Education for Old Age

No, I do not mean education in old age. The story of Cato’s late application to the study of Greek literature has already been sufficiently celebrated, and every one who starts a new science or a new language after his hair has turned gray knows that he has numerous precedents to encourage him. What I have in my mind is the deplorable state in which so many of the elders find themselves because they have never been trained — or have never trained themselves — to make the best of the condition they have now reached. Here is the great gap in our system of education. The boy is taught in preparation for the duties of manhood, and the adult is periodically instructed, every seventh day at least, with a view to his being taken by surprise as little as possible when he enters the life beyond the grave; but it seems to be assumed that this latter transition will invariably be made not later than the sixtieth year, or, if not, that one’s closing days are bound to be merely a continuation of one’s prime — both of which assumptions are, as Euclid would have said, absurd.

Actually, the territory through which every old man has to travel is as truly a strange country as was any previous section of his journey when he crossed the bridge into it from the stage before. He has gathered experience, no doubt, but experience of what ? Of how best to comport himself in circumstances differing widely from any in which he will ever be placed again. The whole problem is seriously modified; the man himself is changed and changing, and the situation to which he has now to adjust himself is largely unfamiliar. Life itself has been defined as adaptation to environment, and the best part of our education aims at making us “ at home ” in our new surroundings when we graduate from childhood into manhood, or take up the work of a profession. But there is no “ fitting school ” for old age. Those who would have the best right to become teachers in such a school evade, as a rule, the responsibility of instructing the candidates for the freshman class. If they write at all, it is either to entertain us with reminiscences of their childhood and active career, or else to reveal the secret of their longevity. They render us a service, of course, in explaining by what hygienic regimen one may escape the perils that beset the path to old age, but it would be more useful still to suggest, not so much how the goal may be reached, as how it may be made worth reaching.

It would be unseemly and impertinent for a writer who is yet what the newspapers call “ comparatively young ” — a generous term which, I suspect, often implies very much the same thing as “ comparatively old ” — to attempt to give lessons on behavior to men who are his seniors by two or three decades. But even the middle-aged onlooker may be allowed, I hope, to record his observations for a warning to himself and his own contemporaries. For my main point is, that if we postpone concerning ourselves about this matter until old age actually comes upon us, we shall be too late. It is an insurance policy that we are really contemplating, and we must begin paying in our premiums long before we need to draw anything out. I am not suggesting that the prospect of old age should be made a bogey for our strenuous period; that while we are strong and active we should darken our spirits by apprehensions of the gradual decay of our vital forces. It is not a dread of old age that I am inculcating, but a recognition of its peculiar characteristics; a conviction that we are not making adequate preparation for it if we provide only for its financial needs and neglect the accumulation of other resources.

No one who has read Sir Martin Conway’s The Alps from End to End will forget his account of the appalling “ mountain fall ” which, in 1881, overwhelmed the village of Elm in Canton Glarus. When the Plattenbergkopf crumbled into pieces and swept, in a devastating whirlwind of rocks and dust, up the opposite hill, there were some who escaped alive; but not those who tried to carry with them part of their treasures, or those who paused to give a helping hand to the sick and infirm. “ Ruin,” says the writer, “ overtook the kind and the covetous together.” I am no cynic, but, so far as I can see, unhappiness in their closing years is rarely the lot of men whose care for the welfare of others has not been either considerably below or considerably above the average. Brutal greed or sensuality has its nemesis in loneliness and desolation; in the conspicuous lack of” honor, love, obedience, troops of friends.” But I am bound to say that among the most pitiable examples I have met of a cheerless and forlorn old age have been veterans — I had almost written, veteran saints — who have devoted the main energies of their lives to the moral and social uplifting of their fellows.

In both cases, I believe, the mischief is due to excessive narrowness of interest in middle age. If the activities of this period, whether self-indulgent or self-denying, could be continued without interruption to the end, there would be no final stage of depression. But when the “ lover of pleasure ” can no longer respond with avidity to the delights of the senses, his ignorance of any other sources of satisfaction leaves him a prey to ennui; and in the same way, when the enthusiastic campaign against evil or the eager concentration of effort upon good works ceases to fill out the normal daily programme, the leisure that remains is a burden to be endured, instead of a privilege to be enjoyed.

We must further remember that in old age everything has to be taken in small installments. No continuous sleep the night through, but several short naps at intervals during the twenty-four hours; no heavy meals, but frequent light repasts; no sustained application to one definite task, but a rapid shifting of attention from one pursuit to another. This means that it is a, mistake to depend a great deal upon any single method of speeding the tedious hours. If our inclinations are studious, we are apt to think that surely books will supply all the provision that can be needed against senile weariness. In this anticipation we assume, quite contrary to reason, that we shall carry with us into the future all the physical and mental apparatus of to-day. We forget that then both eye and brain will reach the fatigue-point much sooner. ” I never thought that a time would come when I should grow tired of reading,” was the lament made to me in his old age by a man of exceptional intellectual power. He was of a fairly catholic taste in literature, but, even so, he discovered that the refreshment to be gained from books was not unlimited, and that a bountiful diet turned easily to satiety. What a comfort it would have been to him then if twenty or thirty years before he had begun the cultivation of a few hobbies!

I referred at the outset to the instances of men who have addressed themselves in old age to some new intellectual undertaking. But these are, and must be, the exceptions. To most people old age brings such a decay of the spirit of enterprise, such a reluctance to essay untried paths, that it is hard to take up even a new parlor game. Almost as wonderful as Cato’s octogenarian Greek, was Bentley’s beginning to smoke at seventy, and Keble’s learning whist in the late sixties. Many of the most recreative hobbies — the use of any musical instrument for example — require a technical apprenticeship which puts it out of the question for the average man to overcome the drudgery of their rudiments when he has no longer the plasticity of youth to his credit. If profit is to be made of the opportunities of artistic enjoyment of any kind, it must be through the foresight of earlier years in laying up a store against the evil day.

Something may also be said of the protection against loneliness that is to be gained by refusing to outlaw one’s self from the interests and ideals of the younger generations. Cheerful society is one of the best of tonics for old people, and there is only one infallible prescription for securing it. The pitiful complaint that “ no one comes to see me ” is most commonly heard from those who have neglected to keep themselves in touch with their juniors. The man whose thoughts are not wholly concerned with the past, but who is alert to sympathize with the newer life of the day, will seldom be left to meditate alone. The visits that he receives will bless both him that gives and him that takes: they will not be paid him out of charity, but because he has much to say that it is a stimulus to hear. “Your old men shall dream dreams” — when that prophecy is fulfilled, the young men who see visions will eagerly seek the inspiration of their company.