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in the pure air of the country, and who commences study with firm and florid health, is aware of the danger which he encounters in sitting down to close intellectual application. I have known a constitution the most robust, in six or twelve months after this change of habit was commenced, suddenly give way, and become utterly broken and prostrated. The truth is, the more active the previous habits, and the more vigorous the frame of a youth-, ful individual, when he sits down to close study; the greater need is there, in many cases, for the exercise of caution, and for keeping up, at least for a time, a set of rules, as to exercise, nearly approximating to his former habits. The transition from an active to a sedentary life, must be made very gradually, if you would make it safely.

My counsels in reference to health shall all be summed up in four advices, viz. Be strictly temperate with regard to aliment. Take every day a large portion of gentle exercise. Carefully guard against all intestinal constipation. And always avoid too much warmth, both in your clothing, and your apartment, quite as vigilantly as you would too much cold.

With regard to the first; remember that temperance in you, is a very different thing

from temperance in a day-labourer. The latter may, in common, safely, and even profitably, take two or three times the amount of aliment, that can be ventured upon by a sedentary man. If a given portion of solid food oppress you, gradually diminish the quantity, carefully watching the effect, until you ascertain the quantity which is best suited to your constitution, and after which you feel most strong, active, and comfortable, both in body and mind. It is plain that this matter can be regulated only by the individual himself; and that it requires daily watchfulness and resolution. Many students, I have no doubt, bring themselves to a premature grave, by over-eating, as effectually as others by intemperate drinking. The effects of the former species of excess, are not quite so manifest, or quite so disreputable, as those of the latter, but, in a multitude of cases, they are no less fatal. He who is so infatuated as to persist in taking but little exercise, ought certainly to eat but little. And he who takes no exercise, ought often to ask himself, how far that inspired Scripture applies to his case- "If any man will not work, neither shall he cat." The answer of Sir Charles Scarborough, physician to Charles II, to one of the courtiers of that monarch, is worthy of being remembered "You must eat less, or take more exercise, or take physick, or be

sick." Recollect, too, that our religion enjoins not only prayer, but fasting also. By this I understand to be meant, not metaphorical or moral abstinence, as some have strangely imagined, but literal abs inence from food. How often this abstinence should take place, I presume not to say. Let every one judge for himself But that the frequent recurrence of it would be as favourable to the health and enjoyment of a student, as to his spiritual benefit, I have not the smallest doubt.

The importance of taking a large portion of gentle exercise every day, can scarcely be overrated. Every student who wishes to preserve good health and spirits ought to be moving about in the open air from three to four hours daily. You may live with less, and, perhaps, enjoy tolerable health. But if you wish fully

to possess the mens sana in corpore sano, of which the Latin Poet speaks, rely upon it, with most students, less will not answer. Your exercise ought to be gentle. Some students, after exhausting themselves by a protracted season of severe study, start from their seats, issue forth, and engag in some violent exercise, which throws them into a profuse perspiration, from which they can scarcely emer ge with impunity. In many cases, they had much better have continued to sit still. Your exercise ought to bear a strict proportion to your

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constitution and your habits.

Gentle exercise

diffused through four hours, is much better adapted to a sedentary man than a concentration of the same amount of motion within the

space of one hour. It is also worthy of remark, that exercise taken either immediately before or immediately after eating, is both less comfortable, and less valuable, than if at least an hour of rest intervene. No prudent traveller will feed his horse immediately after his arrival at the place of baiting, or, if he can avoid it, put him on the road again as soon as he has swallowed his food. The same principle applies to all animal nature.

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My third advice, had a respect to intestinal constipation. There can be no health, where this is suffered long to continue. And yet it is a point to which few in xperienced students are as attentive as they ought to be. They either neglect it, until a decisive indisposition convinces them of their folly; or they are very frequently endeavouring to remove it by the use of medicine. Both methods of treating the difficulty are miserably ill-judged. Medicine ought to be the last resort; and is seldom necessary unless where there has been great mismanagement. Exercise,abstemiousness, and the judicious use of mild, dietetical aperients, form the system which a little experience will show you to be the best.

The temperature of your room, and of your body, is the last point in reference to health to which I shall request your attention. A student, whose robustness is almost always in some degree impaired by sedentary habits, ought never to allow himself, if he can avoid it, to be in the least degree chilly, when he is sitting still. But it is quite as unfriendly to health to allow himself to be over heated, either by the atmosphere of a room excessively warmed, or by too great a load of clothing. Every thing of this kind ought to be carefully avoided. So far as experience, in relation to my own case, goes, I am constrained to say, that excessive heat has been quite as often, to me, the source of disease, as excessive cold. is about to take a long walk, in the course of which, he has an opportunity of keeping himself warm by constant, vigorous motion, ought just as carefully to avoid covering himself with an overcoat, while his walk continues, as he ought to be to avoid sitting in a cold place, or in a draft of air, at the end of his walk, without it.

He who

You will gather from the foregoing remarks, that my plan for preserving health, is by no means that of tampering with medicines, which is much more likely to make a valetudinarian, than a man of good health; but that of employing wisely and vigilantly the art of preven

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