Western Penman, Vol. 2, No. 1

              VOL.  2,
Chicago, April, 1885.
NO. 1
•TH E-
A Monthly Journal Devoted to the Interests
of Penmanship.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, 60c. PEfl YEAR.
WORTHINGTON & PALMER, Editors and Publishers,
What Will Be the Age of a
Penman!
.Surely I cannot tell. But I can tell to a
certain extent on what his age depends.
And 5$|l a view to extract a few vital
principles^VI have chosen this rather
anam ol>»£;OT«bj ect.
I have a cr»ubt in my mind whether the
penman born in '80, willj in fifty years
hence, be as active as the penman of '80
is now. The reasons for this are obvious.
The penmen we are making now cannot
present a biography written on a hide tanned with the log-cabin switch, and made
tough by feeding the .owner, on johnny-
cakes and b&ked beans, as many of our
old-time veterans can testify.
It is the laying of a good foundation of
a healthy constitution that gives the
promise o^ a long life—the building of
such a physical frame that defies disease in
all its hideous presentations. Wg can,
therefore, draw an inference that all things
being equal, it depends in a great measure
on how we are raised, to give us the assur
ance of what may be our age in the future.
Fifty years ago there were no soothing
syrups, paregorics, and other nostrums to
forcibly quiet the little squealing cherub's
albuminous brain whenever the mother, or
in to-day'slanguage, lady of the house had
.a visitor inthe'parlor, or the nurse was tormented witlr-a*. tooth-ache: Then, the
adage was not''Za^Aahd grow fat,'' but
cryv&nd grow iLwSjRmensions; i. e., "you
little prospective scribe, get all the oxygen
into your diminutive lungs you can, aerate
your precious little bit of blood through
nature's scientific apparatus for ventilation—your big mouth; cry, yell, kick,
jump, eat all you can and what you like;
no rules for indigestion; we've knocked
dyspepsia out in two rounds; hurry and
get big, we need you to help the old man
clear the backwoods for summer corn."
Mother did not have two or three nurses
to take care of the darling boy, and a special physician to prescribe (?) whenever
baby dear was cutting its first teeth. Mush,
in place of condensed milk, and corn-cake
and apple dumplings in place of extra prepared farina, and Mellin's food for infants,
was, with a double ffrti on of out-door exercise, what made a constitution defiant to
almost anything nSorbific.
If you live according to the order of the
presenVday^hat is, a small and insufficient
breakf astf at 9, a cramming dinner of from
five to ten courses of-all kinds of indigestible stuff, wound up, perhaps,..wilhaglass
or two of some home-made foreign liquor,
which at its best is worth nothing, at 4 in
the afternoon, and a supper of almost similar magnitude at 9 or 10 at night. I say,
my young friend, if you live according to
this fashionable mode, (the unfashionable
being equally as bad, they eat and drink
whenever they are hungry, or when they
have it), you can conclude with yourself
that you will die a young old man. In
defiance to all enlightenment and advancement of medical science, and the large
number of doctors in the land, people, in
their mode of living and raising children,
become more deteriorated every year.
There is no more the rosy hue on the cheek
of our school-boy that was there fifty
years ago. Instead of having three or
four branches to contend with, they have
now ten or twelve. The brain that ought
to have all possible comfort and the physical constitution all possible > exercise and
sunshine during the process of development, is now overworked and restrained
by the more •scientific order of things. Do
you wonder why our young men and
women of the present day are so wan, pale
and deliGate that you can almost see
through them ? I do not. Where is the
fire and bloom of their age? The avaricious monster, Fashion, has extinguished
it, without mercy. Where is the family,
school or academy, where health and
superior strength of body and mind is
f&und ?   I know of none.
^ do not wish to be understood to be one
who is opposed to education or the advancement of our young.   Not "at all.   I
V
.V