITY. Many Notable Instances of Men Who Have Done Their Best Work After What la Looked on as Middle Age. Though Sir, William Osler persistently denies pat he ever advocated what is known as Oslerism, it is a convenient and euphonious name for a theory as to old age, and Oslerism it will remain so long as there is life in that fallacious doctrine. He explains that in an unguarded moment he quoted a foolish jest from a forgotten novel, but being a physician he was taken seriously. However, our sympathy for him should be qualified by the fact that his mistake has given him a far wider reputation than any of his achievements in medical research. Who utters a joke must bear its consequences, and these should not be so painful to a man who had the. pleasure of seeing his mother smile at Oslerism in her hundredth year, and who at sixty-five boasts that he is doing better work than at thirty. Gladstone at forty the opinion that no statesman could be of real service to his country after passing the three-score mark, but his brain was never clearer than when at eighty he was the most important factor in British politics. Some men only begin to live 'or to do their best when they have reached the stage usually spoken of as that of the sere and yellow leaf. Innumerable instances might be cited, but perhaps the most conspicuous is that of William de Morgan, the foremost English writer of today, who wrote his first work at sixty and whose humor becomes the more youthful the older he grows. And here is our own John Burroughs, world , famed as a naturalist and author, planning new volumes on his seventy-seventh birthday. Age has not withered his imagination nor weakened his enthusiasm in the cause of natural history, while his latest work has all the freshness that marked the effusions of two-score years ago. It is time that men ceased to limit not merely thqir activities, but their lives as well, because of the superstition that old age necessarily means feebleness. Those who are aqtually exhausted may not deny the fact, whether they are forty or eighty, but there are many who are only victims of the suggestion that at a certain period they must begin to decline. Let those latter learn of Burroughs and others that suggestion can cut both ways and is just as effective when conducing to the belief that it is never too late to do good work and enjoy life.