WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1929, Page 13

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

OTHER PEOPLE'S NERVES ■

"It had not hitherto occurred to me that I had any responsibility for other people's nerves," says a woman writer in the London: "Daily Telegraph." "But now I am instructed by a lecturer to the Institute of Hygiene that if you are above yourself, or beside yourself, or anything like that, it may very well be my fault. 'If doctors, teachers, and journalists,' saya Dr. Charles Thompson, ' could keep their feeling tone on tho intellectual plane, there ■ would bo fewer cases of nei-yoils breakdown.','l am not quito sure "that I know what this means. I always become a little uneasy when people assume that I have an: intellectual plane, or any of these endowments of the higher brow. But I take it the doctor, is exhorting me not'to get .excited. ■ ' '

" 'Anger,' says he, 'and storms of passion can shake the nervous system to pieces. The coarser passions such as anger, hatred, and jealousy react adversely on the body fp,r more than ambition, pride, and aesthetic and intellectual emotions.' These classifications are rather difficult. Ambition has a way of sliding into jealousy, envy, hatred, and malice and all uneharitablo-i ness. Neither pride nor ambition is necessarily an intellectual emotion, both may be, and often are, "altogether worldly, sordid, and mean. The sufficiently common ambition to have more money than your neighbour is not aesthetic or intellectual. I have heard people pride themselves on the smallness of the tips they give. But it never occurred to mp that they were inspired by intellectual oraesthetie ideals., I should have said that it was not uncommon to see disappointed ambition or wounded pride produce a nervous breakdown.

"At least the sufferers say that what is the matter with them is a nervous breakdown; That brings us, to another little difficulty. I do not wish to hurt anyone's feelings, but we can all agree that what other people, say about their nerves is not invariably accurate. The line (in other people) between bad temper and il-health is not as clear as one could wish. That, however, does not invalidate Dr. Thompson's theory that a bad temper or a sullen temper is behind many a crisis of the nerves. This, you see, is , where the teacher coracs/in/ and even the humble journalist. 'The whole point of educational training,' says Dr. Thompson, 'should be to establish control of feeling.' Therefore the teacher and I have to keep our 'feeling tone on the intellectual plane.' At present we do not, and 'the nation loses by the attacks from which these; men (and women) suffer.' "I really had no idea I was so dangerous. The toachers must speak for themselves. Most schools which I know anything about make rather a point of disciplining the temper and the emotions. Thg normal public schoolboy, 1 should have thought, has as'much selfcontrol as can be expected of any young animal. The schoolmasters and mistresses that I come across seem to have a bracing way of dealing with the emotional side of youth. No doubt there are others. What about the lournalistf It is not one of the sins upon my conscience that I have tried to excite passion about anything or played upon any emotion. Those who like this kind of stimulus can doubtless obtain plenty pi it. But I should have thought that it is taken less and less seriously. If we get excited we may still be read, but with a smile."

A correspondent asks for directions tor preserving hydrangea blooms for winter decorations.