Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1917 — Limbs of the Mind [ARTICLE]

Limbs of the Mind

As our bodies, to be in health, must be generally exercised, so our minds, to be in health, must be generally cultivated. You would n&t call a man healthy 'who had strong arms, but was paralytic? in his feet; nor one who could walk well, but had no use of bis hands; nor one who could see well, though he coulfl not hear. You would not voluntarily reduce your bodies to any such partially developed state. Much more, then, you would,not, if you Could help it. reduce your minds to it. Now, your minds are endowed with a vast number of gifts of totalis different uses—limbs of mind, as it were, which if you don’t exercise you cripple. One is curiosity—that is, a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing. Which if you destroy you make yourselves cold and dull. Another is sympathy—the power of sharing in the feelings of living creatures, which if you destroy you make- yourselves hard and cruel. Another Of your limbs of mind is admira-tion-the power of enjoying beauty or ingenuity, which ’if you destroy you make yourselves base and irreverent. Another is wit or the power of playing with the lights on the many sides of truth, which if you destroy you make yourselves gloomy and less useful and cheering to others than you might be. So that in choosing your way of work it should be your aim, as far as possible, to bring out all these faculties as far as they exist in you; not one merit nor another, but all of them.—Ruskin.