THE HUMBUG OF PROVERBS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 32, 8 May 1891, Page 19

THE HUMBUG OF PROVERBS.

A frotbrb has been defined as the wisdom of many and the wit of one. Into many proverbs are packed pithy suggestions as to conduct and generalised experience of mankind. They are sarcastic, hortative, minatory, mirth-provoking, but they are not wiser than tbe people that make them. Hence many ef them, some of them most widely current, are arrant humbugs. If they were once true to experience, under certain conditions, they are true no longer. To say this is fla^ contradiction of that well-known proverb, " Nobody is wiser than everybody," bnt even that is one of the humbugs. It not nnfrequently happens th<t a single man is^wiser than his whole generation. Such men become first the leaders, then the martyrs of their age, but are the saints and heroes of the ages that follow. As a flagrant instance of proverbial unwisdom and humbug, take the distich that has been dinned into the ears of unnumbered generations of children : Early to bed and early to rise, Makeß a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

This is a terse and witty generalisation of a pastoral community. wh»To 10 get on in tbe world it was necessary to work in the fields f'O'D " euu up "to " sun down." It has no application to town life* Tae wealthy and wis<j men of towns are men who work late and rise late ; and as to health, it is notorious that no part of our population to suffers from all manner of diseases as farmers and their families. Yet how many have been deprived of their natural sleep by a superstition, begot of this wicked rhyme, that early lising is conducive to health. It is only in recent je:.rs that people have bad tbe courage to take the sleep that nature demanded. The man who did so a generation ago was called " lazy " — the most intolerable of all epithets. Franklin even aimed a proverb at him : "Men need five hours' sleep, women six, children and fools seven." Nowadays, the man who takes less than eight is the fool. Take some of the maxims inculcating shrewd business policy : " A penny saved is a penny earned " has ruined rruny a man who could not persuade himself to spend money with judicious Uvishness in enlarging bis business. The penny saved was no large in bid eyes that it hid the dollar lost by his foolish economy. " Out of debt, out of danger," and " Better go to bed supperless that rise in debt "area precious pair that have brought many 10 the poorhouse. Debt is the only salvation of many a man No debt recklessly incurred bj extravagant living beyond his means, but debt, incurred in the purchase of a home or the es'abhshing of a business. Where would modern commercial affairs be but for credit? But ciedit means debt ; for if A trust B, B must owe A. Debt makes many a man cartful and saving, who would spend all he gets if he had no pressing obligations to meet. So he is forced, as it were, in spite of himself, to provide for sickness and old age. — New Yoik Examiner.