Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1889 — OLD MEN AS STUDENTS. [ARTICLE]

OLD MEN AS STUDENTS.

***** u « B»<* Accomplished | a It seems almost marvelous what the «W men Imve accomplished, not only la the ways of acquisition, but in performance, says a correspondent of the Chicago Herald. Turney the great artist, lived to years mastered the science of optics, and undertook the stndy of Greek. William Blake, the artist, at sixty-seven learned Italian that lie might read Dante in the original. In 1*44 Tom Moore called one day on Sydney Smith, then nearly seventy. and found him studying French. Many other names could be mentioned of ■' men more Or less eminent undertaking Hebrew or Sanscrit, or some other diffi- ! cult study, down to the very Close of their lives. Ro s.-eau lvonsle'd of liisi getting fonder red fond- rof irew studies ' the older Le grew, ; ud when past sixtyfive commenced the study of l otany. It is related of James Watt, whose life was not passed among books, that when upward of 70 he commenced the study of the Anglo-Saxon language as an experiment to test whether his intellectual faculties were becoming impaired,and he mastered it with a faculty that showed he had little grounds for his fears. There have been men, too, who entered upon professional studies so late in life that their friends supposed they intended to practice them in the world to come. And yet they succeeded well—lawyers, doctors, and even artists. It is never too late to learn, or to apply the mind to the acquisi- ! tion of knowledge. j To this might be added the fact that ! Noah Webster learned seventeen lan- 1 guages after he was ofi.and Cato the elder ; learned Greek wjten he was SO.

American lit:s . One has only to contemplate the men and their movements about one of tlai "larger hotels to understand just how fast the American people arc really living. The commercial men especially are livingon the lightning plan and the rest of us are not very far behind. The, man who travels extensively to-day rarely receives any communication except by telegraph. He figures his day’s work by the minutes and estimates just what each second is worth to him. Even the hotel registers ure illustrations of the economy of time. The man from Chicago writes"it “Chi.,” Philadelphia is “Phil.,” Cleveland -“Gkv- Harrisl:nrg“H'burg,” Cincinnati “Gin.,” and so on through the entire list of American cities, with the exception of the man from Boston, and he invariably writes it “Boston, Mass.” He can’t afford to sacrifice so great a distinction.