When to Cease Work.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 15, 10 April 1912, Page 40

When to Cease Work.

" STOP AT 40.” The death of Mr. John Bigelow, the well-known American journalist and author. at the ripe age of I'4. recalls his famous dictum that—- “ Every man should cease work for profit at the age of 40. and henceforward devote his life to the improvement of his fellowmen." Tiii- dictum became nearly as famous a- that of Professor Osler mow in his (•Ist year i. who on an historic occasion .ii ’.are I that the best work in the world

’.- done by n.en under 4b years of age. while after 60 a man's work becomes of so little account that he should be chloroformed or forced to retire from active labour altogether. Mr. Bigelow's dictum, it will be observed. was not so drastic as Professor Osler's. Bigelow would have initiated State pensions for men at 40 to keep them from want where necessary". For this pension the State would have ha 1 a “hold." as it were, upon an army of middle-aged men. to utilise them for the welfare of the State as a whole. There u] be no working for profit or position: everything would be the free out;ut of the desires of this middle-aged a nny. always excepting the possible pen-

B it Mr. Bigelow himself did much of his most profitable and most valuable •cork long after he was 40 years of age, :il Pr .f<— ..r (Isler, at Gl. is < ccupying a po-.tion of high tru-t—and also making a ; r.-.it. It will recalled tbat Palmersti 1 :-ra -li. Glai-t me. Thiers, an 1 Benjamin Franklin di 1 their most famous they had passed 70, as did, i ih ■ -tion, Spen-er, <lalileo. Buffon. and Darwin. Verdi was turned 70 he ci. —1 ’’ ithello” and “Falstaff”; Lander wrote his ‘‘lmaginations,” Vi tor Hugo hi- “History of a Crime,” Dr. John-on “The Lives of the Poets.” Fro lie “The Life of Lord Beaconsfield.” an I Tennyson. Longfellow, and Browning wire all writing poetry after “three- - ore and ten.”